Second infusion/confusion?

[Cerevisi]

So, i've been doing all grain for awhile and i've been refining my process. lately i've brought my initial infusion up to 168F through a water addition at near boiling for mash-out. (single infusion, easy peasy)
Does anyone have an opinion whether a two step mash-out or a single step 168 degree mash out is more/less effective.
Initially i thought that the 168 mash-out simply meant adding 168 degree water... not bringing the mash temp up to 168. Does adding close to boiling water increase tannin's? Does bringing the mash up to 168 really halt conversion and or would it be necessary if you go directly to a boil?

Also, i've been whirlpooling after an intensive filtration...for aeration and trub/hop reduction in final fermentor.... but it has't seemed to matter too much batch to batch (tastes fairly similar). I think i do a super intensive filtration from a strainer. Should i be letting the solids settle out after whirlpool for more than 5 minutes?

What are your thoughts... findings?

 

[MalFet]

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean by stepped mash out. Are you concerned that the boiling water will extract tannins in the brief time it has before the temperature equilibrates? I don't know what your mash tun looks like, but I've always got a couple of inches of liquid above my grain bed. In that circumstance, the liquid temps balance out pretty darn quick. In any case, pour and stir, and I'm sure you'll have no problems.

What to do about the trub is something of a religious point. People have strong opinions, but everyone agrees that it is, ultimately, an issue of nuance. It will not make or break your beer in broad strokes. Many argue that excessive protein break can impact shelf stability, and others argue that too little protein break can starve the yeast. Who knows? Both are probably to some degree right, but I'm not sure that the research has been done at a homebrew scale to understand how much too much and too lithe are.

 

[JuanMoore]

I've never heard of a two step mash-out, but would think that a single step would use less water and therefore be better since it would allow more sparge volume. The temps equalize fast enough that I don't think there's much additional risk of tannin extraction adding boiling water. Mash PH is a much greater factor in tannin extraction anyhow, which is why decoction mashes don't result in excess tannins even though portions of the mash are boiled. Bringing the mash up to 168 will halt conversion, but with todays highly modified malts there shouldn't be much if any conversion going on by the end of the mash anyway, so it's debateable how necessary it is to halt it, especially if you batch sparge.

I don't think it matters a lot how much trub and break material gets into the fermenter. It might have small effects on final beer clarity or long term flavor stability, but it won't change the flavor of the beer at all. Whirlpooling is usually done to remove the large particles of trub and break material, so it would make more sense to me to do it before filtering rather than after. In my experience it usually takes at least 10 min for the cone to form when whirlpooling, so if you're only waiting 5 min you're probably not getting the results that you could.