amasterj said:
If you search online there is lots of info on the subject. I don't believe I am leaving it long enough to develop any souring. Although I read that is a concern. I am more interested in what it is doing to the sugars, should I be doing a hotter sparge?
I don't know what temperature you are sparging at, so there is no way to know the answer to that question. However, I sparge at temperatures that raise my grains to 168F. Hotter than 168F risks extracting tannins from the grains. Colder than 168F isn't as efficient at rinsing the sugars from the grains. If you only get the grains up to about 162F, for example, it isn't a disaster. It just means that you won't be hot enough to get as much of the sugars into solution, so your efficiency will suffer a little bit.
I do see a little bit of a draw back with your process and some advantages.
Advantages:
- You're leaving the mash go for a long time, so the chances that you don't convert all of the starches to sugars is low. This is good.
- You can just put it in at your strike temperatures, get the mash temperature that you want and you're good to go.
- You're hitting your OG's perfectly
Disadvantages:
- You're risking a sour mash.
- You're probably not reaching 168F sparging temperatures. I say this, because you are losing 8 to 10 degrees F. over night. I also batch sparge and I have to put my first sparge addition in at nearly boiling to bring it up to 168F. If I were starting from 8 to 10F lower, as you are, I'd only be able to bring it up to about 158F. This means that your efficiency isn't as good as it could be. You might need to vorlauf and run some first runnings into your boil pot and heat it up then add it back into your mash to bring the temperature up so that you can hit 168F in order to take full advantage of your long mash times. If you were to do this, you could probably increase your efficiency enough to cut back on your grain bill a little bit, since you'd be extracting more sugars. Of course, this is a lot more work and time, plus more gas used for heating.
- You have already pointed out the disadvantage of a darker color, causing you to have to adjust your grain bills to compensate.
- Conversion of starches into sugars is usually complete in about 20 minutes in most cases. Most people mash for 60 to 90 minutes. Mashes longer than necessary result in loss of heat during the longer mash, creating some issues with getting the heat back into the grain, creating a darker color, with little or no benefit. However, if you must split your beer making into two days due to time constraints because of your schedule, this is probably a good solution for you.
In summary, each of us has to decide for ourselves what will work for us. Not what will work for someone else. I, for example, read as much as I can. Whether I read it online, from books, from knowledgeable sources to people that I don't know from Adam. I soak it all in. I watch videos, watch others brew. I take in as much as I can. I've tried to start out with the processes that I know are tried and true and then as I learn, I tweak them to fit me. My efficiencies are approaching 80% most of the time. At first, my efficiencies were around 65%, on the exact same equipment. Our equipment gets better and so do we.
If what you're doing isn't broke, then don't fix it. I, myself, do something a little differently than I've seen from others. I mash in a two part mash system (two separate 48 quart MLT's connected by a hose. This gives me the flexibility of 5, 10, 15 and 20 gallon batches, without having to worry about too shallow of a grain bed or too thick of a grain bed. My efficiency also went up about 7-8% when I went to it.
Remember, you're making beer, so it must be correct. Good luck, as you grow and learn.