Mash out not working?

[squirt in the turns]

As I mentioned briefly in the thread detaling my first AG brewday, I had an issue with my mash out step. Now, I know that the easiest way to resolve this is not to do a mash out, but I'll pose the question out of curiosity anyway.

Beersmith told me to mash in my golden ale with 12.21 L, and mash-out with 6.83 L of boiling water, aiming for about 77 degrees. My mash tun had no problem holding 66 degrees for one hour, but when I added the boiling water, I only got 67 degrees! I stirred thoroughly and measured the temp all over.

Not worrying about it too much, and figuring I'd got pretty good extraction efficiency the first time, I did exactly the same thing with my SNPA clone (AG #2), and got almost exactly the same result - 70 degrees. The temp of the mash out water can't be increased as it's already boiling.

So where is all that extra thermal energy going?

[warra48]

Don't worry about it.

To my knowledge, a mashout is done for several possible reasons, including:
1. To increase the temperature of the mash to stop enzymatic action in the mash. Seeing as most of the conversion should take place in the first 20 minutes, there really is little else to stop.
2. Increase the temperature of the mash to make run off and sparging easier by making the dissolved sugars more liquid.
3. Increase the volume of the first run off, so the sparge volume is reduced. This is the reason I do a mashout, as I mash in a 25 litre cooler, and it's not big enough to do a single run off with a single sparge. I need to use the full volume of my mashtun.

I'm not the world's greatest theorist, but I'd venture to say it makes very little difference to your outcome.

The only things I now measure in my brewing process are these:
1. Mash temperature at the beginning of the mash. I allow water (8ºC higher than my desired mash temperature) to trickle in while I stir the mash until I hit my desired temperature. I then leave it alone till the end of the mash.
2. Temperature, volume, and SG of my wort collected into the kettle pre-boil.
3. Temperature, volume, and OG into the fermenter.
4. FG pre bottling.

That's it. I don't fret about anything else, it all pretty much takes care of itself.
In essence, brewing is a simple process. You make a barley porridge at a set temperature, leave it for a period, drain it, boil it, and ferment. Voila, beer!

[SuperBroo]

Agree with Warra, but if you wanted to do a mashout, I find the
simplest way is to forget beersmith and just add boiling water a Litre
at a time while gently stirring, until the grain temp reaches 78 deg.

Usually takes about 7 Litres in my setup.

This way you dont have to get the temp and volume correct,

Then I just vorlauf and drain to kettle, and measure
How much I need to sparge at 83 degrees to get my final
Pre-boil volume.

[lethaldog]

If your worried you could always do a decoction to hit your mash out temp!!

[drsmurto]

Squirt, are you 100% sure of the temperature of the mash prior to adding the mash out water?

Did you take the temp in several places like you did when measuring the temp after adding the mash out water?

Beersmith assumes you don't lose any temperature during the mash which isn't true. Even the best insulated tuns will lose some temperature over the course of the mash.

When i was doing infusion mashouts i would tinker with the numbers so that beersmith was telling me to add X L of water at ~95C when i was adding boiling water. This helped to allow for some of the temperature loss.

Also, you can tell beersmith to require whole numbers rather than fractions of. The error in measuring volume is likely to be a lot greater than 0.01 L. I always round up to the nearest L and try to stick to a consistent water to grain ratio.

Cheers
DrSmurto

p.s. as Lethal pointed out you can do a decoction mash out which is simply achieved by taking a few L of 1st runnings and bringing it to the boil and adding it back to the tun. No need to whirlpool to clear it as small amounts of grain are fine. This is what i do and it allows me to add those extra 6 L or so of water to the sparge.

[speedie]

Raising your mash to 77 degrees before sparging is the excepted international rule
I would suggest as grog has indicated add more boiling water to get your target temperature

Then sparge until you’re running’s approach 1010
Stop spargeing then boil as needed

A true decoction mash is to remove one third of the entire grain bed bring it to the boil then return it to the resting grain to raise to the next step or rest temperature

This is done over as many steps as the brewer requires
Traditionally it was three steps
speedie

[drsmurto]

Raising your mash to 77 degrees before sparging is the excepted international rule
I would suggest as grog has indicated add more boiling water to get your target temperature

Then sparge until you’re running’s approach 1010
Stop spargeing then boil as needed

A true decoction mash is to remove one third of the entire grain bed bring it to the boil then return it to the resting grain to raise to the next step or rest temperature

This is done over as many steps as the brewer requires
Traditionally it was three steps
speedie

A thick decoction is done by taking out one third of the grain with only a small amount of liquid and boiling it as you mentioned. This process results in the product of melanoidins through maillard reactions. The same process you see when you toast bread.

A thin decoction is used to bring the grain bed up to mash out temps after a 3 step decoction, some people used direct heat instead or a boiling water infusion. It does not involve the production of melanoidins as there is little to no grain used, hence why it is referred to as a thin decoction.

I do thin decoction mash outs routinely, thick decoctions are less common in my brewery although i do love doing them when the mood takes me - dunkels, alts, pils, dunkelweizen and will do one for my upcoming roggenbier.

They are 2 different things speedie.

[squirt in the turns]

Thanks all for your replies.

I'm using my Fridgemate as a thermometer, so I'm not able to measure as accurately as I'd like. One of those dual-probe jobbies off eBay is on my birthday list. The Fridgemate does seem to be accurate enough at boiling and freezing temps.

Squirt, are you 100% sure of the temperature of the mash prior to adding the mash out water?

Did you take the temp in several places like you did when measuring the temp after adding the mash out water?

Beersmith assumes you don't lose any temperature during the mash which isn't true. Even the best insulated tuns will lose some temperature over the course of the mash.

I stirred thoroughly until I got uniform temps all over the mash after each addition of water, and again when taking the temp before mashing out. I have been slightly over temp at mash-in, so I'll drop the water temp next time. At mash in I've just been stirring until the Fridgemate shows 66, which took a few minutes longer than was necessary to simply break up doughballs. So it is probably at about 66.5 when the Fridgemate ticks over from 67 to 66. After the 1 hour, measuring all over before stirring gave temps of 65-66, so I don't think I'm losing too much heat. I am mashing indoors in a warm kitchen, so there's no breeze, and it hasn't been cold here on the Gold Coast at any rate.

That said, both AGs have fermented out to a lower SG than predicted, in spite of being over predicted SG going into the fermenter, so maybe my mash is colder than I think it is.

Also, you can tell beersmith to require whole numbers rather than fractions of. The error in measuring volume is likely to be a lot greater than 0.01 L. I always round up to the nearest L and try to stick to a consistent water to grain ratio.

Thanks, Doc, I'll do that. Regarding water/grain ratio: should I keep this constant regardless of recipe/style? It kind of looked like Beersmith was doing its own thing to calculate this in each recipe.

If your worried you could always do a decoction to hit your mash out temp!!

Decoctions are something I'd like to start messing with. Doing one to mash out my next planned AG (a CSA clone) could be good practice for the one after that (a double decocted Pils, maybe... )
I've read that a thicker mash normally makes for better efficiency... is that right? Does this still apply after conversion, i.e. when draining the first runnings? And if so, is that a reason a why a decoction is a better way to mash out than infusing more hot water?

[drsmurto]

I don't see how a thin decoction mashout could increase efficiency as opposed to direct heating.

It does mean there is more water to sparge with when compared to an infusion mashout.

How did you calibrate the fridgemate? Wasn't aware the fridgemate probe could be used to measure liquid temperature unless you have it in a thermowell?

[squirt in the turns]

I don't see how a thin decoction mashout could increase efficiency as opposed to direct heating.

It does mean there is more water to sparge with when compared to an infusion mashout.

What do you mean by direct heating, Doc? An immersion element, or the addition of boiling water? What I was getting at with my question regarding decoction mash out vs infusion was whether (assuming a thick mash is prefered) it is better to keep the water:grain ratio low until the first runnings are drained. I don't know where I got the idea that a thick mash raises efficiency . Have just done a few searches and turned up this, and this, which suggest that a thin mash increases efficiency, at least as far as first runnings go, but probably at the expense of second runnings efficiency (sparge run off). The first link does say "Although the reduced sparge volume can rob you of a small amount of efficiency in the end, it also rewards you with a higher quality wort", which suggests to me that if efficiency is all we're chasing (which obviously should never be the case) then more sparge volume at the expense of mash volume is the way to go.

How did you calibrate the fridgemate? Wasn't aware the fridgemate probe could be used to measure liquid temperature unless you have it in a thermowell?

I haven't touched the calibration settings of the fridgemate, as it read 99 or there abouts (it beeps and throws errors at or above boiling) in a freshly boiled kettle, and 0 in ice slurry. I am using the probe in a thermowell: a keg dip tube welded closed at one end.

[drsmurto]

Direct heating - either by an immersion element of direct heat with a flame under your tun if it's a metal pot.

The main infusion (saccharification rest) is normally in the 2.5-3.5ish litres per kg of grain. The number itself will make such a small difference that you may not even notice any difference.

As you noted in your links, too thick a mash will result in a drop in efficiency and vice versa for a thinner mash.

There are also articles that deal with an increase/decrease in the fermentability of a wort based on the thickness of the mash.

Early on in your AG career its best to choose a water to grain ratio between 2.5 and 3.5 and stick to it. Once you have a lot of AGs under your belt you can play aroudn with adjusting this.

I personally stick with 2.9-3L/kg. The actual number varies as i always add whole litres of water to the mash tun, not fractions of since i use a bucket to measure volume and the error in that is probably close to +/- 1L.

[speedie]

Dr Lets not debate the merits of decoction “mashing” we both know that it was bought about for the conversion of under modified or enzymatically weak malts that where common in Europe at that time

In my opinion a thin decoction is merely another term for a direct step of heating the "wort" that has been mashed
I.e. it has been through its scarification stage

Maybe it’s the same dog with a different collar

If squirt has the equipment to raise to the next step he wouldn’t need to decoct?
Surely he could just add heat as required to obtain 77 and sparge

This is the down side of the picnic cooler as a means of temperature control
But I bet that it has produced some killer beers!

I used electric urns for mashing in and if I didn’t tend the grain it would burn on the exposed element

Either way it is fun learning through experience squirt
Keep at it

[bullfrog]

Speedie, you've missed the bloody point again. The idea behind a thin decoction is that, instead of raising the mash temperature with hot water, you can save that water for the sparge.

I happen to use an electric urn for my brewing and have never dared to keep the temperature with the element. Instead, I have heavily insulaed the entire rig with the thickest stuff that Clarks Rubber had to offer.

Oh, and I'm getting sick and tired of you typing "Dr" every time you mention something that you seem to think is scientific. Every AG brewer on this forum can follow everything you're saying in these circumstances, stop just addressing them to the good Doctor. You're only making more of an arse of yourself by doing so. Do you only preface these comments as such because you've learned that he has also won awards?