Mash out

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dukes7779

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Sooooo, I was watching an AG video on YouTube and at the end of the mash the guy mashed at 152*, then after an hour he added more hot water to "replace what was absorbed by the grain and raise the temp to 170*". He then took the first runnings and then batch sparged. This is the first I heard about adding back what was absorbed by the grain. I did not do this with my AG batch this week. Does it matter?
 
I'm not sure what he means by "adding back". The water is still in there. If he wants to mash-out with exactly the quantity of water that is absorbed by the grain, he certainly won't hurt anything. Then again, I'm not sure why he'd bother going to the trouble.
 
I don't really see a point with it either. When I mash out, I just crank up the heat of the mash until it reaches about 170, stirring the entire time. I don't add any additional water.
 
I think you misunderstood what was going on there.....

One mashes at a temp around 152. Then to mash out, I add about a gallon of boiling water to bring the mash up to (hopefully) 170. You don't want to go much higher, as higher temps can wash out off flavor tannins. Then I sparge with 170 degree water. All 'Mashing out' does, is raise the mash temp to make it less gummy, hence a easier run off (less chance of a stuck sparge). I hope this helps out........
 
Agreed, the goal of mashing out is to lower viscosity to get easier run off of the residual sugar in the grain. The amount of water is determined by your goal volume and the volume you have already collected.
 
cyclonite said:
Agreed, the goal of mashing out is to lower viscosity to get easier run off of the residual sugar in the grain. The amount of water is determined by your goal volume and the volume you have already collected.

Right, but he had not collected any yet. It was based on his assumed absorption.
 
All of the above is correct and the amount of absorption of the grain is a calculated amount based on the amount of grain you are mashing. I don't have the formula right here but it's in my brew calculator and likely findable on line.

Aside from that and FWIW, I have never "mashed out" per se. Following my vorlauf I start in with sparge and lautering right away and keep my sparge water between 176 and 180.

As always, YMMV.
 
I've been double batch sparging @ 168. I've also been having over attenuation problems as my final gravity has been 5-7 points lower over a bunch of batches. While reading to help diagnose the problem I've been reading that allowing wort to sit while sparging could be allowing additional conversion to occur causing too many fermentables. So, I've now started doing a mash out to stop conversion. First batch is not ready yet. I just heated the amount of my first sparge to 200 and added it to the mash but I usually go with water volumes from Beersmith.
 
The reason for a mash out is to stop the conversion. It is the process of bringing the mash to a temp above 160F. If you do not have the capability to heat your mash, then you must add water to the mash to accomplish this. It appears that the guy referenced in the op just happens to be using the amount of water that he know he will lose to absorption. I don't think it's a big deal or wrong. If he's not using a volume calculator then I would guess he is just making an assumption.
 
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