Dough-in procedure

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larrybrewer

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I was wondering how people like to dough-in. What do you add to the empty mash/lauter tun first, grains or water?

Just curious how other people do it, and if there is a preference.
 
Add water, add grain, stir. If there's a lot of grain, I'll break it up. In lower gravity beer, I will just add it all at once, but I find it is best to srit solid into liquid.
 
Water first. Aside from what has already been said, I find that in very cold weather as we've had lately it is easier to adjust the temperature of the strike water accurately in the MLT rather than in the pot.
 
I add a couple of gallons of near boiling water, let it sit for about 20 minutes, then dump it.

Then, I add my grains, then about a third of my strike water. Stir, then add the rest of the water, then stir well to make sure of no dough balls.

Using various mash calculators and pre-heating, I hit my target temp within a degree.
 
On my Brew-Magic the suggested method is to;

Add cold foundation water to MLT (that is, fill the deadspace).
Add grain.
Backfill MLT to 1-2" above grain bed.
Rest for 5 minutes.
Stir to eliminate dough-balls.
Heat and recirculate until desired rest temp is achieved.


It's a little un-orthodox but, I like it. Still working out the efficiencies.
 
On my Brew-Magic the suggested method is to;

Add cold foundation water to MLT (that is, fill the deadspace).
Add grain.
Backfill MLT to 1-2" above grain bed.
Rest for 5 minutes.
Stir to eliminate dough-balls.
Heat and recirculate until desired rest temp is achieved.


It's a little un-orthodox but, I like it. Still working out the efficiencies.

You are fly sparging with a HERMS set up? If not, that sounds very tricky.
 
You are fly sparging with a HERMS set up? If not, that sounds very tricky.

Close enough. It's a RIMS and yes, I am still working out the sparge volumes. On average this meathod seems to yield a strike of 1.3 to 1.4 qts/lb.

The thing I like most about this is that it;

- Free's me from waiting for the HLT to heat for strike.
- Does take the grain bed through other, mostly unnecessary rest periods.

I have found that with this my beers are crystal clear but, my efficiencies have swung wildly. 78% to 65%. It's to do with sparge volumes. I screwed up my sparge on the last brew.
 
Having a keggle MLT, I heat the strike water in the MLT, then add the grain slowly, in maybe 5 batches, stirring away any dough balls at the time I am adding each grain addition. When it is saturated and consistent, I add more grain, but I do make fairly large beers.

Keggle MLT=no preheating.
 
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