Pearlfisher
Landlord.
I'm thinking of having a go at BIAB , how critical is it to maintain a precise constant temperature for the mash ?
I don't think the mash temperature would account for 10 gravity points difference in SG. The temperature you mashed at was very normal. Either your system is not as efficient as the recipe expected, in which case you can increase the amount of grain you use. Or, your volumes were off and you needed to boil off more / add less water in the first place.I have a question about mash temperature so thought it better to tag onto this thread than start up a new one. I did a BIAB yesterday. It was an Ace of spades porter clone from malt miller. By the time I got it all in and wrapped with a 13.5 tog king size quilt on it the water temperature was still at 69.2 degrees C. Although this was higher than the 65 suggested for this recipe I thought it would drop quite a bit over the 60 minutes as it was pretty chilly outside compared to when I’d done my previous brews. I took everything off half way through to give a good stir and wrapped it up again but had clearly underestimated the efficiency of the insulation and it was still at 67 degrees at the end of the mash. I carried on as normal and on taking a gravity reading just before picking the yeast and with the wort temperature at 21 degrees the SG was at 1.044 whereas the expected SG should have been 1.055. Am I correct to assume the reason for this likely to be because the mash temperature was too high?
Expected FG is impacted by the mash temperature and a number of other factors such as amount of yeast pitched and type of yeast used amongst other factors. FG should still be near predicted.Ok, thanks. There was a typo in the original post, sorry. Expected SG was actually 1.050. Not as bad as I put but still a little down. I must have started with too much water. I ended up with the correct amount of wort but I think that was mainly because there was a good few litres lost to trub (but that’s another matter). So, if I’ve lost 6 points from the SG, does that make any different to the expected FG?
Yes, I'm sure my processes will improve. I make notes of everything so now know how much water to use next time. I'll also not worry as much about not transferring the trub. My FV has the tap with a sediment traps and seems to do a pretty good job of keeping it out of the bottles.It is where a lot of efficiency is lost if not transferred to the FV if you think that another litre could have possibly been eeked out it does help to get nearer the efficiency. It is all part of improving your process over time and I am sure you will get better figures next time. Too much emphasis on figures can distract you from the process which is to make good beer and as I have said the figures will improve as you perfect a process that works for you.
Ps some brewers tip all the trub ion to the FV and with no seemingly no worse affect as they say it settles out in the fermentation process
Enter your email address to join: