mash temps and tweaking your day

[burntchef]

So I got my third all grain under my belt. First 2 batches made really good table beer @ 3%. This batch I really tried to dial in my mash temps. The table beer batches were mashed to hot and my local brew guru said it reminded him of " Kentucky common beer".

This bath I dialed in my mash in temp, and oh the horror. lol I mashed in at 150 and adding the grains to the water dropped the temp by 20 degrees. So I mashed at 130. I fly sparged at 145 and wound up with a og of 1.045 with a projected of 1.060. Not the end of the world, but am striving to get better.

Next batch the plan is to dump water into cooler at 165, add grain, and hopefully mash at 145. This allows for the 20 degree drop when adding grain bill for 11 gallon batch. Is this thinking correct?

I am definitely hooked on the homebrew thing, and every batch should be getting better.

Thanx
Eric

 

[Nokt]

Get Beersmith. It will tell you exactly what your water temp should be. I was amazed that it was spot on.

 

[day_trippr]

You're moving in the right direction

Agree with @Nokt. Getting the strike liquor temperature on the nose is one of the greatest challenges on brew day - especially if you're working without a net. And by net I mean a brewing program like BeerSmith or Brewer's Friend or other program. Properly configured these tools can help you dial in the strike temperature given your grain weight, grain temperature, mash tun weight and material type, and get your initial mash temperature in the ballpark at least.

I use BeerSmith for this and it consistently gets the settled mash temperature within a degree F or two, no matter whether I'm brewing at 55°F ambient with a 25 pound grain bill or 40 pounds of grain on a summer day. It's actually one of the things BeerSmith really does well...

Cheers!

 

[Yooper]

My strike temperature is 11 degrees higher than my desired mash temperature, at least in the summer when the grain and my equipment is fairly warm. It depends on your equipment, the amount of water in your mash (I mash at 1.5 quarts per gallon), the amount of grain, etc- but it shouldn't have dropped 20 degrees- that's a lot more than most people.

You want to generally be in the 150-152 degree mashing temperature range.

 

[ESBrewer]

This should do it for you
https://www.brewersfriend.com/mash/

 

[Griffin495]

A lot of people use https://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

 

[mongoose33]

You'll find after a few of these that you have a sweet spot. When I was doing a normal mash w/ a batch sparge at the end, with about 11# of grain, and a preheated (with 1 gallon of boiling water) mash tun, and 4.25 gallons of water.....I'd need a strike temp of 168 degrees.

That would drop me down to about 152 or so. I discovered the hard way that when I left my crushed grain in an enclosed bucket in a 50-degree cold garage overnight, that I'd lose another couple degrees or three. So I took to keeping that grain in the house at room temp, so it wouldn't drop the temp so much.

Now I'm doing a no-sparge mash with 8.25 gallons of water and 11 or 12# of grain. The temp needs to be about 160, maybe a touch higher, as there's more hot water and the amount of cooler grain which brings down its temp is less.

 

[burntchef]

Thanx for the replies and the links!
I'm drinking this batch now and it is not bad, but I am trying like everyone to refine the process and get better beer. Next batch I will use the software and see where I end up.
Eric