Mashout?

I have 2 ag brews under my belt, for the mashout on these i heated about a gallon of water to boiling, i didnt come close to my target mashout of 168. I only used one gallon for fear of having too much wort. Should i use 2 gallons? If so, do i need to subtract 2 gallons from my sparge water, or boil longer to compensate? I use beersmith for my sparge calculator, and there is nowhere(that i have seen) for adjusting for mashout. Also, i am using 1.25 quarts/pound of grain. I am using a 10 gallon pot, so i dont want to be too full, in fear of boil overs.

P.S. I fig a 10 gallon pot would have been plenty big for 5 gallon batches, next time i will buy a 15 gallon pot.

Forgot to mention, i fly sparge.

Do you really need to mash out? If sparge water is hot enough and the sparge isn't too quick, I don't see what the need is?

I stopped doing infusions for mash out, because I wanted the sparge volume to stay higher. I either do a decoction for mash out, or skip the mashout all together. I fly sparge with 180F water.

I've done many all grain recipes using a single temperature infusion mash with a fly sparge this is how I do them.

I preheat my mash tun with 160F water for 10-20 minutes and then dump it out. I use a mash thickness of 1.25 qts. per lb. of grain to calculate my strike water volume. I then use a calculator and enter the grain temperature to find out how hot the strike water has to be to set the grain bed to say 155F (typically 168-172F with 58F grains).

I pour in 1/2 the strike water and mix in some grains then pour in the other 1/2 and the rest of the grains stirring all the while. I also keep a small amount of cold water and some 170F water handy in case I want to raise or lower the grain bed a degree or two.

Once I've convinced there are no dry pockets, hot spots or channels in the grain bed I screw the top on put some towels over it and let it mash for an hour.

I then pour 168F water in the top of the tun while lautering the wort into my boil pot, being very careful not to disturb the grain bed while pouring. I keep about an inch or two of water covering the grain bed during the entire 30 minute lauter and fill the boil pot with my pre-boil volume.



Doing all grain this way is really pretty easy once you get your process down and it's a lot of fun.

I fly sparge as well and don't mash-out. Just make sure your sparge water is 169°F or a bit higher and you will be fine. I have even seen some testing using cold water to sparge without any, or at least very minimal apparent impact on efficiency.

Thanks guys, i sparge with 175F water. Lets say i wanted to do a mashout, would i then subtract that amount from my sparge water?

Brasco20 said:

Thanks guys, i sparge with 175F water. Lets say i wanted to do a mashout, would i then subtract that amount from my sparge water?

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Yes you would. If you calculate your sparge water then your mash out infusion water has to come from it.
So if your going to sparge with say 8 gallons in your calcs and you want to do a 2 gallon infusion for a mash out then yes you’ll only be sparging with 6 gallons.

Cheers
Jay

You can add a mash profile or an additional infusion on beersmith. Either add it as a new profile using the mash selection on the left-side menu tree, or add the additional infusion to your individual mash schedule on each recipe.

Thanks guys!