Single infusion Mash Q

[winstonia]

I have a pretty big mash tun(60L)

I have being following the instructions with HBC kits for batch sparging.

If I'm doing a single infusion for their 23L recipes, could I just add 30L of water and drain after an hour?

[Qs]

I think you'd lose quite a bit of efficiency doing that.

[winstonia]

Then is a single infusion just the same as a batch sparge?

[pob]

If I'm doing a single infusion for their 23L recipes, could I just add 30L of water and drain after an hour?

That essentially what BIAB (Brew in a Bag) is, although with BIAB, you lift the grain out (in the bag) rather than draining wort out.

With BIAB you would also mash out at ~75°C for 10 mins (to stabilise / halt any further enzyme conversion), without being able to raise temp of your mash in your mash tun, this may effect your targets.

Efficiencies of ~75% would be quite common with BIAB.

[donnchadhc]

Apologies if this I lecture like, but below is how I would explain it.

Single infusion refers to the mash step using one infusion of water (i.e. One temperature step). The mash converts the complex carbohydrates, sugars and starches in the mash into simple sugars. Sparging happens after the mash step, it can be fly Sparging or batch Sparging. This involves rinsing the mash of sugars. You can do a no-sparge mash but you would leave sugars behind in the mash.

Does that make sense?

[armedcor]

There is a huge thread on HBT about No-sparge if thats what you're interested in. They claim it produces a better quality wort as you don't have to worry about wort PH on the sparge etc! It's pretty interesting and I'm definitely going to give it a shot when I brew again.

[winstonia]

Apologies if this I lecture like, but below is how I would explain it.

Single infusion refers to the mash step using one infusion of water (i.e. One temperature step). The mash converts the complex carbohydrates, sugars and starches in the mash into simple sugars. Sparging happens after the mash step, it can be fly Sparging or batch Sparging. This involves rinsing the mash of sugars. You can do a no-sparge mash but you would leave sugars behind in the mash.

Does that make sense?

Yeah I get that part, just don't understand why it says add 5L of water after an hour at 80c.

Then drain and then add another 14L of water at 80c, stir leave for 15mins and drain again into your brew kettle.

What's the purpose of the 5L and then 14L @ 80c?

[donnchadhc]

Bring the temp up to mash out I'd say. The mash should be somewhere between 63 and 70 odd. At the end you can do a thing called mash out which is 78 odd, this stops the conversion process and "locks in" the "profile" from the mash. I'd say that's the reason for the 5 litres.

And it can get much more complicated than that if you want it! (Welcome to the dark side )

For your first all grain I'd say don't worry about, the beer will be great. There are loads of great books if you'd like to get better explanations, I'd personally recommend John Palmers "How to Brew", google it's free on the net. Other guys will chime in with their references.

[beerfly]

yea that sounds like raise to mash out temp.  if it is saying to add the 5L before draining it then its not going to raise the temp enough. taking a rough guess about you mash it would need to be 5L of boiling water to raise 10L water from 66c to 76c.

its just as handy to drain it, add the 19L, let it rest and then drain that.