First AG - Grain first or strike water first?

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bearymore

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Tomorrow I plan to do my first AG. I'm using John Palmer's suggested recipe (Oak Butt Ale). According to his procedure, you would put the grain in the mash tun and then add the strike water a gallon at a time. On the other hand, at our club brew's AG class last week, we were told to add the water and then stir in the grain. My plan is not to pre-heat the mash tun and heat the strike water to 168 which according to Brewsmith should get me a mash temp of 152. In the class, our mentor added the 168 strike water, let it cool until it stabilized at, say, 160, and then added the grain a bit at a time stirring all the while.

Now to quote Palmer in "How to Brew", he says "You want to add the water to the grain, not the other way around." That doesn't leave much to interpretation.

Which will work best? :confused:
 
Either. I prefer water first. Not a big difference.

Remember to preheat the mashtun before adding your strike water.
 
I recommend adding the water to the tun before you add the grains for a couple of reasons. You can pre-heat the tun by heating the strike water to a few degrees above your desired temp. You then let it cool to the strike temperature and add the grains. This will help pre-heat the tun so you don't get too much heat loss. There are a lot of folks here who have fell short on there mash in temp because of the MLT absorbing too much heat from the water. The second reason to add the water first is you don't want dry grains and flour clogging your false bottom, manifold, or strainer. It will also be harder to wet the dry grains that are in the bottom of your tun.
 
I would preheat the tun as well. It will soak up some heat and you will likely miss your strike temp. It is better to be a little high and cool it than low and try to heat the whole thing up.

160 degress is to low to get a 152 mash temp too.
 
I preheat my mash tun with 165 F water, let it sit while I crush my grains and get my strike water up to temp. I over shoot my strike water by about 2-3 deg and bring it inside. I then dump out the pre-heat water in my tun, add my grains, and then add my strike water which has cooled down that extra 2-3 deg in that 2 minutes it takes me before I'm ready for it.

You don't have to pre-heat, but just know that once you mash in, it will take 5 minutes or so for the system to stabalize in temp as the mash tun "sucks up" some of that heat, so your initial temp reading will probably be high. Even pre-heating it takes a minute or two to get a constant reading as the grain comes up to temp takes a minute or two also. And take your reading at a couple of places as I seem to always get a couple deg difference at different spots.
 
I'm with the general consensus as well. Hot water first for heat sinking the cooler (if that's what your using). Your grain bill is obviously going to be colder (65-70) after you crush, so when that hits your water it's going to crash your temp in the tun. Gotta go higher (take notes..your equip differs) like 170 when the cooler is bigger.
Yesterday I did my 2nd AG and my strike water was 200... Left the lid on for 20min to build thermal heat while I ground grains. Opened lid, and let temp come down to 170 (15min), put grains in, and ended up with 154. recipe called for 60min at 150. Each time I cracked the lid open for stir I lost 2deg. So I hit it dead on after 2 stirs.
I have the BIG cooler
 
Just to be different, I add the grain and strike water at the same time. About 1g water first, then alternating with 1 qt grain, and enough water to get a good consistency.
FWIW, I used to not preheat the mash tun, but I needed strike water in the region of 182 - 185F to get the mash temperature up to 153 - 154 when using a water/grain ration of 0.9 - 1.0 qt. per lb.

-a.
 
Thanks for all the advice.

I ended up adding the strike water first at 168 per Beersmith. I covered the cooler and let it sit for 10 minutes. The temp was down to 164 which was the strike temp that Beersmith gave without accounting for equipment. I then stirred in the grain, covered and let it sit for 5 minutes. At that point I took the temp - 152 exactly! Just what the recipe called for.

Right now it's sitting in the tun. I'll take the temp after 20 min and see if I need to adjust. So far so good...
 
Thanks for all the advice.

I ended up adding the strike water first at 168 per Beersmith. I covered the cooler and let it sit for 10 minutes. The temp was down to 164 which was the strike temp that Beersmith gave without accounting for equipment. I then stirred in the grain, covered and let it sit for 5 minutes. At that point I took the temp - 152 exactly! Just what the recipe called for.

Right now it's sitting in the tun. I'll take the temp after 20 min and see if I need to adjust. So far so good...

That's how I do it. Works every time. You can then put some values in ProMash/etc and find the thermal mass of your MLT if you ever would need it.
 
Well, the brew is finished. I got 67% efficiency -- 6.5 gallons in the kettle and 5.1 in the fermenter. The OG was 1.052. The boil off was just as predicted, but I was about 1/2 gallon short in the kettle.

I think my efficiency was somewhat low because I opened the mash tun every 20 minutes during the mash and gave it a good stir (not vigorous enough to aerate, though). I think this lowered the temperature too much. It was down to 147 after 45 minutes. Since it lost only one degree in the 20 minutes before the first stir, I think my stirring brought the temp. down too low. Anyway, the beer is in the fermenter and I can already see a krausen forming after all of 3 1/2 hours. So things are going well so far.

Do most people stir during the mash more than once? What is the usual practice for a single infusion?

Here is the recipe:

8 lbs Pale Ale (Crisp) (4.0 SRM) Grain 71.11 %
2 lbs 8.0 oz Victory Malt (biscuit) (Briess) (28.0 SRM) Grain 22.22 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 4.44 %
4.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 2.22 %
0.50 oz Galena [12.20 %] (60 min) Hops 21.3 IBU
0.75 oz Willamette [4.60 %] (15 min) Hops 6.0 IBU

It is a slight adaptation of John Palmer's Oak Butt Brown Ale.
 
As soon as I hit the strike temp, I pull out my probe thermometer sensor and leave the lid shut for the entire mash. I have a Coleman Xtreme cooler that loses less than 1 degree in an hour, as long as I keep it completely sealed. I've also seen the same cooler lose 5 degrees in an hour if I leave the thermometer sensor in the whole time. Ouch.

As long as you stir well the first time and get all the dry pockets of grain broken up, it will be fine without stirring. I'd say let the temperature and moisture do its thing.
 
Thanks for all the advice.

I ended up adding the strike water first at 168 per Beersmith. I covered the cooler and let it sit for 10 minutes. The temp was down to 164 which was the strike temp that Beersmith gave without accounting for equipment. I then stirred in the grain, covered and let it sit for 5 minutes. At that point I took the temp - 152 exactly! Just what the recipe called for.

Right now it's sitting in the tun. I'll take the temp after 20 min and see if I need to adjust. So far so good...

Great job!!!! Now don't change a thing! :cross: It took me about 8 AG batches to get to where you got on your first one.

Of course, now I can do continuous batches, 5 gallons every 75 minutes indefinitely. Ahhh.. crappy efficiency and missed mash temps... those were the days. :fro:
 
I just did that recipe the other day, (I posted about the hot and cold break geting into the fermentor) anyway, I did the recipe exactly the way he said, added about a gallon of boiling water to preheat my tun let it sit a few minutes and poured it out, then i added 160 degree strike water, I hit 152 exactly and barely dropped any over the course of an hour, but i wouldnt recommend adding the boiling water bc it buckled up the bottom of my cooler pretty good, so I think i will try it your way next time
 

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