I’m planning a big barley wine and an undetermined small beer from the second runnings. I would like to maximize energy and water use and use the hottest chiller water from the barleywine to produce the second beer. Are there potential consequences for leaving the grain as is for the couple of hours it will take to get the water ready?
I recall an article in BYO that claimed tannins were extracted anytime the mash was exposed to air. The piece was savaged by batch spargers and supposedly some follow-up experiments were done, but I never saw any.
IIRC from the joy of homebrewing a mash can sour as quickly as 12 hours. personally id probably pump the second runnings into a plastic fermenter and put the top on until your ready to boil.
I think it will turn out okay. The big thing I see is that your second smaller beer will turn out bone dry because you are essentially mashing for 3 or 4 hours or whatever instead of just the typical 60 minutes. So you might want to adjust the small beer recipe by throwing in a pound of lactose or maltodextrin (unfermentable sugars).
I’m working with one kettle and had to do something similar.
After sparging I capped the mash with some flaked barley and allowed it to rest an additional half hour. I then added enough boiling water to reach 168, stopping the enzymes. Then let it sit in the cooler an additional 2 hours while finishing up the first beer.
Can’t tell you how the results turned out yet. Give me another week.
I agree. My parti gyle small beers always turn out too dry. Maltodextrin can be added post fermentation. The grist from my last small beer waited 8 hours to be and sparged and brewed and was free from tannins and sourness as far as I could tell.
I’m not sure about that. It’s a 21.5 pound grain bill in 70 qt Coleman extreme. This is my first big beer in that cooler, so I don’t know how much headspace that will leave once it’s drained.
Are you saying you’ll run the hottest part of the chiller water from the first boil into the grain as hot liquor to get the second runnings?
I don’t think you have to worry much about souring in the two hours or so before more hot water hits it. I would worry about where the water is originating. If you use your residential water untreated to brew with and it’s not passing through a non-food grade hose on the way to the chiller, and the inside of your chiller is reasonably clean it will probably be fine.
I suppose you could fill a reservoir with pre chilled pre treated water for primary chilling to deal with a lot of those issues.
Your worries are completely overblown. The mash won’t come anywhere close to going sour in that short amount of time. Likewise, there is no risk of oxidation (which is what the BYO article said, not tannins) from leaving the grain bed exposed to air for that short time. Try it and prove it to yourself like many of us have.
