Mash and boil time from old recipe book.

[adam7368]

For Christmas I received a recipe book with all grain recipes first published in 1991. Can't remember the title, I'm at work so cant look. In most recipes it calls for 90 minute mash and 90 minute and some 'bigger' beers it states 2hours for each. I always do a 60minite mash and 60 boil can I reduce the book times down. Does it call for longer times because ingredients and equipment wern't as good 25 years ago?

 

[simon12]

Unless the recipes have over 20% non malted ingredients then I imagine its due to base malt being poor quality back then.

 

[ExpatBrewer]

Interestingly, this brewer did a couple of recent experiments on mash time:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVmwwiRaNbg[/ame]

A few interesting things came out of it.
1 - Iodine starch test is misleading.
2 - A low temp mash (60º) required around 120 min to fully convert (confirmed with 150 min SG reading)
3 - A high-temp mash (68º) required around 90 min to fully convert (confirmed with 120 min SG reading)

Most mashes probably fall in the range of 64 - 67º so based on the above 90-120 minutes does seems like it may well be a more optimal mash time for most brews.

As for boil times, the convention is 60 minutes which may have simply come about as a result of accommodating for 60 minute hop additions. I believe 1 hour is about the max time required to fully extract the bittering components from hops. Other reasons for boiling for that length of time are often debated. I understand some commercial brewers of milds often only boil for 30 minutes.
Brulosophy and others have done on experiments on short boil times and found there seems to be no detectable difference by doing so, though some express possible beer-stability issues with long-term storage.

 

[peebee]

(What are these guys talking about? "Published in 1991", "Old recipe book". "Poor quality back then". Have I missed something? Should I be pushing up the daisies? And "ExpatBrewer": I do not recommend mashing at 60ºF, whatever that "exbeeriment" guy says.)

 

[Dutto]

For Christmas I received a recipe book with all grain recipes first published in 1991. Can't remember the title, I'm at work so cant look. In most recipes it calls for 90 minute mash and 90 minute and some 'bigger' beers it states 2hours for each. I always do a 60minite mash and 60 boil can I reduce the book times down. Does it call for longer times because ingredients and equipment wern't as good 25 years ago?

I'm still reeling from the Title and then reading the Post itself! :lol:

Back when I first started, no-one I knew had an AG set-up, the kits were crap with a capital "K" and Boots the Chemist was my only local supplier of brewing ingredients; which were limited to yeast, malt extract and hops.

The two hour mash and boil recommendation doesn't surprise me for an AG brew of that time as, even using ME, I used to boil the wort and hops together on my long suffering wife's cooker for a minimum of an hour.

Personally, if I liked the look of a recipe, I would do two brews. One that religiously followed the original recipe and a second one that followed "modern" practices.

You may find that the original recipe is better. :thumb:

 

[Dutto]

(What are these guys talking about? "Published in 1991", "Old recipe book". "Poor quality back then". Have I missed something? Should I be pushing up the daisies? And "ExpatBrewer": I do not recommend mashing at 60ºF, whatever that "exbeeriment" guy says.)

Don't worry about it!

Apparently I am now so old that complete strangers address me as "Mister" or "Sir"; and I expect the dreaded "Dear" to arrive any day!


PS

I was five years old before I realised I wasn't Chinese because everyone addressed me as "Hay Yoo!" ...

... as in "Hay Yoo sod off!" or "Hay Yoo come here!" etc!

PPS

Everything in brewing is variable so to get comparable results from each brew I follow the following:

Strike Water = 2.6 litres per 1kg of grain.

Mash at:

o 55 to 66 degrees (High Alcohol - dry brews) or

o 68 to 72 degrees (Low Alcohol - sweet brews)

for one hour.

DO NOT exceed 75 degrees.

Stir after 20 and 40 minutes.

Heat SPARGE water to 80 degrees.

Lauter until wort runs clear and then Sparge at one litre per minute.