Mash out necessary or not?

[RM-MN]

The 2 head brewers I've talked to about the subject say just sparge with 170F water and you're good. Even that is not needed. When we brewed on our system we didn't heat the HLT up past mash temps.

There is so little difference in efficiency using cold water instead of hot that having a HLT is a questionable savings. The difference is mainly in how long it takes to bring the wort to a boil.:rockin:

 

[bobtheUKbrewer2]

I use a copper manifold with slots on the bottom wrapped in a medium muslin bag. This allows a good run off rate of very clear wort, which as I mentioned earlier is put into the boiler every few pints. I had never thought of grains being "saturated" with sugar solution yet this is "locked" in the grain. Will ponder further......

 

[Bassman2003]

Wasn't the efficiency aspect of that pretty much debunked?

Cheers!

I was thinking more along the lines of stuck sparges. Probably does not come into play with IPAs etc... but might with wheat beers or other gummy mashes.

 

[Denny]

Denny, am I interpreting your example correctly on your write up that the volume of sparge water you add to the mash does NOT need to take grain absorption into account?

I've been low on my SG and OG for each of my first 6 brews. I have been fly sparging and typically end up with LOTS of left over water in my MT by the time I get to my preboil volume and I think this might be my issue. Batch sparging seems more exact as far as the math goes to determine total water needed on brew day. I'm interested in trying this to see how that changes my efficiency.

I also have pleaded with my LHBS to alter their grain mill lower than .4 but they refuse. My last two batches I ran my grain through the mill twice.

I think these two areas are where improvement can easily occur. Thoughts?

That is correct. After the mash, the grain is saturated and will absorb no more water. What goes in is what comes out, minus any losses in your equipment. Crush is always the first place to look for efficiency problems. When you fly sparge, unless your lauter system is perfectly designed, you can get "channeling", where the water kinda drills ls down in one place and grain in other places doesn't get rinsed pH can have an effect, too, but you have to be WAY off for it to have anything other than a minor effect on efficiency.

 

[Denny]

Mash out does make the runnings a bit thinner which helps with the overall lauter.

Actually, it doesn't really until your wort gravity goes above 1.300.

 

[Denny]

Wasn't the efficiency aspect of that pretty much debunked?

Cheers!

If you get an efficiency boost, it's not from thinner runnings. It's becasue the higher temp increased conversion efficiency.

 

[beernutz]

I only mash out because it really doesn't add any time to my brew day. I use a HERMS coil in the HLT and circulate wort from a cooler mash tun through the coil and back to the mash tun with the HERMS PID set to my mash temp.

Since I'm going to batch sparge with the water in the HLT which will be at the same temp as if doing a mash out I just keep recirculating through the HERMS coil while the mash temp is raised to a couple degrees under 170 on the HERMS PID.

When the mash temp gets to the set temp I empty the mash tun to the boiler and immediately batch sparge with HLT water which is right at the temp I want, usually doing two equal sized batch sparges. Easy peasy and my efficiencies are typically between 75 and 80%.