In my 6 years of brewing, I've never checked for Conversion. If i'm mashing at 152 or higher, I'll go for an hour, hour and a half. If 148, then definitely an hour and a half. Never had issues hitting OG.
Yup, never checked. I run a HERMS system. I suppose if I ever saw it milky, I'd keep going; but that's never happened.
Time. The iodine test is almost worthless. It tells you when all/most of the starch is no longer starch, but nothing about the relative fermentability of the wort. Dial in the time required to get the fermentability you want through experience, or use a program leveraging someone else's data. This reminds me of a story. Many years ago, a guy I know was getting into brewing and read somewhere that he should do an "iodine test" to make sure his mash was done. So he went to the LHBS, who sold him an "iodine test kit." The kit actually tested for the presence of iodine. Now he knows better, of course. I wonder if the LHBS does.
So you just take your gravity potential, minus what you have and there is your conversion. Most malts in a perfect world can only give up ~83% of the potential. Single infusions will not achieve full conversion of all starches, as it really cant. Since you pick a "blend" or a single enzyme (i.e., beta or alpha). Step mashes allow for total conversion, i.e. 100% of the ~83% available ( it's dependent on moisture, kolbach, etc), due to specifically targeting both enzymes.
I don't. If using a lot of adjuncts, will mash a little longer and lower usually ...never been a problem in the finished product unless I wanted it to be (Lambic)
I don't check. I mash for 60-75 minutes. With modern, well-modified base malts, conversion is not likely to be an issue. I bet I could mash for half that time and not have an issue. Probably should experiment at some point. I did once make an oatmeal stout once with almost all Munich for the base malt, but I threw in some pale malt for the sake of converting the oats. For whatever reason, not my best beer (it was back in the early days when I was less consistent with my brewing, so maybe we won't blame the mash).
I've never checked conversion and truthfully don't check brewhouse efficiency unless I'm way off target for OG. I mash for 60-90 minutes depending on what I'm making although I understand there may not ever be a benefit to a 90 minute mash. I started doing it when briermuncher made his cream ale recipe. I will usually listen to people I perceive to be smarter than me.
I don't check I just know after a certain time period it's done converting. Conversion seems to occur within 15 minutes but I mash 45 minutes to an hour to fully extract all the color and flavor I should be getting out of the grain.
