strike water to grain or grain to strike water?

Most of the "how to's" and books I've read, including "How to Brew" add the strike water to the grain already in the mash tun but I was watching youtube this morning and a couple of the videos showed homebrewers doing the opposite. I know youtube isn't exactly a great source so I'm skeptical but I was thinking it might be worth trying since I could preheat my tun and not lose much of that preheating effect by adding the cool grain first but I wanted other opinions. What are the pros and cons to either way?

I always put my strike water in my tun, wait until the temp stabilizes, then add my grains while stirring. I think I'm less likely to have doughballs that way.

Doesn't really matter actually. Most people I've seen post add the grain to the water, and that is what I do. Hasn't been a problem at all.


Rev.

I preheat my mashtun with my strike water and then add my grains after about 10 minutes. You can pour in the grains somewhat slowly while stirring or just dump the whole thing in and let it settle and absorb water for about 5 minutes and then stir. Both techniques work well for me and I don't get dough balls. If you dump it all in and then stir without letting it settle you'll get tons of dough balls from my experience. Once you get a feel for how well your mashtun preheats and how a certain amount of grain drops the temperature when added this method is pretty fool proof.

The preheat, dump water, add grain, add strike water method is IMO a waste of time, water, and fuel. You could add the grain and then your strike water, but I found preheating it with my strike water and then adding the grain allows me to hit my numbers more consistently.

I first add strike water to my cooler mash tun, let it sit for a few minutes to warm up the cooler and then stir in the grain in portions to avoid dough balls. Don't think it really matters if you do it other way around, just as long as you get to the desired temp you want to mash at in the end.

Right on thanks for the fast responses guys. I just felt like itd be easier to get my strike water to my desired temp without having to worry about the temp of the mash tun. I was a little worried that doing it this way might denature some of the enzymes but it sounds like this has worked for others and I feel like it might streamline my brewday. Thanks for the help

i add water to grain, its just easier for me, i start my brew schedule by firing up HLT burner and then i grind my grain, i have to empty my crushed grain bucket after 11-14lbs so i just put it in mash tun and work on 2nd batch. I get strike water temp from beersmith and i dont think i ever been off for more than 2 degrees, most of the time im spot on for mashing temp

cciszew said:

i add water to grain, its just easier for me, i start my brew schedule by firing up HLT burner and then i grind my grain, i have to empty my crushed grain bucket after 11-14lbs so i just put it in mash tun and work on 2nd batch. I get strike water temp from beersmith and i dont think i ever been off for more than 2 degrees, most of the time im spot on for mashing temp

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Yeah my next equipment upgrade would be to make a HLT with a thermometer, level gauge, and valve on the bottom. That would make mashing and sparging easier. I've just been using my 5gal pot from the extract days and my boil kettle to heat my strike and sparge water then adding it a couple quarts at a time with a pitcher. I don't always hit the rest temp as well as I'd like doing it like that but I think if I just add strike water that's a few degrees to warm and let it cool to my target strike temp I should be able to dial it in a little better. I would definitely like a nice HLT, its just not in the budget yet

I think the only reason to add water to grain would be to prevent any tanin extraction. If you dump grain into preheated water, then the first bit of grain will hot 160-170 deg water depending on how hot you calc, and they grain may heat up higher than planned while your still dumping. So for a few seconds you may have started mashing too high.

With dumping hot water into the grain you have the entire grain amount there to quickly disapate the heat and normalize.

I don't think the short period really is enough to affect anything though. But so far I've been adding water to grain like the books suggest. That's the only logical reason I can see that out would matter. If you have so much grain that you need water at 185 then you "may" leech undesirables from some of the grain while you're dumping.

Subbing... Very curious about this as well. Several books make mention specifically to this, but not why

Stirke water in the tun, then grains. It's easier to break up dough balls as you slowly add the grain.

vicratlhead51 said:

Yeah my next equipment upgrade would be to make a HLT with a thermometer, level gauge, and valve on the bottom. That would make mashing and sparging easier. I've just been using my 5gal pot from the extract days and my boil kettle to heat my strike and sparge water then adding it a couple quarts at a time with a pitcher. I don't always hit the rest temp as well as I'd like doing it like that but I think if I just add strike water that's a few degrees to warm and let it cool to my target strike temp I should be able to dial it in a little better. I would definitely like a nice HLT, its just not in the budget yet

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I dont like to spend big bucks on my equipment, i rather work a little on it to save, if you are handy and have few tools you can build nice system for fraction of the cost, it may not be shiny and all but let you brew comfortably. The how to is on this forum
My HLT is a keg from CL for $35, thermometer from ebay for $17, 1/2 coupling, T and compression from lowes for i dont know $10, 3/8 food grade high temp clear tube+spear from the keg for glass sight, total $65-70, it will be little more expensive if you want to go with weldless but not much

scottland said:

Stirke water in the tun, then grains. It's easier to break up dough balls as you slowly add the grain.

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+1 on the water then grain. Found its easier, no preheating the tun (start off high) and can bring the temp down easier by stirring or opening the lid than adding strike water to bring it up.

postalbunny said:

I think the only reason to add water to grain would be to prevent any tanin extraction.....

With dumping hot water into the grain you have the entire grain amount there to quickly disapate the heat and normalize.

I don't think the short period really is enough to affect anything though..

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This isn't true. You're right that the it's too short a time to denature the enzymes. Actually, they shouldn't denature at all with typical strike temps. My strike temps have been generally 165 or so, never needed a strike temp above 166 so far, maybe a larger grain bill beer would of course but even then it takes some time for them to denature. As far as I've experienced all my grains are in the MLT within a minute or so. I simply stir as I pour the grains in.

So, that kinda takes the denaturing worry out of the equation. Palmer says in his book the reason is to prevent enzyme shock. It's already been discussed and pretty much proven to death there's no real enzyme shock going on adding the grain to the water.

Last thing I would like to comment on is seeing some here say they add their strike water and let it sit and equilibrate before adding their grain. I don't know how you guys do it successfully but when I've done it that way I never hit my temps exactly because the MLT takes some of that heat away to warm up. What I do is add about 2 gallons of the hottest my tap water goes (about 130+ or so) then add a tea kettle of boiling water. Even though it typically doesn't hit the same temp as my mash temp it's enough to warm up the MLT and lessen the heat loss. Then, right before adding my strike water, I dump it out quickly in the sink and add my strike water. I've been able to hit and maintain my mash strike temps perfectly each time.


Rev.

Biabers add grain to the water and haven't had any issues. I don't think it really matters what goes in first

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I usually just add about 3 degrees onto my strike temp for the tun to suck up. Maybe one or two less or more depending how cold or hot the garage is. Dump the strike water in, dump the grains in slowly while stirring, stir a little more, take temp, cheer that it's spot on, close the lid, wrap in a blanket, open a homebrew, come back in an hour.

pksmitty said:

I always put my strike water in my tun, wait until the temp stabilizes, then add my grains while stirring. I think I'm less likely to have doughballs that way.

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+1 add your water first and then once it is at the right temp, add grain. Tried it the other way once, and much prefer this way. Check out Bobby m's all grain primer. Good luck.

I pre boil all my brewing water for 10 minutes. I add the strike water to the tun and wait for water to hit strike temp., add the grains and mash. The first few all grains I did I added the water to the grains. Even after pre heating the tun I never hit the mash temperature. Now I never miss.

When I first started all-grain I could never remember/figure out which to add first....so I always added water until it covered my false bottom, then dunked in the grain, then added the rest of the water. Hey, it works....probably just as well as any other method of getting wet grain to around 152 degrees.

hillhousesawdustco said:

When I first started all-grain I could never remember/figure out which to add first....so I always added water until it covered my false bottom, then dunked in the grain, then added the rest of the water. Hey, it works....probably just as well as any other method of getting wet grain to around 152 degrees.

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Now that I think about it, this is more of what I do. I drain my strike from my hlt and once the level passes my manifold, I start adding grain. That actually gives you a little temp flexibility too. I'm not too fussy with my grain:water ratio so I may overshoot my strike temp on purpose then add strike water till I hit my mash temp.