Is a mash-out necessary or a simple fly sparge will do?

I am wondering if between the conversion and the fly sparging....it is necessary to perform a "mash out" too? I have read somewhere that these are the 3 things to do:

1, 60 minute in the cooler (conversion)
2, 15 minute in the cooler for mash out
3, and finally the sparging.

I thought it was just step 1 and 3.

Thanks

I always do a mash out.

Some people skip the mash out and just sparge with really hot water. You risk extracting tannins and other flavors from the husk. Best to mash out and sparge with water around 168.

ioo said:

I always do a mash out.

Some people skip the mash out and just sparge with really hot water. You risk extracting tannins and other flavors from the husk. Best to mash out and sparge with water around 168.

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Thanks ioo. Can you tell me what the mash-out process is? I dont seem to find much info on it.

And you are saying 168 for sparge and mash-out. Is there a calculator what temperature I need for the actual mash tun for the 60 min mashing?

If you sparge with 160-170 degree water you'll be doing both. Hell I sparge with 175 just to make sure the first part gets the mash/water/grain up to temps.

Think about it... mash out involves bringing temps up to 168 or whatever you think is right...

How do you do that in a cooler??!!! Ya sparge with 175-180 degree water!!



Edit: Sorry I didn't specify... My answer to your question is to fly sparge with 170 water if you're worried about tannin extraction... 180 or so if ya ain't skerrd. Don't be skerrd. Sparging with 175+ is like squeezing the bag... you'll only get tannins in your mind.

Mash out is just adding some boiling water to raise the mash temp to around 168. That denatures all the enzymes in short order and locks in the profile of the wort. If you like your brews on the dry side, go ahead and skip it. The only thing that will happen without it is that you could end up with a slightly more fermentable wort.

Your sparge water is likely NOT going to raise the temp of your grain bed high enough to denature those enzymes quickly. Slowly trickling 175 degree water on a big mass of 150 degree grains just doesn't provide the same energy.

I sparge at 175 and have had no issues with hitting targets, extracting tannins etc.

A mash out is holding your mash in the high 160F to 170F area for a while before sparging to halt enzymatic activity in preparation for a long fly sparge. In non-heatable vessels, it's achieved by stirring in a volume of boiling water calculated to raise the mash to about 170F. It's also achieved by doing a final decoction, when you're using the decoction process (not something you do for your first AG batch !)

Once you do that, you can vorlauf and start fly sparging immediately.

It's a little tricky to calculate how much boiling water it will take, but there are online tools and standalone software to help figure it out. It's best to start with a relatively thick mash, something like 1.25qts/lb to allow for enough remaining water volume for the mashout addition and sparge.

Now, if you batch sparge, you really don't have to mash out and that's when you'd just crank the sparge temp into the 180's.