Quick Batch Sparge Question

Hey y'all. I've been doing extract batches for 2 or 3 years and I'm planning on doing my first all grain brew day next week. I've been reading up on all the great advice here, but I'm a bit confused on something. I plan on doing a mash at 153 F and then a single batch sparge. But I'm not sure what temperature I should sparge at. I see 170 F listed in a lot of places, but does that mean my water should be 170 F before I add it to the grist, or should the grist be at 170 F after I add the water meaning my water should be somewhere in the 175 F range before I add it? I understand some people say tannin extraction is a concern at temps over 170 F.

I have a 10 gallon round igloo cooler for a mash tun with an 11 gallon brew pot and propane burner. Any other advice is appreciated.

The sparge water should be 185F ballpark.

Hot. It's good if it's hot*. Beyond that, it doesn't really matter much. Theoretically, it's best if your water is ~185ish to bring the grain temp up to ~170ish, but the difference in efficiency between 150 and 170 is small - well within most people's margin of error.

So just get it hot and spend your effort elsewhere.

*But it'll still work with cold water.

Awesome. Thanks guys.

Closer to 170F is the best target. This temp will avoid tannin extraction. And the higher temp will make the mash less viscous, allowing more extraction of the sugar and thus better efficiency. To reach 170F exactly you'll need to do some calculations. Most brewing software will do this, but I usually just add my sparge water between 175-180F.

As mentioned cold water works too. I usually heat mine to 150+ just cause things seem to flow a little better hot, but I have used cold water without issue. You don't really have to worry about mashout when batch sparging because its over quickly and you're boiling before there would be an issue. I don't think too hot would be much of a risk either for the same reason, its not sitting in there steeping, its just a quick rinse.

Okay, so I've done a search and found some other threads that address this. I feel like now I know "what" to do, but now I want to understand "why". I'm an engineer. It's just my nature.

I had originally thought you were raising the mash up to 170 F in order to activate different enzymes and increasing your efficiency. But from what I gather, you're raising the temperature to stop the enzymes from breaking down the starches and stabilizing the wort until you can get it up to a boil. Is this accurate? If so, is there a minimum temperature (say 160 F) you need to achieve to denature the enzymes?

masonsjax said:

As mentioned cold water works too. I usually heat mine to 150+ just cause things seem to flow a little better hot, but I have used cold water without issue. You don't really have to worry about mashout when batch sparging because its over quickly and you're boiling before there would be an issue. I don't think too hot would be much of a risk either for the same reason, its not sitting in there steeping, its just a quick rinse.

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+1

I read on HBT all the time how sparging with ~170+ water somehow increases your efficiency. I've never seen that. I've sparged with hot tap water and my efficiency remains unchanged. The only reason I heat my sparge water is that it leaves the mash tun hot(ter) and I spend less time waiting for my collected wort to boil.

I use 168, and certainly no more than 170.

AngerManagement said:

I use 168, and certainly no more than 170.

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See, that contradicts what was said earlier about using 185 F water. Please explain why?

Phyrst said:

I had originally thought you were raising the mash up to 170 F in order to activate different enzymes and increasing your efficiency. But from what I gather, you're raising the temperature to stop the enzymes from breaking down the starches and stabilizing the wort until you can get it up to a boil. Is this accurate? If so, is there a minimum temperature (say 160 F) you need to achieve to denature the enzymes?

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You're right. A "mashout" does two things, neither of which offer much benefit for batch spargers:

• Denature enzymes to "lock in" your sugar profile
• Sugar solubility increases with temp - so more sugar can be dissolved.

With batch sparging, most people stick their first runnings on the boil right away, and you're done within 10 mins, so the denaturing already happens pretty quick, thus a "mashout" is unnecessary. With fly sparging, where you may sparge over an hour or so, it matters more.

The effect of the sugar solubility on efficiency is small, and generally not worth the effort to calculate. Definitely understand the math/engineer mind that wants to optimize...so do it a few times and measure precisely how much of a difference it makes. I'll be shocked if it's statistically significant.

Phyrst said:

Okay, so I've done a search and found some other threads that address this. I feel like now I know "what" to do, but now I want to understand "why". I'm an engineer. It's just my nature.

I had originally thought you were raising the mash up to 170 F in order to activate different enzymes and increasing your efficiency. But from what I gather, you're raising the temperature to stop the enzymes from breaking down the starches and stabilizing the wort until you can get it up to a boil. Is this accurate? If so, is there a minimum temperature (say 160 F) you need to achieve to denature the enzymes?

Click to expand...

TyTanium said:

You're right. A "mashout" does two things, neither of which offer much benefit for batch spargers:

• Denature enzymes to "lock in" your sugar profile
• Sugar solubility increases with temp - so more sugar can be dissolved.

With batch sparging, most people stick their first runnings on the boil right away, and you're done within 10 mins, so the denaturing already happens pretty quick, thus a "mashout" is unnecessary. With fly sparging, where you may sparge over an hour or so, it matters more.

The effect of the sugar solubility on efficiency is small, and generally not worth the effort to calculate. Definitely understand the math/engineer mind that wants to optimize...so do it a few times and measure precisely how much of a difference it makes. I'll be shocked if it's statistically significant.

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Exactly! The purpose of a "mash out" is to preserve the mash profile by denaturing the enzymes. In a Fly sparge (continuous sparge), it takes up to an hour or more to sparge. So, a mash out brings the wort and the grainbed up to 168, to stop the action of the enzymes.

For a batch sparge, that's not necessary as it's much quicker and the first runnings are generally set on to boil right away. It certainly can be done, but the benefits listed for a fly sparge aren't as important with a batch sparge.

Phyrst said:

See, that contradicts what was said earlier about using 185 F water. Please explain why?

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To avoid tannins and possible astringency.

AngerManagement said:

To avoid tannins and possible astringency.

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The issue is that people take shortcuts when responding to questions like this. I do it too because the questions are repeated so often.

I'm going to assume your shorthand answers apply to you because you fly sparge and somehow acheive mashout temps with a pre-sparge infusion or direct fire. In that case, the sparge water would match the current mash temp; 170F.

In batch sparging, you generally skip the mashout and therefore the mash is still sitting at 155F or so when the sparge is introduced. If you use 185F, the equilibrated temp directly after stirring is much lower than 170F and tannin extraction is a complete non issue.

Efficiency gains by going hot are most likely realized due to its correcting a non-complete sacc rest process. If you don't see efficiency increases it means your process is already good for a near 100% conversion.

In any case, and it's already been mentioned, at the very least your derived preboil wort will be closer to boiling if your sparge is as hot as practical (i.e. 185-190F).

Even in fly sparging when your mash sits at 170F after mashout, the sparge can afford to be 175F in anticipation of heat loss over 50 minutes of sparging.


I read in the OP that he's batch sparging and therefore felt confident that my answer of 185F ballpark was enough info for him.

Have been wondering the same things (coming from the same engineer mindset). Am pretty sure I will be batch sparging for my first AG batch and have been worrying about whether I need to do a mash out, what sparge temp to use, etc.

Thanks for those explanations on the process and what is going on with the enzymes, makes a lot more sense now. As long as I'm going right to boil the temp of the sparge water is more for maximizing the solubility of the sugars so they come out in the wort, the enzyme action will be taken care of by the fact that it is going right to the BK, which will be bringing up the first runnings to boil as I'm sparging. Now I just have to worry about coming up with the right volume to compensate for a 90 minute boil, since I'll be using a piils malt.

hmmmm... I was fly sparging for 45 minutes at 168F over a 152F grain bed (28lbs of grain - 15 gallon batch - 14 gallons of sparge water). Usually hit my OG of 1.048 with no problem with 11.5 gallons of 164F strike water (2 gallon dead space below false bottom) - 60 minute mash.

I guess I will try the pushing my sparge water up to 180F and see if I can get the grain bed up to 170F. The current 168F gets it up to 159F or so...

FredTheNuke said:

hmmmm... I was fly sparging for 45 minutes at 168F over a 152F grain bed (28lbs of grain - 15 gallon batch - 14 gallons of sparge water). Usually hit my OG of 1.048 with no problem with 11.5 gallons of 164F strike water (2 gallon dead space below false bottom) - 60 minute mash.

I guess I will try the pushing my sparge water up to 180F and see if I can get the grain bed up to 170F. The current 168F gets it up to 159F or so...

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If you re fly sparging, I think it would be more practical to mashout first. Get the grainbed up to temps, and then sparge the same way you were doing before. Batch sparging is what requires hotter sparge water.

Not to mention, if your hitting your gravities without issue, then your sparge is already working so there's no need to change you methodology.

I'm trying to get the benefit of denaturing the enzymes whatever that may be. I do not have a burner under my MLT - I recirc my mash via a heat exchanger (50ft wort "cooler" that I re-purposed) in the HLT to maintain the 152F grain bed.

i usually get my sparge water to about 180ish

pH is the real villain in tannin extraction, not temp. If your pH is in line, temp doesn't really matter. If it did, we couldn't do decoction mashes where you boil the grain. That works becasue the pH is low.