Partial Mash Sparge Temp

Hello all,
I've got my first partial mash brew day coming up soon and I'm still not settled on what temp to heat my sparge water to. I'm planning on using a second pot for the sparge and just dunking the grain bag in for 10 minutes (as in DeathBrewer's tutorial). However, while DeathBrewer simply says heat to 160, other threads I've searched say a range of values from 160-180. Other's claim that it's necessary to calculate a target temp of 170, etc. As I understand it, the 170F to "mash out" isn't necessary since I'm just pulling the bag out afterwards, not draining for an hour. This being the case, why would I not just aim for sparging at the same temp I mashed at?

Thanks

Don't make it hard on yourself! Mash around 153F and sparge with 170F+ water. This will rinse all the cooler water, sugar, and flavor from your grain. This should work for all grain and can be used as your universal partial mash schedule. And you can always tweak and tune it. Just keep it easy for yourself!

Isn't the rule not to exceed 170F though? The grains are going to sit in the sparge water for 10 minutes, so wouldn't tannin extraction be a problem?

Well, the grains will be sitting in 170f water that is quickly cooling down. Long as you don't exceed 170f you'd be fine

With only hot water tannins don't seem to be a problem like traditional brewers talk about. HOT water and a pH problem, different story. I have plenty of brewing buddys who practice sparging with boiling water (200F-212F) with no tannin issues. On my last sprage my L/T got up to 187Fish and no tannin issues. Long story short, with that amount of grain and that short time, you have nothing to worry about. Just go for it. Keep it easy and keep to your learning curve!

frozt said:

Isn't the rule not to exceed 170F though? The grains are going to sit in the sparge water for 10 minutes, so wouldn't tannin extraction be a problem?

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Assuming you are doing a psuedo mini batch sparge, the sparge water temp makes no difference whatsoever. Also, if that is the case there is no need to wait ten minutes. All you are doing is rinsing the grains in order to get the remaining sugars in solution. Then you drain. No need to wait. Temp doesn't matter.