I've read this elsewhere, how does this work? I could see if you brought it up to a boil you may release some of the "trapped" sugars between the packed grain bed through agitation of the boil thus averaging out the sugar concentration. But we're not boiling.
Still learning and want to understand, not questioning your experience.
If you had sugar in excess of the solubility limit at mash temps, then that would matter. But the fact is, you don't come even close to the solubility limit. And wort is primarily maltose, which is important because maltose has lower solubility than sucrose (which is the most soluble of all sugars.)
So, let's look at maltose. From here, the solubility of maltose in water at 66.3°C (151.3°F) is 200g/100g or 66.7%. Which works out to an SG of somewhere around 1.300 (depending on how good the Brix to SG calculators are at concentrations that high.) Most worts have less than 1/3 of the solubility limit, and even huge beers are less than 1/2 of the limit. You don't need higher temps to dissolve all the sugar into the wort.
Brew on
)
Why do I feel like I just walked into Sheldon Cooper's apartment?
.....and thats what they call the Big Bang. ..... BANG!
I've stopped heating my sparge water since, and I'm not mashing out either.
Assuming that higher solubility at higher temperatures is an important effect with respect to mashing is an extremely common misconception. If you had read and understood my earlier response to the quoted post by @motobrewer (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=6829662&postcount=35.), you would realize that the higher solubility doesn't matter. The sugar is created already dissolved in the wort. There is no undissolved sugar to dissolve (although there may be unconverted starch in the grain particles.)
If you want to understand more, read my other posts in this thread following post #35. They're fairly technical (and one is long, and quite a slog), but if you understand them, you will have a better understanding of the microscopic physical processes that control mashing. If you disagree with what I have written, tell me why, and we can discuss it. If you don't care, that's fine too, but then you shouldn't be responding on the topic.
Brew on
Let's look a what's going on in a mash dynamically (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/The_Theory_of_Mashing)
So, the sugar is already in solution when it is formed. You never have solid sugar that needs to be dissolved.
- First, water has to diffuse into the grain particles in order to gelatinize and then solubilize the starches.
- Then, the soluble starch has to diffuse out of the grain into the wort
- Once the starch is in the wort, the amylase enzymes can convert it to sugars (according to what I've read, the vast majority of the enzymatic action takes place in the wort.)
Why then does your efficiency go up when you mash out? Most likely because the solubilization of the starch is not complete at the end of your mash. A test that is often suggested is to run an iodine conversion test on just the wort, and then mostly grain with a little wort. Often the wort alone tests negative (no starch), while the grain still tests positive for starch. Remember, we are dependent on diffusion for things to happen. Grain particles are very dense, so diffusion into them is very slow. Diffusion into gelatinized starch is faster, and diffusion in the wort is faster still. In practice what happens is the surface layer of a grain particle is gelatinized and solubilized before any water gets into the core of the particle. So, the surface starch is dissolved into the wort first, and then another layer, and so on, until the starch in the core is finally solubilized. Starch conversion cannot finish until the core has been solubilized.
With a normal grain crush, a 60 minute mash may not be long enough to complete conversion of the cores of the particles. When you mash out, diffusion speeds up, as does the reaction rate of the amylase enzyme, and also the denaturing rate of the enzyme. So, you are getting a little more starch conversion during the mash out, at least until the amylase is completely denatured. With a longer mash, or finer crush, the efficiency gain from a mash out will decrease or even disappear.
Brew on
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