Tldr:
Strike water 85.3c dumped into mash tun temp 69.6c. Added grain stirred till temp 64c sealed up.2 hours later another quick stir. Sealed up for another 3hrs.after 5hrs temp 61c. Batch sparged to 1.010. approx. 65l wort collected 45l at 1.078. and a further 20-25l at unknown gravity.
I thought I would share more detailed info on my seemingly successful mash yesterday.
I followed the rule of thumb mashing guides that were provided by coffee addict and tipsy and stuff I have read elsewhere round the internet.. There is probably a million different ways of doing things but this is what I did. Rules are as follows:
Final volume 4l/kg /Strike water 3l/kg(trying 2.4l/kg) water for strike water/strike temp 5 degrees c above target/grist 1.2mm mill gap./ 63c rest, sparge to 1.010.
I wasn’t super strict following the guides but I used them for the most part. I have only a smallish tun so went for a slightly thicker mash at 2.4l/kg so I could get more grain into my mash tun. Here is a pic of how I had it set up.
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Transferring water while retaining heat is not something I have done successfully yet so for the next bit I flew by the seat of my pants.
I heated the water up and once it got to 85.3 I figured this would give me enough head room for temp drop when transferring the water. Open the valve and added 40.8l plus an extra 3l for the dead space in my tun under the perforated bottom. Once all the water was added the temp was 69.6c. I stirred the grain in thoroughly making sure there was no clumps of grain(dough balls). I stirred for approx. 10mins and the temp was now 64c. I put the lid on and left it alone for 2hrs. I opened it and gave it another quick stir and the temp dropped to 63c. The lid went back on and I left it for another 3hrs as I got unexpected visitors. After 5hrs I took a small sample and it was very sweet so I knew conversion had happened. Didn’t take an iodine test just went with my gut feeling.
I drained off about 8l of wort which I poured back in the top of mash tun while continuing to drain into a second bucket. To give myself some room to batch sparge I drained about 15l of wort out which went into my fermenter. Since my boiler outlet was right over the mash tun I tried just opening the valve and let it run in, but I thought it was not doing a very good job so I put about 8l water into a bucket and dumped it in the top I did this 3 times. Kept collect wort till it was at 1.010 coming out bottom of mash tun. I have a keg boiler so I split off first 45l into one fermenter and the dregs about 20l went into a second fermenter.
The first fermenter I have a gravity of 1.078 which I will keep separate as an all grain scotch.
The second fermenter I forgot to grab a gravity as I was racing to finish to try and beat a storm. So I had 20l wort would have been lower proof and I added 7kg sugar and a 10l bucket full of the spent grain then topped up to 60l. I will do 5 gens of sugar heads adding 7-8kg sugar each time which I will melt with backset. Really looking forward to trying this once it is finished and sitting on oak for a good while..
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