brew2enjoy

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I just did my 2nd all grain yesterday. Everything went very well, I hit 72% efficiency on both beers so my process seems to be consistant. While doughing in yesterday I realized that for both beers it takes about 10 minutes to stabilize at my desired mash temp. Is this an acceptable amount of time? I am using beersmith to calculate strike water temperature. I add my water about 15 degrees higher than the strike temp to allow my cooler MLT to aborb some heat. Once the temp lowers to my strike temp I dough in.

Yesterday's brew was BM's Centennial Blonde which I mashed at 150 for 60 minutes. Since this is intended to be a somewhat dry beer, I am wondering if that time at higher mash temp is going to affect this.

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Stauffbier

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So, are you saying your mash starts out higher than 150F and then drops and gets stable after 10 mins? If so what is the temp for the first 10 mins?

motleybrews

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If I'm mashing at 154, I usually heat the strike water to around 175 to account for loss due to the mash tun temp and grain temp. Unusually end up a degree or 2 higher than I want, but by the time I get all the dough balls out, it's right where I want it

birvine

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Why not add some hot water to your MLT to preheat it? Quicker all around.

B

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brew2enjoy

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I'm sayin that when I first dough-in, it doesn't seem to drop down to my desired mash temp for at least 10 minutes. During those 10 minutes I stir the crap out of it to try to bring it down. Once it reaches 150 or whatever my desired mash temp is, I put the lid on and let it ride for 60 minutes.

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barhoc11

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That is normal and encouraged since stirring is one of the key's to better efficiency. I would say 5-10 minutes of stirring is best, if you were having to stir for 15+ then you might want to lower your strike water temperature.

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samc

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Develop a process and then stick with it. Judge by the results and if your beer works for you then you are fine. 10 minutes is a long way towards getting the conversion done, so if you were truly too high it would have an effect. However your starting temps aren't much different than what most people do, so I think everyone is in the same boat. You are just taking the temps as you go so you notice it.

The one way around is to start lower and add hot water to bring temps up. So dough in cooler with less water than your ideal ratio and add water, or build a temp controlled recirculation system. I like temp control !

ajf

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Are you sure you have beersmith set up correctly?
If you are pre-heating the MLT, but using Beersmith to calculate the strike temperature, you should either have the weight or the specific heat of the MLT specified as 0.

-a.

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brew2enjoy

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It's possible. I'll have to check. I think i have the tun temp set at 60 and BS tells me to add 167* strike water. If I did that I would undershoot my mash temp for sure. I'll have to mess around with it a bit. I'm not far off, just a few degrees.

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jagg

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I would have to say that is about perfect, just a bit warm, I would not sweat it at all if it was me, try 1 degree lower at a time til you hit it just right.