FULL VOLUME MASHING

I just started doing All Grain about 3 months ago.  I have been strictly following the recipes till I got the hang of it and am just now starting to experiment.  I have been adding only the amount of water to my mash kettle that the recipe calls for (between 1.1 and 1.3 quarts per pound of grain).  I just read on this forum (in a post regarding BIAB) regarding full volume mashing.  In other words, if I am going to start my boil with 7 gallons of wort, I mash with 10 gallons of water.  I want to try this, but would like to know how this will effect my efficiency, estimated OG, etc.  Someone please advise.

Thanks in advance,

MAXBREW
Whidbey Island Zymurgy Association (WIZA)
Brewing in the Great Northwest!

Your efficiency will suffer a little and you will need a bigger mash tun. Here is an article by John Palmer on the subject.

http://byo.com/stories/techniques/article/indices/9-all-grain-brewing/1407-skip-the-sparge

Thanks for the link, maddspoiler.  Real good article with great detail.  I have 14 gallon pots, so I am going to give this a shot just to see what happens.  I will post results...

I just gave this a try after reading the article in BYO November issue on no sparge brewing. I did add extra grain than the recipe called for. My eff was 64% but still came pretty close to the recipe SG, also had issues hitting my temps using a cooler mash tun for the first time, but overall it went well and only equipment I used was one pot and mash tun. Beer is in the fermentor now and will taste in about a month from now.

Bucknut, let us all know how it turned out....thanks for the reply

While I have a cooler mash tun, the majority of my brews are biab (using the full mash profile - no dunk sparging) and the lowest conversion I've seen has been 69%.  That I can attribute to the  OG of the brew being 1.086, as my efficiency tends to drop as gravity increases.

When I first started mashing in the biab fashion, I tended to forgo the mashout phase and those times my efficiency was in the mid to low 60's.  Just last night using an infusion of 2.2 gallons of boiling water to raise my mash to ~168, I was able to achieve 84% mash efficiency.  One thing to keep in mind as the planned OG of this brew was 1.036 so this was very thin mash...having this efficiency bump I saw my OG to the fermenter actually clock in at 1.040.

So I guess my advice while attempting this type of mash, whether by water infusion or active heat...actually perform a 10 min mash out and your efficiency should at least be reasonable.

Also forgot to mention...water composition and ph.  My earlier brews without mashout, I used zero salts or acid additions probably compounding efficiency issues created by full mash and no mash out.
Since using minimal water salts, lactic acid, and monitoring ph...i've never hit below 73% mash efficiency on a beer 1.060 and under.  1.065 is IMHO where this type of mashing starts to trail in efficiency.

dsidab81 said:

Also forgot to mention...water composition and ph.  My earlier brews without mashout, I used zero salts or acid additions probably compounding efficiency issues created by full mash and no mash out.
Since using minimal water salts, lactic acid, and monitoring ph...i've never hit below 73% mash efficiency on a beer 1.060 and under.  1.065 is IMHO where this type of mashing starts to trail in efficiency.

Click to expand...

This is good info, and pretty much the direction I'm trying reach. I also usually do BIAB with a mash out at the end, and one thing I learned was mash out for 90+ min and stir during the mash, maintain your temps and use the correct amount of brewing salts, and know that YOUR equipment and setup and water and even the grain type and crush all will have an effect on the end eff. So with that said I've decided to use a traditional cooler mash tun and a "no sparge" brewing to see if it improves my beers. The issue now for me is hitting my temps, and I've found on the two batches that I've now done this way, that I'm coming up short, usually by a couple degrees. I've got an idea  of what is causing it and will make the adjustment on the next brew. Any thought's on or suggestions on hitting that strike temp?

Well I think this was a success, one great tasting rye ipa. The owner of the LHBS that I got the recipe from said I nailed it. I think I'm going to stick with the "no sparge" method of brewing. To add a batch sparge to the process would require another pot which I don't have right now. Getting 65% eff, but I can taste the difference from my previous brews, this one is really good.

I have a 2 kettle system. I use BIAB ideology in my system. Full volume mash, recirculated throughout the 60 min mash time. If my temp drops below target I add some heat to it. After the mash time I pump it to my boil kettle and start the boil process.