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step mashing

Simie

Brewer
Joined
Dec 28, 2009
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Location
Montague, MI
Brewers, I use a single tier 3 kettle brew system. I tried to do a step mash and bombed miserably with a compacted stuck sparge. How do you brewers do a step mash when using direct fire, pumps, and false bottoms, without getting a stuck mash. We do 10 gallon batches and with full heat and pump it still takes a long time to increase temperatures. Should I try decoction to bring the stip temperatures up???? Thanks.. Simie
 
"How do you brewers do a step mash when using direct fire, pumps, and false bottoms, without getting a stuck mash  "

Sounds like your draining grain bed too fast, this will easily cause at stuck mash. Are you getting the stuck mash during the mash process, or during sparge? Either process can get you into trouble if your draining grain bed to fast. If it's in the mash, scoop out the volume you need to heat up with a pan then pour back in and stir. With a ten gallon batch that's a lot of grains, pulling liquid out fast will pack the grains tight.  If it's in the sparge, it should take 45 mins to an hour to sparge.  If you have to use a pump to pull wort out of mash tun, set it to slowest flow possible.

Good luck on your next batch

MCB
 
It's in the mash, when I go to the next heat step. So basically I would input my mash profile in BeerSmith as a decoction mash instead of a single temperature mash like I do now. Also thanks for the reply. When we do single temperature mashes we never get a stuck bed during a regular sparge. Again, thanks. Simie
 
Hi Simie,

What about your grain/water ratio's during mashing for both the single temperature mash and the multi step mash?
Regards,
Slurk
 
Difficulties with hitting step temperatures and stuck sparge. Been there, done that, made a mess, didn't get the beer I wanted. So, I made some changes.

First, I added a fine-mesh bag to my mash/lauter tun (it's made of "voile", a fine polyester cloth used by BIAB brewers). The bag gives a greatly increased area for the wort to filter through. The bag sits on a bazooka filter and several pieces of copper tubing to ensure there's plenty of space between the bottom of the bag and the bottom of the MLT for the wort to drain into. No stuck sparges/mashes since. Hose down the bag after use and re-use indefinitely.

Second, I set up a HERMS system using my pump to circulate the wort through a 25-foot copper coil immersed in my electric brew kettle - I gave up on gas-fired mashing. (The heating element is rated at 5,500 W at 240 Volts. Ohm's Law showed that it would give about 1,200 W at 120 V - please correct me if I've done something stupid with Ohm's Law. Operating the element at 120 V means I can use a Johnson temperature controller to control the temperature of my brew kettle. The sensor goes inside a copper tube immersed in the water bath/brew kettle and the element plugs into the temperature controller. The wort coming out of the heat exchanger is exactly the temperature of the water bath. Controlling the temperature of the water in the brew kettle lets me hit my steps very accurately. I plug the element into a 240 V outlet when I want to raise the temperature of the water quickly, then switch to 120 V to let the temperature controller fine tune and maintain the temperature. Don't try building one of these if you don't have a good understanding of home wiring and electricity! If you're familiar with electrical wiring check http://theelectricbrewery.com/ for detailed information.)

HERMS eliminates the problem of getting your mash heated evenly, denaturing some of the enzymes, and potentially scorching. If you don't want to switch from gas to electricity you could probably still hit your steps better with a heat exchanger coil in a gas-fired water bath, you'd just have to pay more attention than I care to devote. If you have an immersion chiller, it will work as your heat exchanger. If you don't have one you can buy 60 feet of 3/8 inch for $110 at Lowes web site; I think they have it in shorter lengths in the store.

Hope this helps.

Dan
 
The simple answer is...

Try it again and add a 1/2 lb (up to 1lb) of Rice hulls to your Grist... You should be fine.

Cheers
Preston
 
Thanks brewers, great information and good stuff to investigate. Thanks again for taking the time to reply with educated answers....Simie
 
It's an extra step, but I always "condition" my grains the night before.  It's jargon for spritzing the grain with distilled water.  This re-hydrates the husk slightly, and when crushed, the husk twists off rather than cracking and splintering to bits. 

The result is a much better grain filter bed and in my case, no issues with sparging since I started doing this, even with hefeweizens with half wheat in the grist.

It was described in both BYO and Zymurgy about two years ago. 
 
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