Raising GrainBed temperature during batch sparge

I am still fairly new to brewing, I think I have done about 6 AG batches now.

Now that I have my procedure more or less down pat I am looking around to areas I can improve.

The first is during my batch sparge. I am having trouble raising the grain bed temperature up to the recommended 168 for the mashout.

I am currently mashing in a large rubbermaid extreme cooler. I have tried adding basically boiling water during my first sparge rinse to try to raise the grain bed to 168 and just can't seem to get it there. The most recent brew I got the bed temperature up to about 160. Which after 150 F mash that didn't seem like too much.

Is it unreasonable to expect being able to do this with my setup? Would I really have to have a mash tun I could apply heat directly too, rather than just adding hot water?

This forum has been a wealth of information for my brewing.

Thanks!

Do you double batch sparge? After I've drained my first runnings, I add about 195F degree water (usually twice, ~2 gallons of water each time) and am able to get my grain bed up to 168F.

Brett3rThanU said:

Do you double batch sparge? After I've drained my first runnings, I add about 195F degree water (usually twice, ~2 gallons of water each time) and am able to get my grain bed up to 168F.

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I usually do a double batch. Typically it's ~ 2 gallons per sparge. I usually only add 170 water for the second one, I guess I should bump that up higher. I thought that you were supposed to raise the temperature of the grain bed prior to that second running.

At 185f, you should see about 163 after the first and 169ish after the second. Just to make sure, you are draining the tun before adding the sparge right? After adding the sparge you stir like mad right?

Definitely raise your sparge water temperature. After trial and error I found 190-195F sparge water to be my sweet spot to get the grain bed as close to 170F as possible, but your results may vary. Usually the first batch sparge I get the grain bed to about 160F, then the second puts me in the upper 160's. The reasoning behind this is because hotter water can pull out more of the sugars in the grain bed.

Are you thinking of a mashout? A mashout is where you add very hot water to the grain bed prior to sparging to get the grain bed as close to 170F as possible, then proceed with the double batch sparge.

Brett3rThanU said:

Are you thinking of a mashout? A mashout is where you add very hot water to the grain bed prior to sparging to get the grain bed as close to 170F as possible, then proceed with the double batch sparge.

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I guess this is what I was thinking of. Is this possible with the cooler mash tun setup?

So the most important part is by the second sparge addition to get the grainbed to that 168 mark? If that's the case I am most likely OK. I thought you should be able to get the grainbed that high after the first addition of hot hot water.

Bobby_M said:

After adding the sparge you stir like mad right?

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Should we stir like mad right at the beginning of adding the sparge water? I thought we weren't supposed to disrupt the grain bed at this point?

dmbnpj said:

Should we stir like mad right at the beginning of adding the sparge water? I thought we weren't supposed to disrupt the grain bed at this point?

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Sure, you stir like mad. That's the point of a batch sparge- to "knock out" the suspended sugars and get them into the liquid. You also want to equalize the temperature, so that you don't have it 190 degrees in one spot and 147 degrees in another. Stir well, so that the temperature equalizes and the grain/water mixture becomes pretty fluid before proceeding.

For fly (continuous sparging), you don't want to disturb the grainbed since it's the "filter" during the sparge. But for batch sparging, you fully empty the MLT after each addition. You stir well, stop stirring and vorlauf, then drain. Add the second round and repeat.

Right. Stir a lot, just like you do when you first mix the grain in.

Hello, sorry to post under an old topic but was just reading it and don't fully understand something. I thought sparging with hot water above 170 will extract tannins. How does adding 190+ water to get the grainbed temp up to 170 not extract tannins?

The temp equalizes down under 170F in less than a minute if you stir well. No problem. Also, this tannin extraction thing only happens when the pH falls way out of range due to an oversparging or water profile issue.

Right at the end of the mash and before draining any runnings, I'll pull a gallon or so of mash and bring it to a boil. Then I add it back a little at a time and stir bringing the mash up into the high 160's. I might have a couple of cups of boiled mash left that I set aside. The mash should seem noticeably more liquid. Then it's valve wide open to the pot. For subsequent batches, I add ~190F sparge water and stir like crazy.