Sparge temp

[Ward Chillington]

So I had a minor epiphany the other day and I have been looking around for answers and they all seem to go off on tangents about efficiency or tannins but not really answering my question about sparge water and temperature loss.

Here's the back story. So I fly sparge at around 170°F because that's what the recipe says...I never thought about but since I use the calculator on the site here to account for loss due to my grain temp to hit a 150-ish° mash, isn't the same thing happening to my sparge water and I'm really sparging at 160 something?

How much am I over thinking this? I'm still making beer but it never really dawned on me until now. I have played with the calculator but that has me adding a volume a little over a gallon of boiling water to get the mash to 170°, as in a step mash but that's short of my calculated full sparge volume. Granted I could play around but wanted to put the question to the greater brains in the group here to help me over the trial and error learning curve.

 

[Yooper]

There are a couple of ways to look at this. The first is if you are doing a lengthy sparging, say, continuous(fly) sparging, you may want to do a mash out by adding hot enough water to bring the entire volume to 160 degrees to stop the enzymatic activity. But if you are batch sparging, that is generally so fast and you'll be bringing your wort up to boil quickly so it's not really necessary. Still, some will add extra hot sparge water at the point, to do a mash out/sparge at the same time.
You can actually sparge with cold water if you want to- no harm will be done. It's just that it will take longer to bring it up to a boil in the kettle, and you may get some continued enzymatic activity (but I wouldn't worry about that).

 

[Craigerrr]

Some sparge with cool water with no ill effects, except cooling the wort and taking longer to get to a boil.

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

When doughing in a significant amount of heat transfers from the strike water to the grain. So you need to take that into account when heating your strike water. You also lose heat from the sparge water, but the drop is not that significant because the mash temp and the sparge water temp are much closer to each other than the original grain temp and strike water temp. Plus, significantly missing mash-out temp doesn't really have any impact on the final beer, where significantly missing mash temp will.

 

[Minbari]

if you are fly sparging, wouldnt it just be the same temp as the mash itself? I have always done fly sparging and have had most batches in the high 70 to low 80s for efficiency.

just my opinion but I dont beleive you need to do a mashout with the size of our batches. your wort goes from mash to boil in less time than it would take to raise it to mashout temp anyway.

 

[Nosybear]

So I had a minor epiphany the other day and I have been looking around for answers and they all seem to go off on tangents about efficiency or tannins but not really answering my question about sparge water and temperature loss.

Here's the back story. So I fly sparge at around 170°F because that's what the recipe says...I never thought about but since I use the calculator on the site here to account for loss due to my grain temp to hit a 150-ish° mash, isn't the same thing happening to my sparge water and I'm really sparging at 160 something?

How much am I over thinking this? I'm still making beer but it never really dawned on me until now. I have played with the calculator but that has me adding a volume a little over a gallon of boiling water to get the mash to 170°, as in a step mash but that's short of my calculated full sparge volume. Granted I could play around but wanted to put the question to the greater brains in the group here to help me over the trial and error learning curve.

You are both right and overthinking. Until you warm the grain bed, you are sparging below the water's temperature. Aside from a minor loss of efficiency, it doesn't matter.

 

[Craigerrr]

just my opinion but I dont beleive you need to do a mashout with the size of our batches. your wort goes from mash to boil in less time than it would take to raise it to mashout temp anyway.

When I first got my Brewzilla my efficiency was very low, low 60's. I made several adjustments to get it closer to 70%, one of these was to do a mashout. The theory being the the sugars rinsed more freely from the grain with the higher temperature. I was able to get my efficiency closer to 70% with adding a mash out along with some other strategies. Can I say 100% that it made a difference? No I can't as I didn't do a controlled experiment on it. Based on this theory though it made sense to me to sparge with 170F plus temperature water. In my mind sparging with cooler water would defeat the purpose of having done a mashout.

 

[Ward Chillington]

Ok...thanks all...sounds like it is a trial and error thing but obviously in the +170° direction. No calculator or tool. Based on @Nosybear description, the light bulb went on again... as that hotter water from the sparge soaks in while gravity and an open valve does its thing, the grain bed is getting close enough to that desired sparge temperature.

 

[Minbari]

When I first got my Brewzilla my efficiency was very low, low 60's. I made several adjustments to get it closer to 70%, one of these was to do a mashout. The theory being the the sugars rinsed more freely from the grain with the higher temperature. I was able to get my efficiency closer to 70% with adding a mash out along with some other strategies. Can I say 100% that it made a difference? No I can't as I didn't do a controlled experiment on it. Based on this theory though it made sense to me to sparge with 170F plus temperature water. In my mind sparging with cooler water would defeat the purpose of having done a mashout.

I stopped doing mashout a few months ago and havent notice a differnce, as you said though, I havent really done a 1:1 experiment with the mashout being the only difference.

 

[Steve Ruch]

Some sparge with cool water with no ill effects, except cooling the wort and taking longer to get to a boil.

I did a sparge with room temperature water in my second BIAB. The O G in my first batch without a sparge was 1.054. The O G in my second was 1.063. Both has 7 lbs of grains.

 

[J A]

There are several factors to consider in the mashout/sparge process. First off, it doesn't really matter what the temperature of the grain is because the enzymes are the only part that's affected by temperature and the enzymes are free-floating in the mash liquor, not stuck in the grain. If the mash liquor reaches a high enough temp, enzymes are denatured, regardless of the temp of the grain bed itself. The same thing happens during conversion rests, but since the starch molecules in the grain bed are part of the conversion process, it's probably best if they're up to the same temp as the mash and most efficient conversion happens after the grain bed has reached the same temp as the mash. Since I do a recirculating mash, I can add heat during conversion until the grain bed and mash are the same temp. And I can easily bring the liquor up to mashout temps before I sparge.
If you're doing a fly sparge and you don't do a mash-out, it probably doesn't matter what temp you use, to some extent, because you're never raising the temp of the mash liquor...just chasing the 150-degree liquor out of the kettle with the 170 degree water. You're just rinsing sugars and, again, grain temp is superfluous.
I think it's logical to assume that sparge temperatures warm enough to dissolve sugar are better at dislodging sugar molecules from the grain bed, but I suppose the jury is out on that. I do think that mash-out is a useful part of the mashing process and tends to help stop enzymatic activity (though, ideally you've converted everything that could possibly be converted), decrease viscosity and release sugar molecules.

 

[Nosybear]

JA hit on it: The best reason for the higher temperature sparge is that sugar dissolves more readily in hotter water. The reason for 170 degrees is to get the best extraction balanced by the risk of extracting tannins. I seriously doubt you could measure the difference between a sparge at 170 degrees and 160 because all you're doing is dissolving sugar. The lower temperature sparge may actually produce more sugars because it keeps enzymes active. The engineers at the big breweries have figured out that 170 is their most effective temperature. But lower temps won't hurt and may end up costing us an ounce more grain to get the same extract. As mentioned earlier, it's not something to spend a lot of worry on.

 

[Ward Chillington]

I think it's logical to assume that sparge temperatures warm enough to dissolve sugar are better at dislodging sugar molecules from the grain bed,

DING! Chasing....perfect verb J A! And Nosy...

As mentioned earlier, it's not something to spend a lot of worry on.

My neurosis thanks you!

 

[Ward Chillington]

Just a little post script after listening to Brulosphopy's #219 episode on our vocabulary so we are all on the same page...from Palmer 's book

What is Mashout?

Before the sweet wort is drained from the mash and the grain is rinsed (sparged) of the residual sugars, many brewers perform a mashout. Mashout is the term for raising the temperature of the mash to 170°F prior to lautering. This step stops all of the enzyme action (preserving your fermentable sugar profile) and makes the grainbed and wort more fluid. For most mashes with a ratio of 1.5-2 quarts of water per pound of grain, the mashout is not needed. The grainbed will be loose enough to flow well. For a thicker mash, or a mash composed of more than 25% of wheat or oats, a mashout may be needed to prevent a Set Mash/Stuck Sparge. This is when the grain bed plugs up and no liquid will flow through it. A mashout helps prevent this by making the sugars more fluid; like the difference between warm and cold honey. The mashout step can be done using external heat or by adding hot water according to the multi-rest infusion calculations. (See chapter 16.) A lot of homebrewers tend to skip the mashout step for most mashes with no consequences.

Great episode by the way!

 

[NorthWest Small Batch Brewing]

ya so I did a very recent experiment and on purpose I sparged with room temperature water. And as other stated I found no difference in my overall efficiency. The only downside is the boil takes longer to heat. I will probably go back to heating the water up to not more than 170F just to help save time in the whole process. But it is nice to know the only real thing to avoid is going over 170F will cause tannin's and astringency in your beer.

 

[GFHomebrew]

I did a sparge with room temperature water in my second BIAB. The O G in my first batch without a sparge was 1.054. The O G in my second was 1.063. Both has 7 lbs of grains.

Wow thats A big difference.
How much sparge water do you use?
What's your water/grain Ratio?

I've not sparged for my last two brews and my efficiency has dropped to 80% down from mid 80's bugger all.

I mash pretty thin usually and only sparge a small amount.

 

[J A]

But it is nice to know the only real thing to avoid is going over 170F will cause tannin's and astringency in your beer.

Tannins are probably more problematic with high pH rather than high temps. As I noted earlier, the distinction between mash temp and grain bed temp comes into play. If the grain isn't heating up substantially, it's unlikely that tannins will be extracted and you'd have to have pretty hot sparge water and you'd have to keep it that way throughout the sparge to get the grain bed up over 170. Even then, unless the pH is wrong, you're not likely providing the reactions needed to release tannins from the grain bed.
I've always heard a lot of worry about tannins, but I've never had a beer, homebrewed or otherwise, that had any noteable off flavor because if it.

 

[Steve Ruch]

Wow thats A big difference.
How much sparge water do you use?
What's your water/grain Ratio?
QUOTE]

I put the 7 lbs. of grain into about 3.33 gallons of water. I didn't precisely measure out the sparge water, but got it back up to about the same to end up with 3 gallons post boil.

 

[GFHomebrew]

Tannins are probably more problematic with high pH rather than high temps. As I noted earlier, the distinction between mash temp and grain bed temp comes into play. If the grain isn't heating up substantially, it's unlikely that tannins will be extracted and you'd have to have pretty hot sparge water and you'd have to keep it that way throughout the sparge to get the grain bed up over 170. Even then, unless the pH is wrong, you're not likely providing the reactions needed to release tannins from the grain bed.
I've always heard a lot of worry about tannins, but I've never had a beer, homebrewed or otherwise, that had any noteable off flavor because if it.

That's what puzzles me about dococtions.
We can boil the grains then oh but don't heat em up too hot when you sparge!