Mash out / sparging

Doing my first all grain batch and want to make sure I have an understanding of how to mash out and sparge correctly.

So after mashing for 60 minutes @ lets say 152 I pour a few pitchers till it starts to run clean and pour it back in the mash tun then drain everything into my boil kettle?

Then add 190-200 degree water to the grain to bring it to around 170 and let sit for 10 minutes? So I mix the grain around in the water when I add it?

After 10 minutes drain a few pitchers till runs clean clear then start to sparge?

If I fly sparge will I slowly add 170 degree water keeping it about an inch above the grain bed while slowly draining into my brew kettle?

Thanks

02stangguy said:

Doing my first all grain batch and want to make sure I have an understanding of how to mash out and sparge correctly.

So after mashing for 60 minutes @ lets say 152 I pour a few pitchers till it starts to run clean and pour it back in the mash tun then drain everything into my boil kettle?

Then add 190-200 degree water to the grain to bring it to around 170 and let sit for 10 minutes? So I mix the grain around in the water when I add it?

After 10 minutes drain a few pitchers till runs clean clear then start to sparge?

If I fly sparge will I slowly add 170 degree water keeping it about an inch above the grain bed while slowly draining into my brew kettle?

Thanks

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That's about it in a nutshell, except the highest recommended temperature of the sparge water is about 170. The combination of higher temp and higher pH in the grain bed can cause tannin extraction.

You can vary the batch sparge process a bit. You can, if you have the room, add your sparge water to your mash before draining, thereby possibly making the run-off thinner and easier flowing, but also leaving a bit more sugar behind. This is a mash-out, and it is supposed to raise the temperature of the wort high enough to lock down the enzymes. It's hardly a concern for batch spargers, so I don't know anyone who does it. You can safely sparge at that temp because the pH of the mash is still pretty low.

IF you vorlauf, remember to pour it back into the mash tun gently so as to not disturb the grain bed that's acting like a filter. I sometimes use a Tupperware container lid or something similar, and place that on top of the mash. I pour the first portion of the collected wort on top of that so it hits the mash more gently.

Homercidal said:

IF you vorlauf, remember to pour it back into the mash tun gently so as to not disturb the grain bed that's acting like a filter. I sometimes use a Tupperware container lid or something similar, and place that on top of the mash. I pour the first portion of the collected wort on top of that so it hits the mash more gently.

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Pro tip: After you dough-in, cover your grain bed with a sheet of aluminum foil, and poke a dozen or so holes in it randomly (I use the thermometer probe that came with my turkey fryer set). This does 2 things:

1.) It helps the grain bed hold its temperature, particularly if you're using a cooler with a lot of unused headspace above the grain bed.

2.) It allows you to return the vorlaufed wort to the mash without disturbing the grain bed. The wort hits the foil instead, spreading out and gently draining down through the holes you punched.

Thanks fellas. Always getting some quick good advice from these forums!

It took me a few batches to learn what temp to add my batch sparge water at in order to hit the 168-170 mash out. On my system, if the grain bed is at ~130, I need to heat my sparge water to ~180 to get hit the mash out temp of 168. It's all about learning your system.. but yeah, it seems like you get the gist of it.

02stangguy said:

Doing my first all grain batch and want to make sure I have an understanding of how to mash out and sparge correctly.

So after mashing for 60 minutes @ lets say 152 I pour a few pitchers till it starts to run clean and pour it back in the mash tun then drain everything into my boil kettle?

Then add 190-200 degree water to the grain to bring it to around 170 and let sit for 10 minutes? So I mix the grain around in the water when I add it?

After 10 minutes drain a few pitchers till runs clean clear then start to sparge?

If I fly sparge will I slowly add 170 degree water keeping it about an inch above the grain bed while slowly draining into my brew kettle?

Thanks

Click to expand...

If you are going to fly sparge, you do NOT drain the mash tun before mash out or sparging (otherwise you are just doing a modified batch sparge.) No need to vorlauf prior to adding the mash out water, just add enough boiling water to bring the mash up to 170˚F, mix and let sit for 10 minutes. Now do your vorlauf, and then drain the MLT until you have 1"-2" inches of water left above the grain bed. Now start adding your sparge water at a rate equal to your run off rate, and sparge till you get your desired pre-boil volume, or your run off SG drops to about 1.009, whichever comes first. Run off rate during the sparge should be no faster than 5 - 6 minutes per gallon, or you could adversely affect your efficiency.

You might want to consider a batch sparge for your first all grain, as it is a simpler process, and you have enough new things to worry about without having to deal with a fly sparge. Up to you. If you decide to do a batch sparge, just mash in with half of your total water (target pre-boil volume + expected grain absorption.) Grain absorption will be about 0.12 gal/lb of grain. Don't worry about mash thickness (water to grain ratio) when batch sparging. A thinner mash (higher water to grain ratio) converts faster than a thicker mash (ref: http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Efficiency#Mash_thickness) so will likely improve your efficiency. When the mash is finished, give it a good stir, vorlauf till clear, and then run off as fast as your MLT will drain into the BK. Then add the second half of your water, stir vigorously for five minutes, vorlauf until clear, and then run off as fast as your MLT will drain into the BK. You can start heating your BK as soon as you get a few inches of wort into it during initial run off. No need to mash out, since you start heating to a boil right away, and the mash doesn't sit around as long as it would with a fly sparge.

Brew on

I have a very difficult time raising the temp of my mash to 170 while fly sparging. I can literally fly sparge with boiling water and my mash temp will get up to the 155-160 range at best.

So, here's my process. Mash at prescribed temp for prescribed time. Then add boiling water to the mash in an amount calculated to raise the mash temp to 168F and let it sit for 10 min. THEN vorlauf, drain first runnings and begin your fly sparge with 170F water.

A couple of points to make. Mash out is just to shut down conversion and "lock in" your mash profile so your mash doesn't keep converting during the long fly sparge process. In other words, you don't need a mash out if you are batch sparging since it doesn't take as long. Also, my understanding is that you will only extract tannins during your sparge if your mash pH is >6 AND your mash temp gets above ~170F. That's why it is a good idea to adjust your sparge pH to <6 for sparging.

Tha is for the advice everyone. I think ill try batch sparking for the first time. Just need to make me a wart chiller and Im ready to go!

Anybody have any advise for those of us fly sparging?

HiImBrian said:

Anybody have any advise for those of us fly sparging?

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It's was laid out pretty well already in the OP, just re-order some things:

02stangguy said:

After mashing, add 190-200 degree (boiling) water to the grain to bring it to around 170 and let sit for 10 minutes. Mix the grain around in the water when I add it.

After 10 minutes drain a few pitchers till runs clean clear (vorlauf) then start to sparge.

If I fly sparge will I slowly add 170 degree water keeping it about an inch above the grain bed while slowly draining into my brew kettle (until you reach your preboil gravity or your runnings drop to about 1.010).

Click to expand...

stpug said:

It's was laid out pretty well already in the OP, just re-order some things:

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Just draining 170F water on top of the mash will never bring the total temp of the mash to 170F. I was curious to know how people incorporate a mash out into the fly sparge technique. Up to this point, I don't see how it's possible.

I only did my first fly sparge last weekend, so take this for what it's worth.

At the end of my mash, I started draining the wort and fly sparging with 200° F water. I had assumed that as this water made its way down through the grain bed, it would effectively denature the enzymes. I heated the runnings in the kettle as they were being collected. It hadn't occurred to me to dump in a bunch of boiling water and stir it, nor do I even now think it would really make that much of a difference. But as I'm quite new to the practice, I'm curious to hear the insight of others with more experience on the topic.

HiImBrian said:

Just draining 170F water on top of the mash will never bring the total temp of the mash to 170F. I was curious to know how people incorporate a mash out into the fly sparge technique. Up to this point, I don't see how it's possible.

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Again, it was pretty well addressed in the OP with just a few adjustments to the order. Here, read again:

02stangguy said:

After mashing, add 190-200 degree (boiling) water to the grain to bring it to around 170 and let sit for 10 minutes. Mix the grain around in the water when I add it.

After 10 minutes drain a few pitchers till runs clean clear (vorlauf) then start to sparge.

If I fly sparge will I slowly add 170 degree water keeping it about an inch above the grain bed while slowly draining into my brew kettle (until you reach your preboil gravity or your runnings drop to about 1.010).

Click to expand...

i never mash out, i just move on the the sparging. i dont see a point in mashing out. its just supposed to stop the conversion from starches to sugars so who cares if that continues to happen when you sparge.

stpug said:

Again, it was pretty well addressed in the OP with just a few adjustments to the order. Here, read again:

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No need to be rude my friend. Yes I read what you quoted and what you have highlighted sounds a lot like batch sparging to me. My question was regarding fly sparging. If I brew a full 10 gallon batch, I may not have room to add a ton of hot water to my mash. This is part of why I chose to fly sparge.

HiImBrian said:

No need to be rude my friend. Yes I read what you quoted and what you have highlighted sounds a lot like batch sparging to me. My question was regarding fly sparging. If I brew a full 10 gallon batch, I may not have room to add a ton of hot water to my mash. This is part of why I chose to fly sparge.

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Not trying to be rude, just highlighting the section that details the answer to your question. That hot infusion is not batch sparging, it is mashing out. This is what you would do prior to fly/continuous sparging, or for any other reason you might want to halt enzymatic activity.

Other options to reach mashout temps include: direct heat or decoctions. If you cannot directly heat the mash then you can pull a thin decoction in the appropriate amount to reach mashout temps, heat to boiling, and add back to your MLT to reach mashout temps without requiring additional space. HOWEVER, most folks use the boiling water infusion mashout method unless they have direct-heating available as an option.

Edit: You can even skip the mashout when flysparging if you're draining into a BK that's directly fired since you will be able to quickly halt the enzymatic activity in the BK.

There are lots of ways to skin this cat (if the cat even needs to be skinned )

+1 for stpug. I think there is some confusion here between mash out and fly sparging. They are two distinct and separate things. Read my previous post and you'll see that the mash out is an infusion of boiling (or near boiling) water that raises the grain temp to 168 to stop conversion (I'll touch on that below). Pour that water into your mash, stir it up and let it sit for a bit to bring the grain bed temp up. Now you can vorlauf and start draining your first runnings. Then when you start your fly sparge, your grain bed is already at 168 so you just need your sparge water at that temp to hold it steady.

The reason you may want to stop conversion (i.e. mash out) is if you are shooting for a specific fermentability. If you don't do a mash out and conversion continues throughout your fly sparge (possibly another 30 min or more) you may end up with more sugars in the wort which may make it more fermentable and change the profile of the style you were going for. Maybe you were brewing a stout that you wanted to have some sweetness and a fuller body. More sugars and more fermentability may dry it out and give you a lower FG than you wanted.

I'm sure there are styles where a mash out may not be necessary or even desirable before you fly sparge. Hell, it may all be a giant hoax but what I just described is the theory as I understand it anyway. Another thing I like about a mash out is that it is almost like a kind of batch sparge before your fly sparge so you are getting the most out of your grain. Isn't it fun being brew geeks

From the inventor of batch sparging:

http://dennybrew.com/

funnelweb said:

From the inventor of batch sparging:

http://dennybrew.com/

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The link you posted hasn't been updated since 2008. More recently [08-13-2015], Denny had this to say:

Denny said:

I no longer recommend that method. Increase the amount of mash water so you get approximately 1/2 your total boil volume from the mash. Get the rest of your boil volume from the sparge.

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Which is essentially the same recommendation I made earlier in this thread w.r.t. batch sparging.

Brew on

doug293cz said:

The link you posted hasn't been updated since 2008. More recently [08-13-2015], Denny had this to say:


Which is essentially the same recommendation I made earlier in this thread w.r.t. batch sparging.

Brew on

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Thanks mate, but wondering why the heck Denny's not updating as he should know a lot of brewers are visiting his site???

kombat said:

Pro tip: After you dough-in, cover your grain bed with a sheet of aluminum foil, and poke a dozen or so holes in it randomly (I use the thermometer probe that came with my turkey fryer set). This does 2 things:

1.) It helps the grain bed hold its temperature, particularly if you're using a cooler with a lot of unused headspace above the grain bed.

2.) It allows you to return the vorlaufed wort to the mash without disturbing the grain bed. The wort hits the foil instead, spreading out and gently draining down through the holes you punched.

Click to expand...

Would this depend on the amount of head space in the mash tun? I haven't had any problems with temperature drops in my mash tun, so I'm curious if this is something I should be doing.

funnelweb said:

Thanks mate, but wondering why the heck Denny's not updating as he should know a lot of brewers are visiting his site???

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Because I've been too freakin busy writing books and travelling around the world giving seminars! &#128516;. An update is in the works.

rje45 said:

Would this depend on the amount of head space in the mash tun? I haven't had any problems with temperature drops in my mash tun, so I'm curious if this is something I should be doing.

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If you're batch sparging, you want to disturb the grain bed.

stpug said:

Again, it was pretty well addressed in the OP with just a few adjustments to the order. Here, read again:

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No benefit to letting the sparge water sit. Just stir it in, vorlauf, and run off.

Denny said:

No benefit to letting the sparge water sit. Just stir it in, vorlauf, and run off.

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You are correct... when batch sparging.

My reply was in response to a question on mashout when continuous sparging, in which case the short rest at elevated temperatures blah blah blah (you know the rest )

stpug said:

You are correct... when batch sparging.

My reply was in response to a question on mashout when continuous sparging, in which case the short rest at elevated temperatures blah blah blah (you know the rest )

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Sorry...lost track of where we were!