Reading through the May-June 2016 issue of BYO, I came across the following scenario posed to Ashton Lewis in the Help Me Mr. Wizard Column:
The brewer had a recipe calling for mashing at 148 F for 90 minutes, then mashing out at 168 F for 10 minutes. One of the questions he asked was “how important is the mash-out and should he skip it”?
Mr. Lewis replied in part: “When the mash is heated to 168 F (76 C), enzymatic reactions cease to occur at any appreciable rate and this “fixes” wort composition.” I understand that part of what Mr. Lewis replied. But then he continued: “If you don’t mash out, enzymatic conversion continues during wort collection and you may have a challenge if you want to brew beers with residual extract.”
Starting with a temp of 148 F and mashing for 90 minutes I would think that you would already have a wort with high apparent attention and it would be too late to retain much residual extract i.e. Elvis has already left the building. Comments please!
A lot of authorities say a 60 minute simple infusion mash is sufficient for most brews.
Is the boiling water you would add to raise the mash temp to 168 F for 10 minutes going to extract any significant amounts of additional sugars from the malted grains than were extracted in the previous 90 minutes at the lower temp? Comments please!
I’m presently doing BIAB brews and I’m satisfied with the results, but wondering how much better the brews might be if I went to a mash tun with conventional sparging. I use modern well-modified malts, treat my mash water, and brew beers in the brown ale to stout varieties. Currently I’m mashing for 60 minutes, removing the grain and cranking up the gas burner to get the wort boiling as fast as I can.
Would there be any benefit to gradually increasing the wort temp to 168 F, maintaining that temp for 10 minutes and then cranking the heat up to again get the wort to boiling as rapidly as possible. Again comments please.
I know I’ve asked a lot of questions. It would be most helpful if advice could be provided for each question separately rather than a general overall reply to all of them
Mashing out tends to produce a slightly higher gravity (~2% boost) as not all the starch gelatinizes at standard single infusion mash temperatures. If you gradually increase mash temp to 168 F, you don’t need to rest at 168. Similarly, if you increase wort temperature to 168 F, you don’t need to rest afterwards.
THIS^^^^ the problem with Ashton’s advice is that it comes from a perspective of commercial brewing, not homebrewing. If you batch sparge in a homebrew situation, you gain nothing from a mashout.
Thats quite an absolute statement Mr. Conn! I am assuming by your statement of gaining nothing, you mean in YOUR testing YOU gain nothing correct? Because it’s quite documented that OTHER people do.
Of course it does. It has to do with how quickly you get to a boil compared to fly sparging. I have done batch sparging with and without a mashout…no difference to the beer.
Sorry, I’m not following. So you are saying that because you reach a boil faster than a fly sparger, that doing a mash out doesn’t matter? Or that flyspargers do see a benefit because they mash out? Or??
We live in the 21st century, and we are homebrewers. With exception of Munich malt-based beers, all malts have plenty of enzymes to get the job done in 40-60 minutes. (With Munich, 60-90 is probably a better idea, due to the higher kilning. But other than that…) We can also get up to a boil pretty dang fast – it’s not taking us hours to get to a boil. As such, we can – and dare I say, SHOULD – skip a mashout step as homebrewers in the 21st century.
Both…becasue you get to a boil so fast in batch sparging, continued conversion isn’t really a problem. And because the sparge lasts so much longer for fly spargers and you’re at mash temps so much longer, they can benefit from a mashout.
Once my mash is done (secret as to how) I move it to the BK and hit a wide open flames. I then add my 190F Sparge water, recirc/vorlauf, and move it to the BK. Total time about 7-10 minutes. It reaches a boil within about 10 minutes after that. So from mash temp to boil in 17-20 minutes ish. I could get my mash up to mashout temp by turning on a low flame and recirculating. That takes about 10-15 minutes. Then to BK then sparge then boil. Seems like mashout simply adds 10-15 minutes to the process, which would be to counteract the 10-15 minutes I added by doing a mash out. I’ve done a mash out a few times, I found it changed nothing in the final beer… FOR ME
It’s not a black and white thing… Many things in brewing are what I call +1’s, some are +5’s, some are +10’s, some quite larger, like +50(low oxygen). Glycoproteins are more like +1-2.
