Beer Forum

I was wondering if anyone out there was doing 15 minute - 30 minute mashs?
I know of 2 breweries doing 15 minute mashs. 1 is a start up brewery the other is established and winning awards. My brewbuddy who worked at the latter brewery said the brewers say that the malt is so highly modified that it doesn't need anymore than 15 minutes. My brewbuddy doesn't buy into it but they are making some damn tastey brews.

So I am thinking of giving it a shot, after I start hitting a better eff. then 51%. Knocking 45 minutes off a brewday would be nice. I think a 15 minute mash would have me doing some marathon brew days.

So anyone try it? Anyone think this idea is whacked?

On a show sometime back, a guest brewer mentioned doing a 15 minute mash that worked well for him. However, what a lot of listeners missed was that he also recirculated for 30 minutes or so. Since the enzymes continue to work during that time, that gave him what amounted to a 45 minute mash.

Are your friends also doing an extended recirculation?

While I agree that most starches are converted in that first 15 minutes, there are other things that go on during the next 30-45 minutes. Long sugar chains are broken down by the enzymes during that later period, creating more fermentable wort. Because of this, along with occasional fits of laziness, I generally let my mashes go for 75-90 minutes. This also give me time to get my sparge water heated up and get everything else set up for the boil.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

Works great - if you don't mind to many dextrins in your beer. A mash can easily convert in 15 min if you mash in the lower to mid 70's (*C that is, should be around 163F). This is also the temp that is quoted for conversion time in malt analysis sheets.

But it you want a medium bodied beer and are mashing in in the usual temp range of ~67*C (~155F), it takes longer for the mash to convert. Generally my mashes are mostly, but not fully converted after just 30min and I need the 60 min anyway to heat up the sparge water. As Wayne pointed out, the longer recirculation time might be key to this technique.

Kai

No my friend doesn't do it at all, he worked at the brewery where they did it.
I'll have to ask him about how long they recirculate. Guess all that make sense I didn't think of that. I guess as long as they don't heat it would still be mashing.

I think that Titletown is the only commercial brewery that i know of that is doing a short mash time, but they are recirculating for the remainder of the normal hour time.

HH

kace069 wrote:I was wondering if anyone out there was doing 15 minute - 30 minute mashs?
I know of 2 breweries doing 15 minute mashs. 1 is a start up brewery the other is established and winning awards. My brewbuddy who worked at the latter brewery said the brewers say that the malt is so highly modified that it doesn't need anymore than 15 minutes. My brewbuddy doesn't buy into it but they are making some damn tastey brews.

So I am thinking of giving it a shot, after I start hitting a better eff. then 51%. Knocking 45 minutes off a brewday would be nice. I think a 15 minute mash would have me doing some marathon brew days.

So anyone try it? Anyone think this idea is whacked?

When I have questions like these I break out my 3 gallon carboy and my 2 ½ gallon pale ale recipe and test it.

I have tried this technique twice so far. I lost a little bit of efficiency both trys, but not enough to throw the recipe too far off. The second attempt I compensated for this loss and hit pretty close to the numbers I was hoping for. My first was a hefe that turned out great. The other that I tried was an apa which turned out with too much residual sugars. I am assuming this was based on the lack of fermentability due to complex sugars that bug was talking about. So thus far with this technique its been 50/50. Depends on how badly you are looking to expiriment I suppose. However, if I was almost out of beer and needed to make a good beer for sure I wouldn't fuck with it.

This guy has some interesting things to say on the topic...

http://www.draymans.com/articles/arts/14.html