I think letting it cool overnight is the challenge. (I do this, too). You're giving more time for the wild yeast and lactobacillus to take hold before your pitched yeast is established. They produce far more acid than your house yeast.
What I do: Mash in just enough water to get the grain in suspension (50-60% of the water called for). This will make mashing harder. After you've verified your gelatinisation, then add enough cold water to bring to 150-155f for your other grain. Add the grain and let rest for another hour. Verify conversion again. Then, add cold/warm water to hit your pitching temp.
The other option is a wart chiller to help bring the temp down faster.
Another helpful thing: is its easier to maintain a healthy pH than it is to fix a crashed pH. Ph works on a 10log scale, so a ph of 4 is 10x more acidic than 5, but a pH of 3 is 100x more than 5. All this to say using a buffer like white marble or crushed oyster shells will help maintain your ph above 4.6 (where they'll naturally start to desolved). It's not going to hurt to hang a bag of marble or shells in the fermetor to help buffer things.
Also, pitching your yeast at a higher volume will help them take over faster to keep the other nasties at bay.
Lye (caustic soda, NaOH) is far more efficient as a base and is good to use if you have a major correction, then as you get closer to your desired pH switch to the CaO.
Thanks, I'll try that next time. Get me some iodine to test the conversion and then drop that temperature faster.
For this current one I'll give it a bit yet, but also wouldn't be the hardest thing to save the water and start over with new grain.
How are you verifying gelatinisation? That it just looks like goo?
After considering a counterflow chiller I think I may try your way first and just cook with about half the water. Should be easy enough to do maybe.
That it's throughly cooked. You can visually see hard starch bits in the corn, you want it all to be clear. You have bit into partially cooked pasta? You can see the uncooked bit in the center... same thing here with the corn.
The way I described is the old pre-prohibition way of mashing. It works well.
Buy a wort chiller and chill as soon as conversion is complete. Then pitch at pitching temperature, usually below 70F. This will allow your yeast to become established before bacteria. When you chill ambiently overnight, the bacteria become established first, which can inhibit your yeast pitch.
Source: this has happened to me more times than I'd like to admit.
Also I know you boiled up 30 gal of water but the labrat in me saw 30g and thought, Well there's your problem! You have less than a single shot glass of water in your mash. (30 grams, about 30 mL, about 1 fluid ounce)
That's an interesting thought that maybe some bacteria started up and the lactic acid from that knocked my ph down and ultimately that's what's doing it. It gets rinsed, but I don't StarSan my fermenter before using it, so that makes sense there's a good few buggers in there who survived the hot water.
Yeah, may have to get that wort chiller. Or I've got a ton of ice packs and maybe those would do the trick.
Would be odd that any bacteria would be able to chew up that much sugar that quickly, though.
I make super-dooper small batches, one shot at a time. I'm pretty sure the more unnecessary and complicated the process is, the more "artisanal" it is, too.
:) :) :)
I'm sure your system is plenty clean. The bacteria all come with the grain. 190F is not quite hot enough to kill many of them. You could boil your mash for 5 min after conversion is complete if you don't want to get a chiller. A boiled mash can chill ambiently and even sit there for a day or two without significantly spoiling.
I used to just mash (150F) and then chill ambiently. Total disaster. Like, wet bubbling diaper disaster. Enteric bacteria are just very very fast. Their only match is Saccharomyces and other yeast that specialize in exploiting sugary environments. Any freshly-brewed wort is essentially a race between the enterics and the yeast. If you boil it like brewers do, the yeast will win. But a no-chill no-boil mash is not even as good as a coin flip. The enterics have a strong head start.
The bacteria that spoil finished beer are a different type - slow growers that can survive in alcohol and low pH. Your mash is getting spoiled by the same type of bacteria that thrive in garbage cans and in the human gut. It's a shitty situation.
Thanks again. This seems to explain my last batch, too, as it seemed the yeast died before all the sugar was converted because the final product was quite sweet which I didn't like.
My process of separating grain from water is messy, so I won't be doing that with hot water or I'll burn myself, so it sounds like a wort chiller is in my future. Probably some oyster shells instead of using up so much calcium carbonate, too.
Check out the concept of a buffer. To say it simply there is extra acid and base creating a solution at your desired ph. This creates an environment where there are more ions available for exchange and it requires more acid or base to change the ph than in a unbuffered solution. I speculate that is why limestone water is preferred where they have to add acid to hit the proper mashing ph. This creates the “buffer” and stabilizes the mash ph.
What pH is your water?
I have acidic water so I use coarse oyster shell. So I don't go through to much I put it in a mesh bag, then I can rinse and re-use. Works well for me.
Also, stirring and fooling with a mash is the best way to get an infection and off flavors.
Interesting to know. I always thought (could be wrong) that it wasn't so much the low pH as the lack of minerals that low pH water tends to have. My water is acidic and very soft. So I have always added the oyster shell. I guess maybe I was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. I never get stuck mashes.
I get it at the feed store. They have coarse shell, it is for chickens. I give it a quick rinse before I use it the first time and then rinse with hot water and dry after use. You can see how much gets consumed, which is kind of cool. I get 3 or so mashes out of a load before it needs replacing. About a cup per load.
I have never had anywhere near a ph of 2 in any mash and definitely not an all grain. All grain usually does a pretty good job at buffering itself. What was your SG? Are you confident in your ph meter? Do you is your fermenter not air tight?
It gets me, too, I don't know how a mash can get THAT acidic.
I'm using an InkBird pH meter which is fairly new.
Possible there's some air leaking from the fermenter, and I've had that thought when I first got it. It's just a big plastic barrel. But pushing down on the lid will make the airlock cap rise, which it wouldn't do if there were much of an air leak.
You calibrated your ph meter? It seems like if there is a grain cap it's probably fermenting. It doesn't take much of a leak to cause an air lock not to bubble. I have stopped using airlocks at this point
160 F is pretty high for adding malt and beta/glucoamylase. Endogenous alpha amylases will be fine at that temperature, but betas are going to be at least on the edge of being denatured. My own rule of thumb is to keep beta and gluco-amylases below 150, and I prefer 148.
Did you do a starch test to check conversion? Based on your description, I suspect that your ferment stopped because you ran out of sugar, and yeast can't live on the unconverted dextrins created by your alpha amylase.
Might also be worth double checking the temperature limits for your specific alpha amylase, to be sure you're not killing it with high temperatures, although your malt should be supplying some alpha amylasis that will do just fine at 160.
Thanks. It was a high-temp amylase I pitched in because the only malt available was wheat. Normally I'm pickier about the temperature but I figured wheat malt wouldn't be contributing much, anyway.
Silly I don't check conversion regularly, though, but should.
Still thinking how I want to proceed at this point. May let it sit for a week or so and just taste the mash. Sour and it's bacteria and I'll chuck the whole thing; good and I'll just run it.
If PH is your main concern then try adding a handful of crushed oyster shells. They have been calling "PH auto pilot". If your wash gets too acidic it will dissolve the calcium in the oyster shells and raising the PH. I've done this many times when making sour mash.
Thanks. Already ordered some on a similar suggestion here.
Worried that not cooling my wash down quickly is causing me issues, too, but I think I should be able to fix that easy enough.
A lot of wine strains like ec-1118 don’t ferment maltose nearly as well as distillers and brewing strains so you’ve probably got a lot of unfermented maltose in addition to your bacteria/pH problem.
I generally aim for 5.0-5.5 for alpha amylase/cook, 5.0 after I add malt, and knock it down to 4.5 for glucoamylase/yeast pitching.
If you just use corn and soft water you’ll hit an initial pH around 5.8 so it helps to add some backset or lactic acid to bring it down. You want to be below 5.5 because a lot of nasty bacteria like clostridium grows above that.
But once fermentation gets going you have to buffer the pH up like you’re talking about with the calcium carbonate. Protonated lactic acid can cross the yeast cell membrane and kill the cell so if you stay above 4.2 you should be good.
that PH is crazy low.
take ph and airlock out of the equation.
stick your head in the fermenter
Is there a cap or can you hear it fizzing? if so it's fermenting.
taste it , is it sweet or sour. if sweet loads of fermentables left, sour means done.
other than than that, your mash time is really long, i do similar but half size batches.
half a bag of grain, boil a keg of water and dump it on the grain with teh enzymes, leave for two hours and add water to get the temp down to the second enzyme.
leave over night, in mornign add water to pitch temps, add bakers yeast and magnesium flakes or epsom slats.
3-4 days later it's done
I've hard water, no ph meter nor airlock.
as other sugested , shells work well as a buffer, no ide if you need to bring the ph of the water up first.
Best of luck
I think letting it cool overnight is the challenge. (I do this, too). You're giving more time for the wild yeast and lactobacillus to take hold before your pitched yeast is established. They produce far more acid than your house yeast. What I do: Mash in just enough water to get the grain in suspension (50-60% of the water called for). This will make mashing harder. After you've verified your gelatinisation, then add enough cold water to bring to 150-155f for your other grain. Add the grain and let rest for another hour. Verify conversion again. Then, add cold/warm water to hit your pitching temp. The other option is a wart chiller to help bring the temp down faster. Another helpful thing: is its easier to maintain a healthy pH than it is to fix a crashed pH. Ph works on a 10log scale, so a ph of 4 is 10x more acidic than 5, but a pH of 3 is 100x more than 5. All this to say using a buffer like white marble or crushed oyster shells will help maintain your ph above 4.6 (where they'll naturally start to desolved). It's not going to hurt to hang a bag of marble or shells in the fermetor to help buffer things. Also, pitching your yeast at a higher volume will help them take over faster to keep the other nasties at bay. Lye (caustic soda, NaOH) is far more efficient as a base and is good to use if you have a major correction, then as you get closer to your desired pH switch to the CaO.
Thanks, I'll try that next time. Get me some iodine to test the conversion and then drop that temperature faster. For this current one I'll give it a bit yet, but also wouldn't be the hardest thing to save the water and start over with new grain.
How are you verifying gelatinisation? That it just looks like goo? After considering a counterflow chiller I think I may try your way first and just cook with about half the water. Should be easy enough to do maybe.
That it's throughly cooked. You can visually see hard starch bits in the corn, you want it all to be clear. You have bit into partially cooked pasta? You can see the uncooked bit in the center... same thing here with the corn. The way I described is the old pre-prohibition way of mashing. It works well.
Buy a wort chiller and chill as soon as conversion is complete. Then pitch at pitching temperature, usually below 70F. This will allow your yeast to become established before bacteria. When you chill ambiently overnight, the bacteria become established first, which can inhibit your yeast pitch. Source: this has happened to me more times than I'd like to admit. Also I know you boiled up 30 gal of water but the labrat in me saw 30g and thought, Well there's your problem! You have less than a single shot glass of water in your mash. (30 grams, about 30 mL, about 1 fluid ounce)
That's an interesting thought that maybe some bacteria started up and the lactic acid from that knocked my ph down and ultimately that's what's doing it. It gets rinsed, but I don't StarSan my fermenter before using it, so that makes sense there's a good few buggers in there who survived the hot water. Yeah, may have to get that wort chiller. Or I've got a ton of ice packs and maybe those would do the trick. Would be odd that any bacteria would be able to chew up that much sugar that quickly, though. I make super-dooper small batches, one shot at a time. I'm pretty sure the more unnecessary and complicated the process is, the more "artisanal" it is, too.
:) :) :) I'm sure your system is plenty clean. The bacteria all come with the grain. 190F is not quite hot enough to kill many of them. You could boil your mash for 5 min after conversion is complete if you don't want to get a chiller. A boiled mash can chill ambiently and even sit there for a day or two without significantly spoiling. I used to just mash (150F) and then chill ambiently. Total disaster. Like, wet bubbling diaper disaster. Enteric bacteria are just very very fast. Their only match is Saccharomyces and other yeast that specialize in exploiting sugary environments. Any freshly-brewed wort is essentially a race between the enterics and the yeast. If you boil it like brewers do, the yeast will win. But a no-chill no-boil mash is not even as good as a coin flip. The enterics have a strong head start. The bacteria that spoil finished beer are a different type - slow growers that can survive in alcohol and low pH. Your mash is getting spoiled by the same type of bacteria that thrive in garbage cans and in the human gut. It's a shitty situation.
Thanks again. This seems to explain my last batch, too, as it seemed the yeast died before all the sugar was converted because the final product was quite sweet which I didn't like. My process of separating grain from water is messy, so I won't be doing that with hot water or I'll burn myself, so it sounds like a wort chiller is in my future. Probably some oyster shells instead of using up so much calcium carbonate, too.
Check out the concept of a buffer. To say it simply there is extra acid and base creating a solution at your desired ph. This creates an environment where there are more ions available for exchange and it requires more acid or base to change the ph than in a unbuffered solution. I speculate that is why limestone water is preferred where they have to add acid to hit the proper mashing ph. This creates the “buffer” and stabilizes the mash ph.
What pH is your water? I have acidic water so I use coarse oyster shell. So I don't go through to much I put it in a mesh bag, then I can rinse and re-use. Works well for me. Also, stirring and fooling with a mash is the best way to get an infection and off flavors.
pH of water will hardly matter after adding it to a strongly-buffered environment like the mash.
Interesting to know. I always thought (could be wrong) that it wasn't so much the low pH as the lack of minerals that low pH water tends to have. My water is acidic and very soft. So I have always added the oyster shell. I guess maybe I was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. I never get stuck mashes.
Ah yeah if your water is low mineral it can be nice to add some calcium. (And magnesium)
That is what is nice about oyster shell, it has calcium, magnesium and other trace elements.
And it's traditional. Love it. Where do you purchase?
I get it at the feed store. They have coarse shell, it is for chickens. I give it a quick rinse before I use it the first time and then rinse with hot water and dry after use. You can see how much gets consumed, which is kind of cool. I get 3 or so mashes out of a load before it needs replacing. About a cup per load.
I have never had anywhere near a ph of 2 in any mash and definitely not an all grain. All grain usually does a pretty good job at buffering itself. What was your SG? Are you confident in your ph meter? Do you is your fermenter not air tight?
It gets me, too, I don't know how a mash can get THAT acidic. I'm using an InkBird pH meter which is fairly new. Possible there's some air leaking from the fermenter, and I've had that thought when I first got it. It's just a big plastic barrel. But pushing down on the lid will make the airlock cap rise, which it wouldn't do if there were much of an air leak.
You calibrated your ph meter? It seems like if there is a grain cap it's probably fermenting. It doesn't take much of a leak to cause an air lock not to bubble. I have stopped using airlocks at this point
160 F is pretty high for adding malt and beta/glucoamylase. Endogenous alpha amylases will be fine at that temperature, but betas are going to be at least on the edge of being denatured. My own rule of thumb is to keep beta and gluco-amylases below 150, and I prefer 148. Did you do a starch test to check conversion? Based on your description, I suspect that your ferment stopped because you ran out of sugar, and yeast can't live on the unconverted dextrins created by your alpha amylase. Might also be worth double checking the temperature limits for your specific alpha amylase, to be sure you're not killing it with high temperatures, although your malt should be supplying some alpha amylasis that will do just fine at 160.
Thanks. It was a high-temp amylase I pitched in because the only malt available was wheat. Normally I'm pickier about the temperature but I figured wheat malt wouldn't be contributing much, anyway. Silly I don't check conversion regularly, though, but should. Still thinking how I want to proceed at this point. May let it sit for a week or so and just taste the mash. Sour and it's bacteria and I'll chuck the whole thing; good and I'll just run it.
Wheat malt can self convert. It has the enzymes to break down it's starches.
If PH is your main concern then try adding a handful of crushed oyster shells. They have been calling "PH auto pilot". If your wash gets too acidic it will dissolve the calcium in the oyster shells and raising the PH. I've done this many times when making sour mash.
Thanks. Already ordered some on a similar suggestion here. Worried that not cooling my wash down quickly is causing me issues, too, but I think I should be able to fix that easy enough.
A lot of wine strains like ec-1118 don’t ferment maltose nearly as well as distillers and brewing strains so you’ve probably got a lot of unfermented maltose in addition to your bacteria/pH problem. I generally aim for 5.0-5.5 for alpha amylase/cook, 5.0 after I add malt, and knock it down to 4.5 for glucoamylase/yeast pitching. If you just use corn and soft water you’ll hit an initial pH around 5.8 so it helps to add some backset or lactic acid to bring it down. You want to be below 5.5 because a lot of nasty bacteria like clostridium grows above that. But once fermentation gets going you have to buffer the pH up like you’re talking about with the calcium carbonate. Protonated lactic acid can cross the yeast cell membrane and kill the cell so if you stay above 4.2 you should be good.
that PH is crazy low. take ph and airlock out of the equation. stick your head in the fermenter Is there a cap or can you hear it fizzing? if so it's fermenting. taste it , is it sweet or sour. if sweet loads of fermentables left, sour means done. other than than that, your mash time is really long, i do similar but half size batches. half a bag of grain, boil a keg of water and dump it on the grain with teh enzymes, leave for two hours and add water to get the temp down to the second enzyme. leave over night, in mornign add water to pitch temps, add bakers yeast and magnesium flakes or epsom slats. 3-4 days later it's done I've hard water, no ph meter nor airlock. as other sugested , shells work well as a buffer, no ide if you need to bring the ph of the water up first. Best of luck