About mash temperature

[Ozbrew]

Hi all. I am at the final stages of my herms build and have been thinking about a couple of things.
One being the mash temperature and what is required in this process.
I have read john palmers information on brewing and the processes etc. and was wondering when talking about a given mash temperature, is it the temperature you want the grains to be subjected to or the temperature the wort will get to at any given point in a circulating system.
Eg. Let's say your wort gets to 160 in your herms coil but cools a little to 155 before it re-enters the mash tun.
Do you take that your mash temperature is 160 because the wort is being subjected to that temperature? Or take it as 155 because your grains are being subjected to that temperature.
# note. Temperatures are for example purposes only as I'm an Aussie who knows little about Fahrenheit except that boiling is 212 .
Thanks in advance for responses.

 

[doug293cz]

Hi all. I am at the final stages of my herms build and have been thinking about a couple of things.
One being the mash temperature and what is required in this process.
I have read john palmers information on brewing and the processes etc. and was wondering when talking about a given mash temperature, is it the temperature you want the grains to be subjected to or the temperature the wort will get to at any given point in a circulating system.
Eg. Let's say your wort gets to 160 in your herms coil but cools a little to 155 before it re-enters the mash tun.
Do you take that your mash temperature is 160 because the wort is being subjected to that temperature? Or take it as 155 because your grains are being subjected to that temperature.
# note. Temperatures are for example purposes only as I'm an Aussie who knows little about Fahrenheit except that boiling is 212 .
Thanks in advance for responses.

Any particular fraction of the wort will spend a short time at the max HERMS temp, and most of its time at the bulk mash temp. So, go with the bulk mash temp. The effects are really an integration of time at each temp, so the temp where it spends the most time is the most important.

Brew on

 

[ajdelange]

Ideally, of course, you would want the liquid and grains to be at uniform temperature but as has been observed that is impossible. The object is to have the enzymes at the proper temperature for them to be effective when they meet the solids they are going to convert and that happens in the bulk (grains) so I guess the answer is to use the grain bed temperature as the PV in the control loop. There is a caveat here though. The recirculating liquid contains all the enzymes and so must never be allowed to become hot enough to denature them.

As for Fahrenheit: converting Centigrade to Fahrenheit is a piece of cake (Lamington if you prefer). Just double the Centigrade number (e.g. 20 °C x 2 = 40), subtract 1 tenth of that from it (40 - 4 = 36) and add 32 (36 + 32 = 68 °F). Or, formally, °F = 1.8*°C + 32.