Whenever I’ve tried that I get a lot of tannins in my beer. I wonder what they are doing different.
Thanks Kai, but I’m not visualizing this. Any links to photos?
This is the what I was talking about in an earlier post regarding “mechanical extraction”. If one was to mechanically extract the wort from the grain bed after the sparge, there would be a significant boost in efficiency. At least that’s the theory. I haven’t proved that as of yet.
Here is one from the old Maisel’s brewery in Bayreuth Germany:
But I think I misspoke. The highest point of the swan-neck is in line with either the lauter tun floor or false bottom. But the intenion of reducing suction on the grain bed remains.
Kai
Perhaps it’s a pH issue?
The mash filter problems I read about were not tannins but slightly more cloudy worts with higher lipid content. The latter is the result of pulverizing the grain and with it the embryo during milling. Tannins could be a pH issue.
Stout_fan, when you squeezed the grain and got tannins, was that when you steeped them in a bag?
The closest home brewers can come to mash filters is Brew-In-A-Bag (BIAB). There you can squeeze the bag to up efficiency.
Kai
That was my thought, also.
IIRC it was a mini-mash. You are correct it was in a grain bag. I believe the act of squeezing them upset the grain bed and caused all the little bits to spill out. Now if you can maintain the bed somehow, I should be possible.
Sure would like to see the internals on that press. A lot of sugars are lost and recovery of those in a commercial operation would be of considerable financial impact.