poor mash extracts

[Brotherton Lad]

I like to turn a new sack of malt over and over a few times and give it a shake before opening it, in order to even out the mixture after it's been in transit.

I don't know if it does much good, but it saves going to the gym.

[vacant]

I like to turn a new sack of malt over and over a few times and give it a shake before opening it, in order to even out the mixture after it's been in transit.

That got me thinking.

I very much doubt it does any good. Turning it over and over must surely put the flour back where it was after each 360 degrees. e.g. a load of flour at one end, you turn it over and the flour falls through the grain a maximum of a few cm. Turning it a further 180 degrees means the flour ends up at the bottom of the sack again.

If it was in transit for the majority of the time in one position, then the vibrations would have caused the flour to sink. So you need to invert (from whatever position that was - you don't know) and then replicate that vibration/movement (which again you don't know).

Solution? If you can be bothered, empty the sack, mix, refill sack.

Or carry on saving on gym membership.

[CestrIan]

The op didn't mention mash out temperature. I found that my efficiencies are much improved when I raise the temperature of the mash to 76C before the sparge. I take the first 4 or 5 litres of first runnings off and boil them in a kitchen kettle and mix them back in the top of the mash until the bed is at 76C. Then start to sparge. If you are batch sparging what temp are you running off at? I think this adds 5 or 6% to efficiency than if you just run off at mash temp (65Cish).

BTW I get much better efficiency using Crisp malt from the malt miller compared to using MO from anyone and it's cheaper.