How often do you stir your mash?

I've only done one AG brew, and I was reading up a bit and have seen some who have built Mash tuns with motorized stir set ups. Got me thinking, my temps were off a bit, my efficiency was a little low. How does stirring effect the mash. should you stir constantly, or just every once and a while? what do all of you do?

Never. I just don't.

Every 15-20 minutes for me. I wind up doing a pretty thorough (lengthy) vorlauf in order to clear the runnings.

normally once, halfway through.

Ditto ..... halfway through I give a good stir with my spoon. I also use my thermometer probe and stir around when I am checking the temp. I don't know if it matters, but it makes me feel like I am doing something. -Dirk

I do it once per step and three times during lautering. I stir during steps, because I use steam to raise mash temps, so stirring prevents the grain that's in contact with the manifold from scorching and mixes things up so I get the next temp right. One stir right before vorlaughing (sp?). Then two stirs amongst the 3 batch sparges. That makes for a lot of vorloffing (I'll never be able to spell that right ) but that's more fun than standing around watching the pot boil anyways. Effeciency has been between 82% and 87%.

I mash, sparge, stir, settle and then vourlauf.

I stir at mash in and every 15 minutes thereafter. I let it sit for about 5 minutes before draining the tun.

I stir at dough-in quite a bit to get any dough-balls broken up. I don't stir again until it's time to vorlauf or after I add my batch sparges.

I stir at dough in and then recirculate. When I was doing it in my Coleman tun I stirred twice.

Twice, like mad at dough in and about 20 mins into the mash I give it a good stir. I usually mash for around 45 mins. And again after adding batch sparge water.

Kevin Dean said:

I mash, sparge, stir, settle and then vourlauf.

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Once at dough in, once about 15-20 min into the mash.
I am a batch sparger so one more time after I add my sparge water.

You might say that I don't stir at all. I stir at dough in, and before draining. Again when I add my sparge water, then again for a second batch sparge. (I do this to get an accurate amount into the boil kettle while leaving very little in the mash tun)

I tried stirring mid way through and didn't think it made any difference other than making the temperature drop more than it would have by not stirring.

schatzke said:

Once at dough in, once about 15-20 min into the mash.
I am a batch sparger so one more time after I add my sparge water.

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^^^This for a 60 minute mash. Additional stirs w/ 70-90 minute mashes.

I stir at dough in and that is all.

For 60 min mash BIAB, just at dough-in and at about 15-20 mins, to keep temps consistent. After that, no stirring as I figure most of the conversion is done anyway.

Dough in, 20 mins in, 40 mins in, right before draining. Has locked in my efficiency up to 1.065 at 83%

Dough-in, 20, 40, mash out

bonecitybrewco said:

Dough in, 20 mins in, 40 mins in, right before draining.

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Same thing...

Dough in, then every 20-30 minutes.

Dough-in, 15, 30, and 45.

Every 6.5 years. Bet the OP has this figured out by now.

Jtk78 said:

Every 6.5 years. Bet the OP has this figured out by now.

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Ha! amazing...

WaltG said:

Dough-in, 20, 40, mash out

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Yup same procedure I've always followed. If it aint broke......as the saying goes