In (too) hot water?

[MooMooBrew]

Hi y'all,

So i've made it a habit to put the water into my mash tun before adding grain, sometimes i need to cool it down with a little tap water. My question is in that little adjustment phase (~5 min) am i denaturing the enzymes?

I've not noticed an issue with conversion, but am curious nontheless.

Also, does anyone add grain to the tun first, then the water, or is it always water first then grain? When i first started, i did grain first and found that i had less doughballs than now doing water first.

thanks!

MooMoo

 

[electrolight]

I don't use a mash tun but if you're getting dough balls try adding .5# of rice hulls (5g batch) to your mashing. It will hardly affect flavor and should help keep dough balls at bay.

 

[MooMooBrew]

How are you mashing then? BIAB?

 

[BeerLoverHere]

Add water first. I just watched a brewing show/episode and noticed they filled the mash tuns up before the grain was added. It's no different than when someone makes a cake, brownie, or some other store bought mix in a box. Always have your wet ingredients in the bowl first, then add your dry. It will prevent clumps of solid from getting stuck to the bottom corners of the bowl and a more even distribution/mixing of the ingredients. If rice is used to a batch of grain in wort, you will still have this problem (if you add water to your grain bill instead of the other way around).

Rice is usually used to prevent a stuck mash when a grain bill consists of a large portion of wheat as wheat sticks together more heavily than barley (think of oatmeal), preventing the water to flow in between each husk to allow for maximum exposure of water to extract all the sugars. This is especially the case if you BIAB and use a lot of wheat.

As far as minor temperature variations for 5 minutes or so, don't stress out over it. I always error on the side of too high of temp and then have some cold water ready to lower the temp. It's easier/faster to lower than to raise temps. If you were a commercial brewer, I'm sure you would be worried some, but for the average homebrewer, it's not going to make too big of difference if your temps are off a few degrees for a few minutes.

 

[MooMooBrew]

Just to be clear when you say rice you mean rice hulls, yes?

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

When the grain hits the water, the water doesn't permeate all of the grain all that quickly. Probably takes 10-20 minutes for all the grain to get completely wet.

MC

 

[MooMooBrew]

So i get a hydration buffer zone of ~10 min.

good to know

 

[BeerLoverHere]

just to be clear when you say rice you mean rice hulls, yes?

yes

 

[GuldTuborg]

Adding water first will also help you hit your mash temps with greater accuracy. You only have to account for the temp loss due to grain, and not grain + cold mash tun.