Mashing in...Water or grain first?

[HopinJim]

Ok, so I've been brewing all grain for about a year and a half, but I was browsing thru Palmer's book the other day and came across the statement that one should add the strike water to the grain vice adding the grain to the strike water. I've always done the latter. Anybody doing this? Is there a difference?

 

[pumpkinman2012]

I always add the grain to the water, I'm interested to hear what everyone else does now!

 

[prpromin]

Water first, then grain while stirring. If you do it the other way, you end up with lots of dough balls.

 

[ddicker60]

I do grain first. It takes some time to get dough balls out, but I am right around the targeted gravity.

 

[jbsg02]

I put water a little hotter than my strike temp to my mash tun for a few minutes to preheat it (I hardly drop temp at all over an hour mash), so I add the grain to the water. I'd like to hear his reasoning for adding the water to the grain, I can't see it making a difference.

 

[BeerLoverHere]

Water first, grain second.

 

[MarcusKillion]

I can not figure out how either way would make any kind of difference at all in the mash process. Sounds like a bunch of hog wash to me .
Adding water to grain is only going to make you stir more . I think this is just a preference thing .

 

[IvanTheTerribrew]

I do water first then grain, but I did just see a video on YouTube of someone who added grain first and then connected their water to the outlet of the mash tun and filled the mash tun from the bottom up. I wouldn't do it that way, but figured it put it out there.

 

[ianw58]

I used to do water to grain.

Then I ran across someone who mentioned that they added grain to water because they could load water into the tun and adjust the temperature with boiling water or ice to get it to strike temperature better.

Since I had been having some difficulties in hitting temps for a few unrelated reasons, I gave it a shot. IMO, it makes things easier to add grain to water. I don't have the dough balls to deal with. It's easier to hit strike temps.

I'm interested to hear the reasoning and benefits to adding water to grain...

 

[rpkincaid]

I use an electric RIMS. I let the system stabilize at the desired strike temperature and then turn off the heat and the pump. Then I add the grain to the water.

 

[Quaker]

When using a cooler MLT, I milled the grain directly into it, then added water.

Now I have an electric HERMS, so I fill with water, bring to temp, then add grain. I actually have more problems with dough balls this way. That's probably because I'm more apt to dump all the grain at once. When doing the opposite, I would add the water in a few additions with quite a bit of stirring in between.

 

[WileECoyote]

I can not figure out how either way would make any kind of difference at all in the mash process. Sounds like a bunch of hog wash to me .
Adding water to grain is only going to make you stir more . I think this is just a preference thing .

If you add water to grain, you will get tons for dough balls.

so its not hogwash needing to add water first, then add grain slowly while stiring.

Also you can make sure your mash tun water temp is right before adding grain, making your mash in temps easy'r to hit.

Cheers

 

[cuda6pak]

When I used a mash paddle, I added grain to water very slowly while stirring. Now with the ES-1 and a drill I dump the entire bag of grain in there and let the ES-1 do all the dirty work.