by howard » Sat Dec 16, 2023 5:34 pm
A few weeks ago i did 2 x mashes with 6kg of unmalted wheat for each mash as a side by side test.
Method 1 –
35l brewzilla, false bottom and a BIAB in place of the malt pipe.
Using high temp alpha, normal temp beta, fermenting on the grain with AUS-05
I reckoned the BIAB would let me have heaps more water with the grain to allow liquefication, with no problems with sparging and expanding grain in the malt pipe.
Did the old glucan rest at 40°C, recirculating at all times with just the 500w element on.
Then ramped it up to 90°C and added the high temp alpha on the way.
The wheat did liquefy about 85°C as before.
Recirc pump had a little winge at one point, but a good stir of the grain sorted that out ( I think the BIAB was a bit clogged) and had no problems after that.
After 45mins at 90°C iodine test still showed some starch present, but at this stage, no gluca had been added (too hot obv).
Chilled rapidly with cooling coil to 60°C and did iodine test before gluco addition.
Surprise, surprise, iodine test says ok, no starch. :think:
Using old method and by dipping finger in wash, my experience with AG mashing tells that the mash is sweetish, but nowhere as sweet as it should be. ( I think I worked it out later)
Added gluco and held at 60°C for some time.
Now the mash is very sweet (using finger method)
OG was a very reasonable 1.060 and very happy with that efficiency.
To compare volume wise with method 2, I tipped the lot into a fermenter to ferment on the grain with AUS-05.
Method 2-
Heated water to 34°C in my HLT (35l digiboil)
Emptied water into the fermenter, stirred in 6kg of wheat, added 30gms of yellow angel, put in fermenting fridge.
That’s it!! (Apart from stirring for the first 3 days)
Stripping – after about 3 weeks.
Both on-grain ferments strained into brewzilla with just a BIAB bag inside, attached to an overhead pulley for draining.
Observation on draining – the yellow angel has ‘eaten’ away at the wheat and the spent grain is approximately 50% smaller the AUS-05 wash.
I have thought this was happening several times before when I have let yellow angel loose on spent grains in sugar heads.
So both drained and squeezed by hand, yellow label 21L, AUS-05 18L
Strip- I usually strip from first output (62-65%ABV) down to 15%ABV, as I find that this gives me an average of 40%ABV low wines.
Yellow label strip produced 5.7L in this range.
AUS-05 produced 4.8L in this range.
Conclusion – I’m very happy with the output from the BIAB method, from 1.040(?) to 1.060, and from memory, I think I only got about 3-3.5L low wines before. :smile:
I’m also very happy with the yellow angel, how simple and easy is that, with better output as well. :handgestures-thumbupleft:
I will be ordering another brick of yellow angel on the strength of this.
re iodine test - iodine tells you there is no starch present, but cannot tell you if the converted starches are sugars or dextrins.
it can be a very misleading test to the untraine finger :smile:
Last edited by
howard on Sat Dec 16, 2023 5:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.