Residual Sugars in Grain

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That part I don't understand. It seems what's in the pot is in the pot no matter if you hit the 170* mark or not. Help me understand that.

I overlooked this comment HBGBill, and it made me think "you do know that your bag of grain is in the liquid at this temp?".

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Mally, if I understand your last comment correctly. Yes, I comprehend that. The point of my comment comes from helping others do traditional all grain brews. In those cases, there is always a ton of sweetness left in the grains.. so much so that some of the brewers make a partigyle after they pull the main high gravity runnings. So, the part about the 170* mark might be.. if I don't bring the temp up to mash out temp.. conversion can still take place? I haven't killed the enzymatic actions.. If I pull it at, say the 153*.. can I still use the grains per my comments below.

Please understand that I'm trying to get my head wrapped about the subtle and not so subtle differences between BIAB and conventional three pot brewing. I see that there are differences but don't fully comprehend all of it yet. In this instance.. doing the full boil with ALL the water and how much sugar could be left in the grains with no sparging.

I understand, even within the BIAB community, there are different philosophies on sparging here. My head is saying.. wow, if I don't sparge there are sugars.. maybe lots of sugars still left in the package of grains in that bag.. even if I squeeze it. If so, can I take that bag, put it in another 2 gallons of strike water.. possibly with another pound of new grain or even some DME and come up with a reasonable low gravity beer from the same batch.. nothing heavy duty.. just a tasty session beer of maybe only 3.5-4%?

I'm just curious.. which was the point of the topic. Thanks for taking the time to help educate me. I've got a ways to go. I'm hoping to do my first batch next week.. I have so much beer on hand that I hate to make more just to be making beer Tough place to be in, eh?

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Bill, the questions you are asking here are very intelligent. Most brewers don't ask them.

I really like the answers given here so far but I think that the questions you are asking here need to be dealt with one at a time otherwise we'll all get confused.

So, let's completely forget the mash-out side of things for now as that will totally muddy the waters. (As the guys above know/indicated, that is a very interesting issue in itself.)

And let's forget about mash-out temperature.

And let's forget about mash-out time.

I think if we can do this, we can get to the first and most important question. And, it is so important.

I'm going to re-phrase your question and you let me know if this is what you are really wondering?...

Let's say I was doing a brew and the total water needed for that brew was 35 litres. Would it make any difference if I added the 35 L to the grain all at once or if I split it into a mash with sparging stage/s?

I think this is the major question to answer.

Why? Because, understanding why there should be no difference is a major assault on your brain. There is a lot of misinformation out there on this. A lot of BIAB brewer's are out there needlessly doing sparges that will give them no benefit. They are being told to do it so why shouldn't they?

mally and joshua above understand this. They have either proved it to themselves by experiment or have spent some time thinking on this issue from a different angle.

I'm a slow learner so I have done both . (I'm berating myself here and I shouldn't because all the information out there tells you the opposite of reality. Most posters don't think/challenge like you Bill so a lot of myths get passed on.)

Anyway, getting back to my original re-phrasing of your question, at the moment, the only thing I can offer you in understanding why a full-volume mash should (and is) no different from a mash/sparge is to search for any posts I have done here that include the terms 'washing machine', 'maxi-BIAB', 'efficiency', and maybe 'rinsing'.

I was very confused and under-confident about this question for many years. Until a few years ago I never had an opportunity to test anything but it was a question that continually annoyed me so I'd think on lots of analogies. (You'll probably find some earlier thinking if you look for posts of mine that use the term 'cup of coffee'. Washing machine is best though ).

Anyway, enough nostalgia - lol! Great questions Bill but make sure you get the mash/sparge one clear and correct in your mind before you jump to the mash-out stuff.

One great thing about this forum that you never see anywhere else is that nearly every poster here stops and thinks - they don't race on to the next thing. Your question and the answers given so far a prime example. Nice!

I'm hoping BIABrewer.info gets closed though. It make me think too much!


PP

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Thanks guys.. When my son says he wants to do something and I give him advice as to why to not pursue that direction.. he says "I have to find out myself" That is good and bad.. depending on what he's pursuing.. sometimes to his hurt.. He did this mostly as a teenager and very early 20's. There are now times he comes back and says he should have listened.

In the BIAB scenario above.. I'm going to listen to the advice given and learn from the words of experience. Yep, PP.. I was muddying up the waters by asking too much..

But, but, but.. I have so many questions.

Heck, I tried plugging a recipe into "Calculator" last night to see how it works.. I have more questions than answers. Hope someone on this side of the pond wouldn't mind a telephone call to help walk me through it..

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Mally, if I understand your last comment correctly. Yes, I comprehend that

Damn! I was hoping you didn't realise that, and we could close the thread

Don't worry about asking questions though, Just try not to get "obsessed" with details.

Thinking about your previous comment about sparge/run off. This is something you could very easily do with absolutely no detriment to your brew.
Pull your bag and start the boil as normal.
sparge the bag and treat that run off separately. After your main brew has finished, run a similar routine. You could then determine whether it was worth it.
I did similar here but to create a sour mash instead.

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HbgBill wrote:But, but, but.. I have so many questions.

Heck, I tried plugging a recipe into "Calculator" last night to see how it works.. I have more questions than answers. Hope someone on this side of the pond wouldn't mind a telephone call to help walk me through it..

As I just wrote in another thread Bill, I have been keeping track of you .

You asked for a phone call above and, with someone like you, I'd probably be happy to set up a Skype as I suspect it would be really enjoyable. But, I wouldn't do it until I see a few things happening.

The waters are still muddy and the only way to clear them is to stop moving.

No one here is asking you to learn for yourself. Some of the questions you have asked here are ones I spent years asking and am still trying to find a way of answering well. Have you read any of my washing machine or coffee posts?

And this brings me to...

Why are you using The Calculator? There is a note (unclear, but it is there) saying that the Calculator has been replaced by the BIABacus.

This site has a very big problem at the moment. There is a lot of very important information hidden away here that is going to take some time to work out how to properly present.

Until then, this site will require the posters here to be very patient and pain-staking.

You say that you have soooo many questions. That is exactly what I like.

But, it is very important to slow down, prioritise the questions (impossible for a new all-grainer) and get them answered one at a time.

So, my question to you now is, how are you going with the residual sugar question you originally asked? Have you read the stuff advised?

If you are going okay with that question and have absorbed everything (which would be amazing as that is such a hard concept to get right in anyone's head in the current environment), then all else will be a piece of cake!

Let's assume though that the residual sugar thing is still not clear. We need tools to make that clear. The BIABacus (not The Calculator) is such a tool. But!

Before you can benefit from the BIABacus, you need to learn a language that takes about five minutes to learn. But, I don't want to go into what this is until I know where you are at with the washing machine stuff I gave you previously. (Why? Because, if anything can answer your residual sugar question then it will be those washing machine and coffee posts.)

Don't forget that your residual sugar question is a brilliant question that few people ask. It took several of us many years to ask and then find an answer to just that one question. We are still trying to work out ways of making the answer simple/quick.

So, once again, no one here is asking you to find your own answers. Instead, what we are trying to say is, "You have a bloody good question. We actually know the answer to it now but we still don't know, as yet, how to give it to you in a few paragraphs."

BIABrewer.info has been working, even before it was created, on ways to make these very difficult questions easy. If you ask a hard question, as you did, all you can do for now is really stop, slow down and study the answers given. If 30/60/120 minutes of slowing down, reading about washing machines etc results in you exclaiming, "Ah! Now I get it!" then that would be thousands of hours of thinking you have benefited from. (I'm not joking about this.) Once you get the, "Ah! Now I get it!", your next response will be, "I can't believe it took these guys so long to know what I now know."

From what I am lead to believe, the aim of BIABrewer.info is to have as many brewers as possible saying, "I can't believe it took these guys so long to know what I now know."

Nice goal I reckon ,
PP

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Thanks again PP. Wow, until I figured how to parse the posts that had 'washing machine' in them to find your posts.. I thought I'd be reading for E-v-v-ver

What it did was to lead me to a lot of good reading that will take me the rest of my day

You did two things: A) Help me understand I need to take things one step at a time.. BBrews also had that effect .... and B) Not try to take on too many steps (or ask too many questions) at once.

Cuppa Coffee was a bit easier.

One thing out of 'cuppa' was a thread in Batch Sparge. vs how efficient this is.. I never thought about this in relation to the dead space in the MT... good point.

I also liked the picture painted about the two sugars in a cup of coffee.. no matter whether you drink half the cup or the whole cup.. still 2 cubes of sugar in it.

Another thing I liked there.. and never practiced myself was letting the sample you want to take a gravity reading on settle for awhile. Not much need to have that info immediately. There will be one cube or two cubes in the mixture in 10 minutes or 30 minutes... the only time that might make a difference is if you want to adjust the gravity with some DME or water. Personally, my hydrometer is calibrated to 0.000 at 60*F(~15*C) and my refractometer is good with the numbers I've made comparisons with.. I.E. distilled water and cooled wort... so, for pre-beer samples I typically use the refractometer. After it's beer.. only the hydrometer... but, letting the wort site to allow some of the trub to drop out sounds like an idea I might try. I don't know if that has as much effect on the reading as the tiny bubbles I spin off the instrument. I don't think the trub has much effect.. BUT, I'll try that for grins on my next batch. Immediately after it hits 60* and another about 30 minutes later.

One thing I wanted to make a comment on was in regards to the topic: What Should My Grain Crush Be Like? The comment was made by the author that with too much crush there would be too many tannins being dissolved. I THINK, if I understand the science correctly, this is not correct. I may be wrong.. but, my understanding is that the tannin extraction is a matter of the combination of a pH that is too high and sped up by a temperature that is too high.. which is a reason that 170*F has been touted for so long. However, there appears to be evidence that 170* is not a sacred canon.. rather it is pH that is the culprit.

Finally, for this iteration, a thread that was started by Epimetheus and answered by you in the "washing machine" search turned my light on as it did his.. "Finally I Understand Why BIAB Full Volume Is Efficient" He did a good job of summarizing the reasons I was asking about.

Now, I guess you realize what you got me into.. and the blessing it MIGHT be to YOU.. With all the reading I'll have to do, I'll be quiet for awhile.. (maybe).. so, you will have a reprieve. But, the side effect is that it may raise another 1000 questions :D

Thanks for your time... Now, on to my new found bookmarchs.. er, bookmarks.. sheesh.

Bill

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Hahaha Bill ,

Your post is longer than my normal ones! Good on you .

It's 6:30am here now and so I need to get some sleep. I'll skip the hydrometer /refractomer stuff.

So pleased you understood the washing machine stuff (Well, I think you have.)

You are correct, to a point, on the crush/tannins question. I suspect that the BIABrewer.info post... hold on you lazy bugger!... I shouldn't be looking up links - I've done my time here . Anyway, you post the link . What you are saying is, nup, I've had a re-read of what you wrote and I think we can put that better. But, I do like the way you are thinking . We'll come back to that.

Anyway, no need for you to retreat/retire - we need to keep you active . My next challenge for you is to study this post and learn the six bolded terms at the end off by heart.

Honestly, I have no idea what that post might look like to any user. I'd be very interested to hear what you write.

After that, I'll be able to find more interesting jobs for you - lol.
PP

P.S. Ignore my frivolity. I am actually really enjoyong your posts. Great job .

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Yessir.. got those and understand them.. and I understand the 6 terms. Well written. I even know there is a formula for converting hot wort volumes to ambient wort volumes.. aren't I part smart :D .. but without the reference (easy to find) I can't do remember it off the top of my bald head. When I had hair the memory was good.. but now that I'm bald.. the smarts are leaking out of the pores where hair used to reside.

Have a good nap. Guess it must be about 0800 in your neck of the world.. something like that.

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Lol!!!

Glad you made some sense of my last post here. I'm struggling to know what I was trying to say in some bits .

On the tannin thing, these things are guidelines. For example, you should be able to boil your grain (like they do in decoction) and not get a tannin problem if your pH is right. But, would that be true in the case of a crush that has turned the grist to flour? I very much doubt it.

Stuck for time but now that you have got the terminology down, it might be time to get onto the BIABacus. Remember, don't use The Calculator.

The BIABAcus is much easier to learn. You can find it here. Make sure you read the first post well as that will make it faster to learn as well as telling you what thread you can post BIABAcus files to.

Look forward to hearing how you go ,
PP

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