Is there any truth to the fact that “grains are modified for brewers” and you can get away with a shorter than 60 minute mash? Anyone tested this with good results?
Personally, I mash from 150F up for 60 minutes, sub 150F for 90 minutes. Good results consistently.
EDIT - It is true that the bulk of conversion often does take place in less than these time frames, but learning to brew all grain beer especially, I recommend you use these guidelines. I’d venture a guess that the big majority of brewers here very likely do (at least single infusion mashers). You’ll make great beer.
Its all about the crush, the finer the crush the fast the conversion can take place.
Conversion from starch to polysaccharides occurs in as little as 15 minutes. However, the conversion of those polysaccharides to fermentable sugars takes more time. Mashing is a balance in the fermentability and body that you want in your wort. An hour or more is a reasonable duration, in my experience.
Years ago I ran a lot of experiments on mash times. I found that indeed the limiting factor is fermentability/attenuation, NOT conversion efficiency. For my setup, a mash of 20-30 minutes was long enough for “good” attenuation (e.g., in the 70-80% range) about 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time, I was getting very high final gravities like in the 1.020s. 35 minutes was better. 40 minutes was always long enough.
Conclusion: I usually mash for 40 minutes these days, or 45 minutes if I’m lazy. I only mash for 60 minutes or more when I’m making a monster high gravity beer or when I want a really dry beer like a saison, or if using a very high percent (like for a Munich dunkel) of a very low enzymatic malt (e.g., Munich malt). Otherwise, for 95% of beer styles…
40 minutes is plenty. Save 20+ minutes of your life on every batch, if you want to. Works great for me.
I have thinking about shortening my mash times to 45 minutes. Using a refractometer I have noticed no significant increases in gravity past that time. Plus by the time I run off my first runnings, fill up the MLT, and vorlauf the grain bed has been at mash temps for probably close to 75-80 minutes. So why not not shorten the “official” mash time to 45 minutes?
There are breweries that rest for only 20 minutes. Some of those wet mill with hot water so the mash begins with milling. Then they pump from the mash tun into the lauter tun, that takes some time for large batch sizes such as 200 barrels, no.
A lot of those breweries are also vorlaufing for another 20-30 minutes, during which time “mashing” is still happening.
Yep, the enzymes are working before and after the “mash”.
Several years ago I went to a 45 minute mash and didn’t notice any difference. I’ll go longer for a high grav beer or one I want drier.
One nice thing about my direct fire recirculation, sometimes I only mash for a minute, then vorlauf and done. Of course vorlauf is about 60 minutes…
What are some factors for a less attenuable wort? I have a taddy porter (BCS recipe) sitting in the fermenter right now, mashed at 153 for an hour, that is still only at 1.021 after nearly 2 weeks. I used US-05, pitched dry, aerated with O2 for 60 seconds, and fermented in the 60’s. Not to hijack the thread, but why would this beer underattenuate like this? I know it’s only been like 12 days, but it should be pretty much done in that timeframe.
Thermometer calibration ok? Stressed yeast? I always rehydrate. Too cool fermentation temperature?
Need to know grain bill.
It fermented around 62-64. This is for 7 gallons, split between two 5 gallon kegs, a pack of US-05 pitched in each. OG ended up being 1.060, overshot by 8 points, whoopsie…
And for a thermometer I use a Thermopen.
5 lbs 4.0 oz Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 38.53 %
5 lbs 4.0 oz Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 38.53 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Brown Malt (65.0 SRM) Grain 9.17 %
1 lbs 4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 9.17 %
10.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)
Sorry to hijack, flbrewer…
I made a similar looking porter recently which got 70% attenuation with S04 compared to my normal ~78% or so. For some reason, I tend to get 8-10% less attenuation in darker beers and I don’t know why. I keep my process and temps pretty much the same…
My experience has been very much the same. The only reason I used vienna and pilsner for the base malts in this is because I was out of 2-row.
The only factor I can think of that I did differently is mashing higher. I was having similar underattenuation issues for a while, then I started mashing a bit lower and that seemed to go away. Still doesn’t make much sense though. The last time I made this recipe, it was with Wy1084 and it came down to 1.016, which is about perfect for a dark beer like stout or porter, I think.
I had a similar issue with a rye porter that started at 1.053 and stopped at 1.022. I used S-33 which I’m pretty sure was not the issue, as the previous batch I used S-33 in went from 1.050 to1.010. I posted the recipe and Denny Conn pointed out to me that I had a large percentage of specialty grains that don’t provide as much fermentableness.
The question now is, how does it taste? My rye porter is yummy.
FWIW, I’ve gone to 90 min. mashes most of the time. I get better conversion efficiency and prefer the beers.
Steve, the porter tastes good, perhaps slightly on the sweet side, but that’s fine for a taddy porter.
Denny, I think I’m going to start mashing lower and longer, or doing step mashes. I usually fare better when I do either of those. I just don’t get it though. It seems like all kinds of people will mash at 154 for 60 minutes and their beer attenuates to 1.010 or whatever…I just don’t know how.