Understanding mashout and sparge temps

I have done batch sparging on a few all grain brews so far but I still feel sort of confused. Hopefully someone can give me a better understanding of what is going on.

John Palmer mentions performing a mashout by raising the mash temp to 170 before draining and sparging. Does this temp destroy the enzymes, preventing any further conversion?

Beersmith suggests draining mash tun (without a mashout) and batch sparging with 168 degree water. When water this temp is mixed into grains that are still at mashing temp (approx. 154) it will settle at a temp somewhere between the two, nowhere near the 170 degrees mentioned above. Doesn't this 160-ish sparge temp run the risk of converting additional un-fermentable sugars? Or doesn't it have enough time if you drain it soon after?

Some people suggest batch sparging with 185 degree water. Is this under the assumption that water at that temp will settle to approximately 170 in the grains and act the same as a mashout? Does this method run the risk of extracting tannins?

Thanks for any insight!

There is quite a bit of confusion about mashout and when you need it. If you are batch sparging, you don't need to mashout. If you are doing a BIAB, you don't need mashout. The only time you need mashout is if you are fly sparging. That's because you will be keeping the grains in the water at mash temperature while you slowly drain the wort while adding water to the top and since this process can take upwards of an hour, you are effectively mashing for 2 hours then.

When you batch sparge, you drain the tun, add sparge water, stir like mad, then immediately drain again. This rinses the majority of the sugars out of the grain bed. Since this can happen so quickly, you don't need to stop any conversion from happening by heating the grains and wort in the mash tun.

Neither way risks tannin extraction if you don't raise the pH of the grains. Oversparging can do this so when you fly sparge you need to check your gravity and stop extracting if it drops below 1.010 as that is when the pH will become too high(above 6.0 pH). You also need temperatures over 170 so most of the time you won't have to worry about tannin extraction at all.

Thanks for the insight!

RM-MN is exactly right. Don't worry about mashout when batch sparging.

Is 168 for sparge water sufficiently hot enough to rinse out the sugars or would you go hotter?

I use cold water most of the time actually. The point is that the temperature has zero effect on efficiency, stirring is what's important.

Kalmah said:

Is 168 for sparge water sufficiently hot enough to rinse out the sugars or would you go hotter?

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I think this is up for debate, some feel that getting the grain bed to 168 is important while others feel the temperature is of no importance, that cold water is just as good. I have always used 168 degrees so I have no direct experience.

I usually add 190ish degree water for my first sparge and 170if im doing any more sparges. Does it matter? Probably not. But it doesnt take any more effort or time and it may add a little more solubility for the sugars.

You have to remember that batch sparging is a relatively new technique. A lot of the rules that were established in relation to fly sparging have carried over simply because that's his people learned to do things. With the new process comes new guidelines that took time to develop and understand, and just now are we starting to break the old habits when using new process.

Oh and my regular use of cold water is mostly a logistics thing. It's just easier for me with the pots and burners I have available. The same amount of water needs to be heated to boiling eventually, so it's not like I'm saving fuel. It could save time overall if the water is heating up during the mash, but that's not important to me.

Hot water doesn't affect solubility of the sugars because the sugars are already in solution when created. They're not granular like dry cane sugar, they are fluid and merely need to be agitated loose from the grain to diffuse into the freshly added water.

If you are batch sparging, raising to 170 will stop enzymatic activity, give slightly better efficiency and it will make for an easier lauter. If you cannot do it easily with your setup don't worry. It will still work fine.

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If you dont have a way to heat your mash other than adding boiling water skip the mashout. There is little benefit when batch sparging. Just drain your mash entirely and add your sparge water heated to about 185 deg. It will raise you grain from mash temp to sparge temp. Im not sure about about the merits of sparging with cold water. You have to heat your wort to boiling temps anyway so why skip this step? It would just take longer to heat the boil kettle and make the brew day longer if you didnt heat sparge water.

I had an interesting conversation with a Professor of Brewing at a local university. He was very insistent that heating up your sparge water over 170 can lead to tannin extraction and astringency. I used to heat my sparge water to 180 and while I didn't notice it, I don't necessarily trust my tasting. I have since moved to a lower temp of between 165 and 170

revelation said:

I had an interesting conversation with a Professor of Brewing at a local university. He was very insistent that heating up your sparge water over 170 can lead to tannin extraction and astringency. I used to heat my sparge water to 180 and while I didn't notice it, I don't necessarily trust my tasting. I have since moved to a lower temp of between 165 and 170

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You should ask that professor about how much tannin is extracted by decoction brewing. The temperature of the sparge water alone won't extract tannins, high pH coupled with the high temperature will.

I've always been curious about decoction brewing and heating the grain to boiling. Honestly, I don't know enough about this to make any sort of call. Must do more reading.

revelation said:

I've always been curious about decoction brewing and heating the grain to boiling. Honestly, I don't know enough about this to make any sort of call. Must do more reading.

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Kai Troester has a great video on decoction mashing. It's worth watching.

In a nutshell decoction mashing is a multi-step mash whereby a portion of the thick mash (grains and water BOTH) are removed from the mash and heated to boiling and added back to the mash to raise the temp. What temp you were at and what temp you needed to get to determined how much of the mash was brought to boiling.

German brewers did it, and still do it, to allow for a protein rest and to get the most efficiency out of malts that used to be less modified. Nowadays it's not technically necessary due to highly modified malts and some improvements on heating the mash.

I've done it before as a way to compensate for a low mash temp. Never done it for true decoction mashing.


Here is Kai's website: http://www.braukaiser.com

And his decoction page with links to his video: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Decoction_Mashing

Homercidal said:

Kai Troester has a great video on decoction mashing. It's worth watching.

In a nutshell decoction mashing is a multi-step mash whereby a portion of the thick mash (grains and water BOTH) are removed from the mash and heated to boiling and added back to the mash to raise the temp. What temp you were at and what temp you needed to get to determined how much of the mash was brought to boiling.

German brewers did it, and still do it, to allow for a protein rest and to get the most efficiency out of malts that used to be less modified. Nowadays it's not technically necessary due to highly modified malts and some improvements on heating the mash.

I've done it before as a way to compensate for a low mash temp. Never done it for true decoction mashing.


Here is Kai's website: http://www.braukaiser.com

And his decoction page with links to his video: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Decoction_Mashing

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That's one of the reasons why I did it but I also like the smell and that I have something to do during the mash I know it's most likely not necessary but I like decoctions! :rockin:

I batch sparge. After draining my first runnings I use a pre calculated amount and temperature of water to bring the grains to 168°f. I usually rinse twice with small amounts of water. I get a few points better efficiency this way. I usually end up with 80-82% efficiency. I do a third rinse with larger grain bills using a bit of gypsum to buffer the ph and can this to use for starters. With this considered I regularly hit 87-90% with these methods. No tannic tones in my beer.

I have never rinsed with cold water. I'd rather heat the water while waiting for conversion rather than wait for it to boil later.

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Many modern pilsner malts are less modified and could benefit from a decoction schedule. Decoction is also responsible for the super malty mouthfeel of helles and pilsner- I recently did a single decoction on a pale ale and it tastes "chewier" than the single infusion version. Supposedly you can approximate this using melanoidin malt.

I think mashout is most relevant when attempting to achieve higher FG's especially when using a highly attenuating strain. Even mashing at 158 I regularly finish 5 points lower than estimated with US 05. Going to try a proper mashout on my next big beer.

EDIT: I assume you have a higher chance of tannin extraction during sparge because your grain bed is a slightly higher pH than it was with all that rich wort caught up in it. I have never had tannic astringency from sparging in the 180s but I never add salts to my sparge water either so it is somewhere around 6.6 pH if I were in Burton-on-Trent I might not sparge that high.

As a returning home brewer from many yrs back (and all extract then) I've now begun grain brewing (partial , 2/3 mash). So this I'm quite a green horn. What I thought I read in Palmer's book was that +180 degree water will lead to extracting tannins, and this is why you would never boil grains. Then I read the above. I'm sooooo confused and not !

I didn't read the whole decoction methods yet, however, thru skimming, thought it was running the same water that was extracted back through (likely not first runnings). Made some sense to me, use less sparge water but keep rinsing. However, this may just be a crazy thought. Has anyone tried this? Is that a method? Is it not ideal since you're just putting sugars back into the grain bed, and likely lower, not increase efficiency? My first eff was 67%, not too bad for a first time I guess, but not near these figures. Also, I didn't realize you were to "stir like mad" when doing a batch sparge. So with that next time should improve the eff! I thought, again incorrectly!, that you didn't want to over-aerate the wort for fear of HSA.... oh geez..... this is bad....leads into one more question, I can't stop myself.

I had planned to boil 5 gal, add DME with 10 min left, but went over my initial boil, and with a glass top, & my thin walled SS pot, it wouldn't hold the heat well enough for a boil. So, I split into two, and then re-combined at the end before chilling into my thinner SS pot. Here's my question. Did I aerate my wort, right after boiling, i.e. HSA, and harm the beer quality?

Thanks for any help, and cheers!

Many brewers consider HSA to be a myth. I've never seen evidence of it causing any problems in my beers. YMMV

HSA is a concern if you want to store a beer for extended periods. It doesn't even cross my mind in an ipa that will be half gone before it is fully matured. Did I mention how I love green beer, especially ipa's?

Just don't slosh stuff around like a raped ape and all will be good RDWHAHB!

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cjgenever said:

Did I mention how I love green beer, especially ipa's

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Only forgivable on St. Paddy's.

All beers being green is a myth IMHO- I am drinking a 10 days in bottle blonde ale and it is done as done is done! Crispy bubbly and bone dry. Sample at bottling had a little acetaldehyde-y pear/apple that is completely gone.

Your beer is probably made well and you don't need to age out any greenness.

I do a lot of apa, ipa, and bitters. I find that the malt profile, especially in the more bodied apa, needs to condition. It takes time for esters to become more supple as well. It just seems like the flavors are separate in the beer screaming for attention rather than all playing together politely.

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I'm not worried about aging out the beer. Heck, sometimes I'll pull a glass right from the carboy. I've been RDWHAHB'ing for so long yeast is like candy to me. Doesn't affect my gut in the last anymore.haha!

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