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Should I tilt my Mash Tun

tankers

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Jan 29, 2007
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Location
Colleyville, TX
Hello all,
I have recently started mashing with a 10 gallon Igloo cooler and false bottom.  In preparing my equipment profile for BeerSmith, I determined that I have appoximately .6 gallon of deadspace at the bottom.  However, if I tilt the tun, I can cut this amount in half.  The question I have, is should I do this at the end of a mash, or will the wort be "dirty" with spent grains.?

I am sure someone has been here before me and has an answer to this.
Thanks in advance
Troy
 
I don't.


I fly sparge and it's about collecting the volume without oversparging.

Fred
 
I dont and I batch sparge I just calculate the deadspace in my volumes. what will  1/3 of a gallaon get you any way? ;D
 
I started with a 48 qt cooler.  I mounted my feed through, valve and screen i the front corner of the cooler to allow tilting. My reason was twofold, 1) to ensure the maximum grain bed depth for the best filtration. 2)To minimise lauter tun loss.

I change the angle to accomodate the deepest possible grain bed per mash volume.

Has worked well for me.

Preston
 
I also tilt my MT while batch sparging. There is no correct answer here.

BTW 1/3 gallon will get you a few extra samplers/testers while waiting for carbonation. I use the 10oz bottles for this purpose.

Cheers
Preston
 
I don't fly sparge I batch sparge with a stainless steel screen but I tilt my mash tun, with the amount I brew (more than I should admit) I think that amount of water adds up.  Its a preference thing here and I agree that there is no real answer.  I think you will get more dissolved sugars into your kettle if you get as much of the wort out as possible and this of course will help your efficiency.  I also think with me, that "tilt time" is more time for the dissolved sugars to find their way out, so there might be a savings on grain as well as water (maybe not a big deal unless considered over time) but that's how do it.

 
I have had this question for a while now, and have run into this issue since moving outside. 

Let's say your pre-boil SG goal is 1.050 and your 90-min boil is forecast to increase that to 1.060.  The first runnings are rich (> 1.075) and then they gradually get weaker until the final runnings are 1.012 and you stop collecting.  In a perfect world, you hit 1.012 runnings at precisely the point you hit the exact boil volume needed and the total OG is 1.050.  Boil on. 

But what if extraction stunk?  First runnings are only 1.070, so as you approach boil volume, the SG is only 1.046?  The 5+ gallons in pot are 1.046 and you are adding incremental ounces of 1.014 or 1.012 weak wort.  Are you not diluting the 1.046 wort further by adding more that is lower than what you have already?  Does continuing to collect help or hurt you to reach the OG target you had?  Do you have to boil the excess water out and keep the sugar in order to raise the final OG? 

If making the final OG were important, would it be better to add some plain sugar or DME to get those points? 
 
I do. I batch sparge in the igloo ice cube 60qt squart cooler.  The only negative about it is that the port is on this angled backplane.  But, there is a telescoping handle.  So I put. Piece of 2x4 down for a cleat and tip the cooler back using the handle like a lever.

I especially do this when I'm grabbing last runnings for starters.
 
MaltLicker said:
I have had this question for a while now, and have run into this issue since moving outside. 

Let's say your pre-boil SG goal is 1.050 and your 90-min boil is forecast to increase that to 1.060.  The first runnings are rich (> 1.075) and then they gradually get weaker until the final runnings are 1.012 and you stop collecting.  In a perfect world, you hit 1.012 runnings at precisely the point you hit the exact boil volume needed and the total OG is 1.050.  Boil on. 

But what if extraction stunk?  First runnings are only 1.070, so as you approach boil volume, the SG is only 1.046?  The 5+ gallons in pot are 1.046 and you are adding incremental ounces of 1.014 or 1.012 weak wort.  Are you not diluting the 1.046 wort further by adding more that is lower than what you have already?  Does continuing to collect help or hurt you to reach the OG target you had?   Do you have to boil the excess water out and keep the sugar in order to raise the final OG? 

If making the final OG were important, would it be better to add some plain sugar or DME to get those points? 

Without experimenting its tough tell but my guess would be you're not hurting.  I would think the worst case scenario would be that its really a null effect.  Having said, I also think the variable that is most important to you will determine how beneficial that practice is.  That is to say, are you more worried about your final wort volume or your boil time.  If you are willing to boil down to that five gallon (or whatever you boil down to) marker even if it means a longer boil than you'll get that efficiency up and you'll be closer to you target O.G. without having to add DME.  If you are dead set on 90 minutes than you may end up with more wort than expected and perhaps a lower than desired O.G. (You'll have extra beer though so its sort of a win win). 

Now, I guess the real question is which would get you closer to your O.G.; collecting your regular amount of wort and boiling for your regular amount of time and ending up with something less than five gallons and something less than your target O.G. or collecting more wort than normal with the idea that more wort equals more sugar and then boiling for your regular amount of time and ending with more wort than normal and something less than your target O.G.?  Given a bad extraction day, which method gets you closest to you O.G.  I really have no idea.  My guess is that it could go either way and there are probably some other variables beside wort volume and O.G. that would determine which is best.  Probably a case by case thing... ??? 

 
I do its got a sexier groove that way.
Reminds me of this ch~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


 
But what if extraction stunk?  First runnings are only 1.070, so as you approach boil volume, the SG is only 1.046?  The 5+ gallons in pot are 1.046 and you are adding incremental ounces of 1.014 or 1.012 weak wort.  Are you not diluting the 1.046 wort further by adding more that is lower than what you have already?  Does continuing to collect help or hurt you to reach the OG target you had?  Do you have to boil the excess water out and keep the sugar in order to raise the final OG?

Decoction to the rescue.

I  would guess that such a brew may have a lot of 2 row n it or maybe the temperatures were not well maintained.  Either too low or too high or both. 

So long as the enzymes have not been killed by heat you can remove some grain from the Tun and  decoct  it in a separate pot.
Boil it a while then return it to the mash watching your temps.  the boil will dissolve some starches and break up some proteins and help you get a higher G
 
Decoction does extract more from the grains, but my question is at the point of collecting 99% to 100% of the desired boil volume.  The mash and sparge are essentially done.  At that point, if wort is below the pre-boil target for SG, does it make sense to collect more liquid, even if that liquid is only 1.014 and is pulling down your overall SG of 1.046?

You are adding small amounts of sugar, but you'd have to boil off the additional water that came with it IOT increase the SG.  Back to the "should I tip the MLT" question.  Even if you're at the target SG would this tipping be worthwhile if you are diluting your pre-boil OG and now must boil longer to reach the boiled OG target?  I'm thinking diluted sugar wort makes for more work (longer boil) whereas a small dose of cane sugar or DME gets the wort to the target pre-boil SG with no additional boiling required to reach the final OG target. 
 
I do, I like to try and get as much of the wort out as possible.
 
MaltLicker said:
Decoction does extract more from the grains, but my question is at the point of collecting 99% to 100% of the desired boil volume.  The mash and sparge are essentially done.  At that point, if wort is below the pre-boil target for SG, does it make sense to collect more liquid, even if that liquid is only 1.014 and is pulling down your overall SG of 1.046?

You are adding small amounts of sugar, but you'd have to boil off the additional water that came with it IOT increase the SG.  Back to the "should I tip the MLT" question.  Even if you're at the target SG would this tipping be worthwhile if you are diluting your pre-boil OG and now must boil longer to reach the boiled OG target?   I'm thinking diluted sugar wort makes for more work (longer boil) whereas a small dose of cane sugar or DME gets the wort to the target pre-boil SG with no additional boiling required to reach the final OG target. 
IMO once you are at your boil volume you have a couple choices.
1. Add some DME/LME to bring up the preboil SG.
2. Keep sparging and get as much out as possible. This in turn increases your boil time which may or may not be desirable.
3. Be happy, You are making beer after all...  ;D  (This is my preferred choice)

Cheers
Preston
 
I would, it is more liquid but it has malt and can be reduced if weak. A third of a gallon is a lot.
 
Discussion of this topic seems to have lead us to the main points of all grain brewing. You can only extract a given amount of sugar from the mash depending on the grains, the grind and the equipment. How you collect it or lauter it from the mash depends on what additional variables you choose to deal with.

1. If you fly sparge to the magic 1.012/1.010 gravity, you will probably collect the greatest percentage of available sugar from the mash, your variables will be volume of collected wort and as a consequence, length of boil required and length of your brew day.
2. If you Batch Sparge, you can pick/control the total volume and hence boil time, but your variable may be a few gravity points. If you know the evaporation rate of your equipment, you can hit your ending batch volume and boil time targets with great consistency.

We very quickly decided on Batch to gain the most efficient use of our time. Using 80% as our Brew House Efficiency, the target OG for our 3 Luna Pier ‘Lite’House Beers is 1.050. Using 3 runnings, ie two equal volume batches of sparge water, our third running is typically 1.015/1.014 measured by sampling midstream of the third running. We typically hit an OG of 1.050 to 1.052. We were not this consistent until we started grinding our own to eliminate this variable. We did not Fly sparge often enough to be able to say exactly how many points we lost due to the sparge method as compared to other variables. Others with much Fly sparge experience probably know this to the letter. :)

Preston
 
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