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Author Topic: Drainage time  (Read 10158 times)

Offline malzig

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Re: Drainage time
« Reply #45 on: March 06, 2011, 07:21:08 am »
Are the bags impervious to ambient moisture?
I don't have a sack at the moment so I can't take a look (all my grain is sealed up in buckets), but isn't the top of the inner bag usually just tied off or closed with a zip-tie?  That wouldn't be moisture impermeable, just resistant.  I imagine that pro-breweries regularly get grains from the same suppliers, so their systems are probably dialed in to the reasonably predictable characteristics of grain from that warehouse.  We're also talking about adding very little moisture, Kai suggests 2%, I usually use closer to 1%, of the grain weight.  This is well within the variation among malt specifications, so you might have no problem with 10 sacks then get a sack that causes slow lautering on your system.

It's not like malt conditioning is a hair-brained idea. According to Kai's site, either malt conditioning or wet milling is used by most German breweries that use traditional lauter tuns.  They seem to make some pretty decent beer. ;)

On the other hand, mill settings, grain bill, braid quality and tun geometry all play a role.  You can probably fine tune your mill to get good efficiency and fast lautering, but you still may get a sack that suddenly leads to slow runnings.  Mash conditioning may help you get through that sack without readjusting your mill.  Or perhaps you want to make a batch with a lot of wheat, rye or oatmeal and don't have rice hulls. 

If you have a plastic braid, you should replace it, but there are variable results from different water supply braids and you might get tired of buying new braids to find a good one.  I do like the larger water-heater supply line braids, which seem to be good for fast runnings.

From my experience, rectangular coolers can tend to run faster than taller, narrower coolers with less surface area.  They probably help to spread out the oberteig, reducing drag.

Offline majorvices

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Re: Drainage time
« Reply #46 on: March 06, 2011, 07:44:19 am »

It's not like malt conditioning is a hair-brained idea. According to Kai's site, either malt conditioning or wet milling is used by most German breweries that use traditional lauter tuns.  They seem to make some pretty decent beer. ;)

Its not just german breweries, lots of US breweries wet mill their malt. I certainly don't think, nor ever said it was a hair brained idea. I understand its usefulness in large scale operations. I just found it was more trouble than it was worth on small scale brewing - for me personally.

I get sacks regularly and some are sealed up all the way to the top of the sewed on seam. Others are knotted pretty tightly with a rubber band. I've kept malt sitting on the pallet on the floor of my brewery for 4 months with no noticeable moisture pick up.

Offline denny

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Re: Drainage time
« Reply #47 on: March 06, 2011, 08:04:44 am »
The Best Malz that I normally use are in a nylon (?) woven bag with a plastic bag inner liner.  That inner liner is completely sealed.  As close to impermeable as I can imagine.  I certainly hope that I'm not being taken as saying that conditioning is a hare brained idea.  OTOH, just becasue commercial breweries do it is not necessarily a reason for me to do it.
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Offline tomsawyer

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Re: Drainage time
« Reply #48 on: March 07, 2011, 07:27:14 am »
We recently did a tour of Boulevard Brewing in KC as part of a homebrew contest.  They do wet milling using a German mill.

I've definitely seen a difference in husk intactness with conditioning.  I don't do it because I apparently don't need it as far as runoff is concerned.  I don't recall, does conditioning also keep dust down during crushing?  That would be another advantage if it does.  I crush in my storage room and I sometimes worry about dust accumulating in there and eventually causing me issues with contamination.  I used to crush out in the garage but got lazy when I got my new mill.
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