Will strike water at 168 degrees kill off malt enzymes prematurely?

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Larry Sayre, Developer of 'Mash Made Easy'
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Since 168 degrees F. is the temperature at which starch to sugar conversion enzymes are killed off, if my calculator indicates that I must heat my strike water to 168 degrees in order to mash at 154 degrees, will I accidentally kill my enzymes pre the mash process by pouring my grist into 168 degree water?
 
The temp will equalize before the enzymes are messed up.

Oh, and don't feel the need to dump all the grains in all at once. There's nothing wrong with adding some grain, stirring, adding some more, stirring, etc. even at 168 strike temp. Don't want to get doughballs in an effort to help the enzymes.
 
The enzymes don't get destroyed immediately with the 168 degree water. Unless you really delay the addition of the grains they will all survive. If one were to try to denature (destroy) the enzymes as with a "mash out" it takes about 10 minutes to complete. If you do destroy some of the enzymes it still won't matter as long as you get the temperature down before 1/2 of them are destroyed because typically 2-row has so much excess that the enzymes can convert the starches of themselves plus twice their weight in unmalted grains.
 
The temperature of the water will be dropping rapidly as you add the grain. I doubt that it would be at 168 long enough to do any harm at all.
 
think about it this way: the grains are at room temperature and mix with hotter water. the water transfers heat to the grains and mash tun until all are at the same temperature (equilibrium). ignoring size effects of each individual grain since they're milled quite small, the grain should slowly be heated from room temp and arrive at 154F. It wont necessarily jump immediately to 168F only because it's immersed in water of that temperature.
 
Last edited:
rm-mn said:
the enzymes don't get destroyed immediately with the 168 degree water. Unless you really delay the addition of the grains they will all survive. If one were to try to denature (destroy) the enzymes as with a "mash out" it takes about 10 minutes to complete. If you do destroy some of the enzymes it still won't matter as long as you get the temperature down before 1/2 of them are destroyed because typically 2-row has so much excess that the enzymes can convert the starches of themselves plus twice their weight in unmalted grains.
Click to expand...

+1
 
On top of that, there are SO many enzymes and they work so fast that even if you mashed at 168F, I bet you would come up with an awesome beer. I mashed a recent NEIPA at 165F with a mashout at 170F and got 75% AA with WY1318!
 

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