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Do you strain mash between generations?
Posted:
Thu Sep 18, 2014 3:30 pmby Johnny B Shiney
Hey Fellas
ive just stripped a first generation of the BWKO and i thought abv and yield was a bit low, I didnt really strain the wash at all, I left maybe a millimeter or so of liquid covering the grains as I was worried about removing too much yeast. I was scooping off the top and left the grains pretty much undisturbed in the bottom of the fermentor.
Should I have strained more? If so how much roughly?
I was thinking of pushing a colander into the mash and scooping liquid out through it, do you get as much liquid as you can? Will the yeast stay behind? Is this why you add a few litres of water to keep yeast happy while you are stripping and waiting for some backset to cool before adding for next generation?
I hope this makes sense and thanks in advance for any replies.
Re: Do you strain mash between generations?
Posted:
Thu Sep 18, 2014 3:32 pmby Zak Griffin
What are you comparing the yield and ABV to?
I never strain my wash :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Re: Do you strain mash between generations?
Posted:
Thu Sep 18, 2014 3:49 pmby Urrazeb
I would think the yeast loss to extra wash would make it a useless practice. Plus you wait for it to clear only to disturb the cake again...
I have never strained the grain
Re: Do you strain mash between generations?
Posted:
Thu Sep 18, 2014 5:27 pmby Brendan
Johnny B Shiney wrote:Should I have strained more? If so how much roughly? You sholdn't have to strain any off the bottom, you'll find most people don't touch the grain and yeast bed and just scoop the ones that float.
I was thinking of pushing a colander into the mash and scooping liquid out through it, do you get as much liquid as you can? Just leave it as mentioned above.
Will the yeast stay behind? Not really, you'd be taking yeast in the liquid if you tried to separate it.
Is this why you add a few litres of water to keep yeast happy while you are stripping and waiting for some backset to cool before adding for next generation? The idea of adding water is just to ensure that the yeast bed is completely covered to keep the yeast alive (they flourish in a warm, wet environment). Yeast can be kept alive for a long time when in liquid.
Re: Do you strain mash between generations?
Posted:
Thu Sep 18, 2014 5:52 pmby stretch69
After my first gen bkor I scooped the grain from the actual bed then replaced what I took out. I had stuff all floating
Re: Do you strain mash between generations?
Posted:
Thu Sep 18, 2014 6:30 pmby Johnny B Shiney
Thanks fellas
I only have one cfw to compare yield and abv to, that I completely strained because I only intended the one generation.
The yield of this BWKO was about 6 litres from a 50 odd litre wash. Abv seemed very low at start maybe 65% and temperature shot up to 86 degrees at top of vapour path and then slowly rose to 93 or whatever. I continued down to about 30%. This all took about 4hrs.
I should also add this wash was only in fermenter for 72 hrs, vigourous bubbling had ceased and maybe only a bubble a minute through air lock, ran through a short column pot still with no packing. Also the spirit smelled like tails pretty much throughout the whole run, although it is nice and clear.
So do you fellas only strain the final generation?
Thanks again
Re: Do you strain mash between generations?
Posted:
Thu Sep 18, 2014 7:21 pmby Urrazeb
I don't strain anything, all the left over grain just goes in the bin