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Author Topic: Too much mash/sparge water causing off flavors?  (Read 8555 times)

cornershot

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Re: Too much mash/sparge water causing off flavors?
« Reply #15 on: March 26, 2013, 03:36:22 am »
Sorry, had to be sure. If your lhbs owner makes good beer with the same water and you're not sparging too hot and you're not mashing for like 3+ hours, then I'd guess maybe an infection? Either way, it might be about time to get some basic understanding of this whole water chemistry thingy.

Offline davidgzach

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Re: Too much mash/sparge water causing off flavors?
« Reply #16 on: March 26, 2013, 06:16:38 am »
I plugged it in to Bru'n Water and the PH is 5.5 with RO water.  So you should be good there.  I'm still guessing you oversparged and extracted some tannins in the process.
Dave Zach

Offline denny

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Too much mash/sparge water causing off flavors?
« Reply #17 on: March 26, 2013, 09:17:57 am »
Sounds to me like you're using way too much water and yes, you can over sparge even with batch sparging.  And don't let Beersmith do your thinking for you.  It's a tool to help you brew the way you want to, not instructions on how to brew.  I think you need to take a step backward and simplify.  Mash with 1.5 qt. lb.  Measure how much get from the mash runoff and subtract that from the amount you want to boil (which I'd guess is about 7.5 gal.).  The answer you get is how much sparge water to use.
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

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Offline scottgott01

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Re: Too much mash/sparge water causing off flavors?
« Reply #18 on: March 26, 2013, 10:46:26 am »
Got yas. Yea I think I am going to take the 1.5 quarts per gallon route for a while. Actually my boil off isn't really much so I need to get to 6.5 for pre boil. I am going to get some RO water as well to see exactly were that lands me this next brew (Golden Strong). I definitely think I was oversparging though.
Belfrey Cross Brewing

Offline drjones

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Re: Too much mash/sparge water causing off flavors?
« Reply #19 on: March 26, 2013, 02:57:01 pm »
Denny said it all, but I'll add my recent experience.  This winter I moved from fly-sparging in an igloo cooler in the garage to batch-sparging in an 8-gallon pot in the kitchen (the garage was getting cold here in New England). I have since settled into a very simple 4-gallon mash, 4-gallon batch sparge with a typical 10 to 11 pound grain bill.  This gives me about 6.5 gallons of preboil wort, nice-n-easy.  If necessary, it is pretty easy to either sparge a bit less or a bit more to hit your target volume and/or gravity.   That's one of the beauties of batch sparging in general - keeping things simple.   
- Brian
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Fermenting: west-coast IPA
Bottled:60 schilling, 70 schilling, maple porter, wheat porter