adding grain to water......

I am starting to do partial mashes, and during my last one i pre-heated my cooler with some boiling water, let it cool down, then added tthe grain when it was at strike temp. Will this cause a problem?

Well, the grain is cooler than strike temp, so add the grain while the water is a few degrees above your target, or else you will miss low.

comj49 said:

I am starting to do partial mashes, and during my last one i pre-heated my cooler with some boiling water, let it cool down, then added tthe grain when it was at strike temp. Will this cause a problem?

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Well, since you did it, what was the temp of the mash after you put it into the strike water?

This is what I do, to make sure my tun gets pre-heated. I pay special attention to dough balls.

Basic concept is good...its easier to stir grain into the water, than water into the grain.

I would not use boiling water to preheat...most cooler insides aren't meant to hold water that hot...hell a lot of cooler liners warp a little at mash temps...let alone 212F.

you also need the water hotter than strike temp, since the grain is going to drop the temperature.

beersmith and promash both have calculators to help figure the temperature out...usually its 5-15F warmer than the desired strike temp.

the amount of headspace left also determines to a degree how much heat you might lose during the mash rest.

my 5 gal MLT loses less heat because there's almost no headspace left. my 10gal MLT loses several degrees, because I don't make real big beers so there's usually 3-4 gallons of headspace, filling with room temperature air before I put the lid back on, which then cools the mash a little.

Baron ken said:

Well, since you did it, what was the temp of the mash after you put it into the strike water?

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I got it close to 170 before i added the grain, and it came in a little high, close to 160, so i added some cold water to cool, and it dropped below 150, so i added some boiling water, and it stayed at 150, so i just left it alone....it wasn't a successful mash (only my second partial), but as long as i won't get any strange flavors with adding the grain first, i think it will be OK.

Just to clarify a bit of terminology. Strike temp IS the temp of the water as it accounts for any temp loss due to grain, etc. This shouldn't be confused with mash temp, equilized temp, or target temp. Example, you'd preheat with like 185F, let the cooler absorb heat and you can stir until you hit a strike temp of say 167F. Once you add your cold grain to that, you'll get an equilized mash temp of about 154ish. You might also be able to make your strike temp such that it accounts for grain temp loss AND mashtun heat absorbtion but you really have to know your equipment to make it work (or calibrate it through software over many batches).

Keep in mind that when you finally mix the grain with water, you want to give it a good 5 minutes before you try taking any corrective action. You likely added the cold water while the temp was still dropping.

Try the calculators on the left side of this site. You can put in the amount of grains, their temp, your desired temp and it will tell you how hot to heat your water.

http://www.tastybrew.com

Bobby_M said:

Just to clarify a bit of terminology. Strike temp IS the temp of the water as it accounts for any temp loss due to grain, etc. This shouldn't be confused with mash temp, equilized temp, or target temp. Example, you'd preheat with like 185F, let the cooler absorb heat and you can stir until you hit a strike temp of say 167F. Once you add your cold grain to that, you'll get an equilized mash temp of about 154ish. You might also be able to make your strike temp such that it accounts for grain temp loss AND mashtun heat absorbtion but you really have to know your equipment to make it work (or calibrate it through software over many batches).

Keep in mind that when you finally mix the grain with water, you want to give it a good 5 minutes before you try taking any corrective action. You likely added the cold water while the temp was still dropping.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the last tip, i didn't wait for the temp to equalize before i added cool water, i will defenitley do that next time.

a lot of the time, you can just stir it more to lower the temp, especially if its just a couple degrees too warm.

Yup... stirring with the lid open will drop the temp pretty quickly.