So over the weekend I had a long conversation with a fellow HB and he currently does a 3:1 water to grain ratio. I was trying to tell him even though he is going to still get conversion it isn't going to be as much or get the biggest bang for his buck. His response was it saved time from batch or fly sparging and was still getting conversion so he didn't care. I typically do a 1.25:1 or 1.5:1 ratio depending on the beer. I was curious to see if anyone has gone as high as 3:1 as well or even over 2:1?
well, let's be sure your friend is using quarts to pounds ratio. otherwise apples and orange. assuming he is using 3:1, the yeah that is a very liquid mash. I personally don't go that high, but I appreciate that your friend is more interested in convenience over efficiency or speed. bottom line if he can brew good beer and is happy with the process then he is not wrong or even mis-informed. there are so many ways to do this brewing thing. if none of us had never read Palmer for example, 1.25 qts/pound would be very strange. Cheers.
I personally mash at 1.5 qt/lb. You can read about Kai Troester’s experiment of mash thickness in the linked document. He tested two mash thicknesses: 2.57 l/kg (1.23 qt/lb) and 5 l/kg (2.39 qt/lb) http://braukaiser.com/documents/Effects_of_mash_parameters_on_attenuation_and_efficiency.pdf Cheers!
He's doing the No Sparge Method. Maybe his time is more important than spending a few more bucks on grain.
Interesting PDF from Kai, it goes to show that you can achieve roughly the same conversion/efficiency at different ratios but it depends on your temperature control which can be difficult if your on a stove top or direct heat burner. A little peace of mind knowing if I have to get a brew day in "quickly" I know that using a No Sparge Method is adequate but I must watch the temperature more closely. I will pass this a long to him.
I sometimes play with my water to grain ratios slightly for big beers in order to fit everything in my relatively small mash tun, but always a little thicker than my standard 1.5 qt/lb, never tried the opposite to save time.
Echoing Chris a bit, I generally aim for 1.4 - 1.5 qt/lb unless doing a big beer that requires more grain space than that ratio will allow in my MLT. Like my Everett brew yesterday was closer to 1.25 qt/lb since I had to squeeze nearly 45# of grain into the MLT. When I used to do no sparge BIAB, I used a much thinner mash and had no issues with conversion as well as a fairly comparable extraction.
My system is 15g, 15g, 20g Typically I mash in a 15g and boil in the 20g but I have a removable false bottom that fits either 15g and a removable false bottom for the 20g. So I can mash big batches like this one in the 20g and collect the wort in either 1 or 2 of my 15g kettles for boiling. Comes in handy when I want to make 10+ gallons of an imperial or when I want to make 15 - 20 gallons of low to mid strength beer. Yesterdays 45# grist bill @ roughly 1.275 qt/lb took up 18 gallons of the 20 gallon kettle. Could have used that extra 2 gallons of space and thinned the mash out a bit but I was fly sparging so I needed some room. In doing so, I still managed to get about 79% mash extraction despite how crowded the kettle was. I collected 16.5 gallons of runnings @ 1.076 preboil OG, splitting them into 8.25 gallons per 15 gallon kettle.
If he's getting good conversion and a reasonable extraction efficiency then why not? Do you know what his efficiency is?
