BeerSmith and batch sprage question

[Arbe0]

With beer smith it gives you the mash temperature and time for that mash ( normally 148 to 156 F for me)
It shows me two sets of water for batch sparging both at 168 F. The first one is only about a gallon or so, with the second one more water (maybe 3-4 gallons) at 168 F. I have been doing this, first mash at lets say 152 F for 45 minutes then add the gallon or so at 168 F and drain to the boil pot which brings the wort to about 158 F or so. I then run the 3-4 gallons for the second runnings at 168 F which doesn't get my wort to 168 F . leave it for about 10 minutes and drain to the boil pot.
A Friend said I should not just add 168 F water but bring the first mash to 168 F by adding more boiling water and the second runnings should be at 168 F by using hotter water to bring it to that temp.
So, when BeerSmith says the two batch sparge's should be at 168 F do they mean adding 168 F water to the mash (which only brings the temp up a little) or bringing the temperature of the wort all the way up to 168 F?

 

[Oginme]

BeerSmith only says what you want it to say. It is a program made to try to mimic your process and not a guide on how you should run your process. If you are using a stock mash profile, it represents how someone else set up to run their process. I highly recommend changing the mash profile to represent how you want to run your mash steps and mash out process.

Having said that, your recipe states to add about a gallon and then drain the mash tun before adding the rest of the sparge water. This is because the mash profile has been set to batch sparge, but the box to drain the mash tun before sparging has not been clicked. So the program calculates the amount of sparge water it needs to fill the mash tun, has a cue to add that amount, and then gives the cue to drain the mash tun and add the remaining sparge water.

Edit the mash profile and click the box to drain the mash tun first, and it will give the cue to drain the mash tun and then add the sparge water.

Now, I am not sure how your mash profile is set, but if you have the mash out step set for a temperature of 168F, then the program will calculate the temperature the sparge water needs to be in order to bring the mash temperature up to that target (or reasonably close, since the program also does not account for any temperature drop in the mash tun). The temperature step does not indicate the sparge water temperature until you print out the or view the brew sheet. It will flag the sparge water temperature as being too high if it exceeds boiling. If you do not have a separate mash out step, then it will give you a standard sparge water temperature of 168F.

One of the reasons for doing a 'mash out' step of bringing the mash temperature up to 168F is to stop enzyme activity in the wort. This is really important for large brewing processes where it may take a long time to fully drain and sparge the mash. It also increases the fluidity of the wort by bringing the viscosity down just a little bit; but again this is more important for a larger batch process. Personally, I skip the mash out when using my mash tun set up as I am heating the first runnings towards a boil while conducting the sparge step, so the bulk of the enzyme activity is being halted at this stage. When I did do a mash out step, I kept the temperature of the sparge water at around 170F to prevent extraction of tannins from the grain husks, which occurs due to high temperatures and high pH (over 6.0).

The choice of how you want to operate your process is yours, but you need to describe it in the equipment and mash profiles to have the program give you the targets or response you want.

 

[kevin58]

You don't have to accept the mash profiles that come in Beersmith. You can create your own...

 

[Arbe0]

thank you all, dummy here never even thought of adjusting my mash profile again for batch sparging. This was a great help.