Which way do you do your mash

So if this was discussed before my apologies, but I could not find anything. Do you add your water to your grains, or grains to your water when mashing. Specifically with a cooler type mush tun while batch sparging. I mix water to grains, and my temps are not hitting where I like, and wondering if will effect efficiency. I am at around 65-70 percent.

At home I put water in first, then dump in and mix grains. Ideally the malt would be hydrated as it goes into the mash tun, but that is beyond 99.9% of home systems

Hitting temps is much easier with a preheated tun. I don't use a cooler anymore but when I did I would add the strike water hotter than called for, let it drift down to strike temp while it preheats the tun, then add the grains.

I have an electric kettle (like this) that I heat up and dump into my empty cooler mash tun as a pre heat about 5 min before mash. It adds a quart of water

When I use a cooler MLT, I preheat the MLT by adding water at 180 degrees and letting it cool to the strike temperature. The cooler sucks a LOT of heat out immediately, and the temperature drops fast. In about 15 minutes, when I'm at strike temperature, I add the grains.

Yooper said:

When I use a cooler MLT, I preheat the MLT by adding water at 180 degrees and letting it cool to the strike temperature. The cooler sucks a LOT of heat out immediately, and the temperature drops fast. In about 15 minutes, when I'm at strike temperature, I add the grains.

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Yoop do you leave the cooler lid off or do you close it while preheating your mlt?

I preheat my cooler with water first then start heating my strike water. I dump out the preheat water once the strike water is ready then I dump in the strike water, grab my bucket with the crushed grains, then pour in slowly while stirring. I hit my mash temp nearly every time dead on. Once in a blue I'll be a degree or two low or high. I keep a tea kettle of boiled water ready so I can adjust up if necessary and if a little high I'll either add some water from the coldest my faucet gives or will simply stir it more to bring it down if only off a degree or two. Been working great this way for me.


Rev.

Thanks for the replies, My normal procedure was to add boiling water to the tun aka cooler, add the grains, then add the water per the temp suggested by brewers friend soft ware. My last couple of brews ended up low, and for some reason I could not raise the temp, without adding more water than i wanted too. So I am thinking water first might get me closer to the desired temp. Another quick question. Is there a time limit on letting the temp stabilize before attempting to raising the mash temp were the rise in temp would be harmful, or non beneficial?

I do as Rev2010 does but have been thinking about trying underletting of the grains when brewing solo. But not sure how my steel braid will like that and would likely still prehead my cooler mashtun.

In a past life I worked in a professional kitchen and currently produce chemicals. You should ALWAYS add solids to liquids while mixing. If nothing else, to avoid clumping (dough balls). You also have better control on temperature being able to add warmer or cooler liquid as you come closer to completion.

I use my BK as my mash tun. I preheat my water, add my two layer bag, (paint strainers) add in my grains while stirring and check temp. I usually hit 154*F dead on, but Thursday my temp settled at 156*F, and I let it go for 90 minutes. I use a clean trash can liner directly on the BK, followed by a small blanket, inside of a zipped up jacket. I only lost 1 degree in 90 minutes. I put the grain in the bag to lighten the BK when I lift it, as my BK doesn't have a drain, and reducing my lifting load by 20 pounds by taking the wet grain out first. I then vorlauf and sparge the grain in my Zapap tun. This last batch I got almost 80% efficiency, which was a pleasant surprise.

erick0619 said:

Yoop do you leave the cooler lid off or do you close it while preheating your mlt?

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On. Then it preheats the (hollow) lid also.

I always add water to my mashtun just as Yooper does at about 10 degrees above the strike temp. I then let it cool and add the grist when at the correct temp. I would never pour the dry grist into the mashtun and then add water. It would be hard if not impossible to get all of the grains wet in the bottom of the tun and I would worry about clogging the false bottom.

Looks like I'll try adding grains to water. I could have sworn I read water to grains in Palmer's book.

jzelina said:

Looks like I'll try adding grains to water. I could have sworn I read water to grains in Palmer's book.

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Yes, his books says that. I have no idea why, and he offered no explanation of it.

I too add grain to (overheated) water, same as Yooper and chick, to spite Palmers advice.

IIRC, Palmer does explain that the water over grist method is to prevent sudden temperature increases to the grain husks. He suggests that his method will minimize tannin extraction. EH!

Maybe he was referring to continuous sparge??

Here is a video of Mr Palmer doing a 10 gallon batch and batch sparge (adding grain to water).

I pre-heat my mash tun, heat my water to ~10F-15F above my mash temperature, add my grain and water additions, then add my water. I guess I'm the odd man out here. It works well for me. I'm usually dead on with my temperatures.

Grain to water here. same as most of the above. Strike water 10-15 above strike temps into the cold cooler. Throw the lid on to allow the cooler to heat all the way through. Then pull off the lid and stir til the water cools to the strike temp, then add grains. It is usually pretty close to mash temp, or only takes a little hot or cold water to bring it in.

I used to pour both the grain and water in at the same time, stop about halfway through and stir it, then dump the rest in and stir some more.
You really need a helper to do this properly, but I have done it by myself.
I decided to try to make my brewing easier and have switched to putting the water in first. If using a cooler, always pre-heat with hot water.
I use a web based strike water calculator I found here:

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

After reading Yoopers post, I'm switching to her method, it saves the time of pre heating the cooler, thanks Yoopers!

jzelina said:

Thanks for the replies, My normal procedure was to add boiling water to the tun aka cooler, add the grains, then add the water per the temp suggested by brewers friend soft ware. My last couple of brews ended up low, and for some reason I could not raise the temp, without adding more water than i wanted too. ....

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One alternative short of going electric, would be a version of decoction mashing. google it. Draw off small percentage of your wort and heat it to boil if necessary then add it back in place of excess water. It will heat up the mash and not dilute it. Yes you will stop the enzyme activity in the boiled wort, but that is why you only do a small percentage. Stick to 2 litre or less in a 5 gal batch.

Tuesday I made an "Irish American Stout" using the grains to water method. Only missed my mash temp (152) by one (151.) Plus my brew house efficiency went from 65-68 percent to 82. Plan is to tap this for St Patties day, if I can wait.

jzelina said:

Tuesday I made an "Irish American Stout" using the grains to water method. Only missed my mash temp (152) by one (151.) Plus my brew house efficiency went from 65-68 percent to 82. Plan is to tap this for St Patties day, if I can wait.

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Now that's what we're talking about!

Congrats and enjoy...