Missing mash out and sparge temps routinely....

I keep coming up short, like 4°F.

It could be my thermometer I realize, but I'm curious what are the side effects if I mash out at 166° and sparge at 166°F?

I realize if my thermo could be off I may actually be mashing higher and sparging correctly. Ugh.

How does one calibrate a thermometer?

Put it in boiling water and it should read 220 (I think) and water with a butt load of ice cubes should read 32 and then adjust accordingly

[quoteHow does one calibrate a thermometer?][/quote]

Without two other thermometers? Well, you can boil water and look up the boiling point of water for your elevation.

Mashing out at 170 is really just to make the sparge run smoother. 166 probably is fine and many people don't even mash out anymore. If the sparge is working and not sticking, you did fine. You are better off being low with the sparge water than high.

Put it in boiling water and it should read 220 (I think) and water with a butt load of ice cubes should read 32 and then adjust accordingly

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212...maybe 196 if you are in Denver.

pkeeler said:

[quoteHow does one calibrate a thermometer?]

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Without two other thermometers? Well, you can boil water and look up the boiling point of water for your elevation.

Mashing out at 170 is really just to make the sparge run smoother. 166 probably is fine and many people don't even mash out anymore. If the sparge is working and not sticking, you did fine. You are better off being low with the sparge water than high.[/QUOTE]

+1 IMO this is correct. AFAIK, very few of us are able to maintain the grain bed temp at 168-170F throughout the sparge. I know that I've never been able to do so and it seems to have had little or no negative effect.

Okay, I haven't had stuck sparges, so it's all good. No sense worrying about it then.

So, no mash out? Just sparging?

If you keep coming up short 4 degrees why don't you just start with water that is 4 degrees hotter?

petep1980 said:

Okay, I haven't had stuck sparges, so it's all good. No sense worrying about it then.

So, no mash out? Just sparging?

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I do a mash out, but I'm running a direct fired RIMS so it's easy to ramp up to the desired temps. You can also do a mash out when batch sparging either by adding boiling water or with a brief decoction. When using boiling water you must consider the volumes carefully in order to avoid excessive dilution of the wort. I am not a batch sparger, so I only have a general conception of how to go about this properly.

Are you using software?? I use beersmith, and my my numbers are always spot on.


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dzlater said:

If you keep coming up short 4 degrees why don't you just start with water that is 4 degrees hotter?

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I can have the volume to do that 210F water if I forego sparging. I gain like 19% eff with a sparge, so I would then need like 220F water for mash out to still sparge.

wildwest450 said:

Are you using software?? I use beersmith, and my my numbers are always spot on.


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Beersmith is exactly what I used. I am SPOT on with my mash in all the time.

petep1980 said:

I can have the volume to do that 210F water if I forego sparging. I gain like 19% eff with a sparge, so I would then need like 220F water for mash out to still sparge.

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Maybe I'm a little confused
is the problem is that the mashout water won't fit in your mash tun?

dzlater said:

Maybe I'm a little confused
is the problem is that the mashout water won't fit in your mash tun?

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The only way I can cool indoors within reason is to use top off water, so I need to do kind of martial mashes and top off like 2 gallons chilled water.


Today 8.5# grain.. I want to collect 4 gallons, .5gallon deadspace.
Mash in: 10.63qts @ 165 = 151F...perfect
Mash out: 7 qts @ 210 = 166.
Sparge: 6qts @ 185 = 166.

Beersmith used those volumes and called for
Mash in: 165
Mash out: 200.5
Sparge: 168

So I plowed through their temps and still came up short. Rather than figure out what's happening, I want to know if it's really worth it to solve.

You know what, forget it. Tomorrow my semester begins, so my next batch will prolly be outside on my solved system in months.

Thanks for the input.

Beersmith is exactly what I used. I am SPOT on with my mash in all the time.

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I know some people think beersmith is magical; and it would have to be to make up for a uncalibrated thermometer ;-)