I’ve been inching towards all grain brewing and I’m trying to learn as much as I can so I have as much info as possible to make for a nice, stress free brew day (ha ha ha). I have noticed that John Palmer recommends as much as 2 qts. of water per 1 pound of grain but I’ve seen it as low as 1 qt. per 1 lb. What determines the actual amount? And has anyone heard of using glass marbles in a brew kettle to control boilovers? Should you add the strike water to the grain or the grain to the strike water? I’m sure I’ll have a few more questions before I make the leap.
Re: water amount, anything in that range will be fine. 1 qt/lb will be rather thick, 2 qt/lb will be on the thinner side. Mash thickness supposedly affects conversion, but I’m not convinced it makes a difference on a homebrew level.
You can add marbles to give nucleation sites during the boil, that might help. I don’t do it. A big enough kettle and some anti-foam stuff works for me.
I add grain to water, but you can do it either way. I direct fire my mash tun, so it makes sense for my equipment.
Feel free to ask questions :) Go for all-grain sooner rather than later, once you try it you’ll stop being so intimidated by the process.
I’m at about 1.8 and that allows you to break the clumps up and get it all nice and stirred in just 20-30 seconds so you can stop the heat loss and put the lid on the thing. Wouldn’t go much thinner
We usually dough-in with a .75 ratio just to saturate the grains. Then we infuse and bring the ratio to 1.25 for a thick mash. What determines the ratio is you. As long as you are between 1 and 2, you’ll be fine. Over time you’ll find the ratio that works best for your recipes / brewery.
Warm water goes into the tun and then the grain is added and stirred into the water. We pour some grain in, stir a bit, pour some more, and stir until it all get in there and is wet.
I wouldn’t put glass into a boiling kettle. Ingesting a glass chip is a horrible experience, so I would be somewhat concerned about that. We don’t put anything in the kettle to control boilovers, however, we always have one hand on the gas flow valve for the burner. Dropping the flame on the kettle manages boilover as do several other methods.
I don’t think glass beads or marbles are going to help control boilovers. A boilover happens due to some protein being partially denatured and forming a thick floating foam. Once it completely denatures it becomes more dense and sticks to the sides of the kettle.
I adjust my ratio so the grist fits in my MLT. I have an MLT that is volume limited with big grain bills. I’ve used everything from 1.25-2+ qt/lb and get pretty similar results.
I generally adjust my ratio to balance first and second runnings. For example, I started figuring 1.5qts/lb for a batch this weekend but found that, by moving that to 1.78qts/lb, I’d get equal first and second runnnings (and no mash out).
For boilovers, get yourself some food grade silicone. A few drops right when it is going to boil reduces the foam and stops boilovers.
There’s two kinds of boilovers, the kind you’re describing and the kind that comes from superheated wort that suddenly boils up as a huge bubble and spills over. Marbles might help with the latter, not with the former. I’ve also heard of people using pennies or a small piece of copper pipe for the same reason, plus it adds a little copper to the wort.
Is adding copper to the wort a desirable thing? if so why? just curious
It’s an enzymatic co-factor required for yeast health. It is unlikely to be an issue on a homebrew level unless you continually repitch your yeast and have no copper in your brewery. But if you’ve got copper pipes in your house, chill with a copper chiller, etc, then there will be plenty of copper for the yeast. And if you are getting fresh yeast from any of the yeast houses it’s not something you need to concern yourself with.
1.3 qts/lb has always worked well for me. Copper p/u tubes in HLT and BK.
I’ve settled on 1.6 qt per pound but that’s not set in stone either.
Hey I used to always do 1.25 qt./lb. Now I usually do 1.5 qt./lb., or even a little higher than that, as it stirs easier.
For really big beers, I might do 1.1 qt./lb. so it will all fit in the mash tun. This will help you decide if you can get it all into your mash tun. Go down to “Can I Mash It?”
What’s the downside to going above ~2 qts lb? pH?
That’s pretty much how I do it.
I figure my total water need divide by half, and if that’s somewhere between 1 and 2 quarts per lb. I go with it.
I also only have a 5 gallon mash tun so I have to make sure it will fit, So sometimes I have to adjust for that too.
Mash pH can be a problem if you’re dealing with an alkaline water source. There is only so much acidity provided by the grain bill and so much alkalinity from the mash water. If you bump up the amount of water, you’re also increasing the quantity of alkalinity and the mash pH will end up higher than it would if the water to grist ratio was thicker.
Reducing the mash water alkalinity is one way to account for thinning the water to grist ratio. Bru’n Water users have the capability to assess this effect and correct for it easily.
I’d think you’d also be driving the enzyme concentration too low
Would a nice cream stout be too ambitious for a first all grain?
Can’t give you the science, but was told the conversion process starts suffering if it gets too thin.
Nope. I know brewers who regularly go over 3 qts/#. Out of curiosity, I thought I’d give it a try. So, I made a few batches of no sparge beer at over 3 qts/#. The grain converted quickly and with very high efficiencies for no-sparge. It also made delicious beer.
I have very soft water and I made amber and brown beers, which might have helped, but I had absolutely no pH issues or tannin problems. I just finished a run of Lagers, all of which were mashed at 2-2.6 qts/#, and every one is clean, malty and everything I hoped they would be.
Supposedly, a thick mash can help with the low prevalence and poor stability of proteinases during a preotein rest. I think intentionally mashing thick is mostly just a hold-over from the days of under-modified grain and brewers using mash tuns that were too small. I don’t know how it ever became seen as “best practice” for starch conversion among homebrewers,