BIAB.....Best place to measure mash temp?

I BIAB with a 44 qt Bayou Classic pot with the matching SS basket.

My bag drapes the inside of my basket, basket into the strike water, mash in into the bag.

The basket rests 3 inches above the bottom of the pot. Mash in temp isn't a problem, since I measure the water temp before mashing in. However, I have a question about mashout temps.

I was doing my 4th BIAB yesterday, was on my mashout, had my thermometer in the middle of the mash grains reading about 162 on its way to my 170 mashout, when the liquid layer in the 3 inches below my basket started to boil.

So my question is, if the middle of the grain is 162, but the wort immediately outside the grain is 212, do I still wait for the middle of the mash grain to reach 170 for mashout?

I think my biggest issue was that I had too much heat on, and should slow it down in the future, but just wanted to see what everyone thought. In this particular case, I took it off the heat and the middle of my mash grains got to about 167 over 10 minutes, so I considered that my mashout and was done. I was a little worried about tannins, but doubt much could have happened in the short amount of time the wort was boiling (about 45 seconds).

I add boiling water (calculated amount) to mash-out by bringing the whole mash volume up to 168 at the same time. Given that the whole idea is to denature proteins, I would think the whole mash should be at 168 to be safe. I suppose that if you must use direct heat, just make sure that you stir as aggressively as you can and (as you said) heat more slowly, to bring the whole mash up to 168.

Having said that I would also wonder (as you mentioned) that your current process might extract tannins from the portion of the mash with a significantly higher mash temp. But this is based soley on reading - I've never experienced tannin extraction (yet).

I haven't had any off flavors at all in my first three BIAB batches, so no tannin issues thus far. I stepped away from the direct heat mashout, and certainly wasn't stirring, so that might have been my issue. I don't remember if I tended to the mashout before or not, but since they were some of my first attempts, I bet I was more attentive and jsut got a bit lazy/cocky on this last one.

+1 on stirring really well during mashout. It will help more sugar to get into the liquid and will even out the temps in your kettle.

Consider adding a pump for recirculation which will help solve the temperature differential. At the very least if you have a valve at the bottom you can manually drain a quart at a time and pour over the grains to help equalize.

samc said:

Consider adding a pump for recirculation which will help solve the temperature differential. At the very least if you have a valve at the bottom you can manually drain a quart at a time and pour over the grains to help equalize.

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+1 I have a valve and use a pitcher to recirc a few quarts, evens the temp out very quickly. I'd recommend you do this when you are mashing too.

I pull the bag, let it drain while I heat the wort to strike temp, then drop the bag back in. I also use a strainer basket but pull the bag out of it for this step because I set it in a 5 gallon bucket and add 2 more gallons of sparge water.