Unorthodox Practices
When I decided to brew my California Red Ale (see previous post for recipe) I made a decision to test the limits of my equipment and see what would come of it. More specifically, I was growing weary of sloooowwwly lautering my runnings over the coarse of nearly 2 hours. The method I was taught by my friend (and future pro brewer) Karl was not really working for me. Also, I figured that since he and I have different lautering methods, him with a traditional false bottom and me with a copper manifold, I would test the limits of my system and see if I could figure out a way to lauter off more quickly without losing too much of my efficiency.
The friendly local homebrew store proprietor suggested something I had not thought of: that a longer mash time, as well as a slight increase in my water-to-grain ratio, may be the solution to my issues. Previously, I was doing a traditional 60-minute mash for my well-modified grains like 2-row pale malt. However, the extended lauter and sparge times were essentially prolonging my mash schedule anyhow, as it was taking nearly 30-40 minutes simply to lauter off my first runnings. His reasoning was to extend the mash time to 90 minutes, then lauter my vorlauf and runnings at a faster pace. I was worried that this longer mash time would result in increased temperature loss over the course of the full 90 minutes, but in actuallity I only lost about 3 degrees from start to finish, and that ended up not being an issue.
Using these new methods, I was able to vorlauf and drain my mash tun in less than 20 minutes, with similar times for the sparge and second runnings. I would very much like to see if these lautering methods would yield the same results with a shorter mash and a smaller grain bill. The intention is to brew a Southern English Brown ale next, and hopefull I will be able to take more photos the next time around. I find that as I become more accustomed to the order of operations associated with all-grain brewing, I can take more effective notes. Hopefully, I’ll be able to write AND take pictures during the next go-around.
