I would mash at 152 for at least 40 minutes. No need to perform a mashout in a normal homebrew setting. Just get the sweet wort heating up towards a boil as soon as you are able. This way the “mashout” at 165 takes care of itself as the temperature continues to climb towards 212. Mashouts are for huge batches (e.g. commercial brewing) where you cannot get up to a boil within an hour or so.
You wouldn’t really be resting @ 165F. The idea in the recipe is to do a mashout, which sort of locks in your fermentable sugar profile by stopping additional enzyme activity. Most homebrewers don’t do a true mashout since, especially in the case of batch sparging, the time between mash runoff and bringing the wort to a boil is pretty small anyway. Like Jim said, I’d do a 60 minute mash @ 152F. It’ll make a good beer.
I like the hotter water for sparging because I have a whacky idea that it rinses the grain better. Plus its all got to be heated to a boil anyway, why not get a bump in that direction
I fly sparged and decided to go cowboy and sparge in the 190s…those beers tasted grainy and/or astringent. I am now doing a modified batch sparge and keeping my grain bed at 168 max. I am much happier with the results. Taste your wort before you boil and see what you think.
I use 190F water for batch sparging and don’t get astringency, BUT only since I started better pH control. I got astringency before when I sparged @ 160F with sub par pH control. So I’m convinced it’s much more a pH issue than a sparge temp issue.
Nope. In a true mashout (which homebrewers generally don’t do), the grain bed temp is raised and held to around 168F. It would take water considerably hotter to raise the grain bed to 168.
True on first mash out…but when i get down to about 2 inches above the bed…I stop draining and mash out again at 168 for what I call a modified Batch Sprage…That takes water about ~168…
Fly sparging definitely has more challenges in terms of astringency from over sparging, etc. I used to fly sparge and just love the simplicity of batch sparging. I control pH well and sparge hot( as mentioned) and extract no astringency. Lots of ways to make great beer though.
Since this topic was active and I was brewing two identical grain bills tonight, I decided to test it put. Both Munich Helles, both estimated to be 1.049 at 75% brew house. One I sparged with 165ish and the other with 190ish. The 165 came out at 1.048 and the 190 came out at 1.052. Same volumes, same amount of hops, same boil times.
I agree that pH is the key here. I have no problem batch sparging with over 190F water which will make the mash hit 170F. Not necessary, of course, but like Jim, I have found good efficiencies going with the hot sparge. Brunwater using an RO base allows me to avoid astringent faults.
I’m glad you posted that, Jim. I never put it to the test like that - always meant to, just never happened. But I always felt I got a few extra points. I like the reduced viscosity of the hotter sparge, too.
I am also in the camp of sparging with 190F or so water. I brew a lot with wheat and rye so I am constantly tempting fate with stuck sparges. I get far fewer problems sparging with 190F water than 180F like I used to.