Vorlauf or not to Vorlauf

[bambrew]

Was this comment made with regards to a professional commercial brewers system or homebrewing?

They werent addressing one in particular as the class was about half and half homebrewer to pro brewer. All vorlaufed and all were surprised by the info. They talked about a gummy layer that can actually form over the grain bed by recirculating and make lautering more difficult.

An interesting story they told was that when they presented their findings at a conference the Germans wouldnt have any of it. Even though the evidence was there, the Germans said (in bad german accent) "its better to make good beer and not know why then to make bad beer and know why".

But i must admit i still do recirculate but not for as long as i used to now.

[leaky_porch]

Is there any way for us to read the results of their study?

[leaky_porch]

And is this recirculating and mashing out or just recirculating? I typically do both at the same time and start running off to the kettle when the mash gets to about 165F. I'll try skipping that step next time. If it doesn't make a difference, then I'll save myself about a half hour on brew days.

[gotsumbeers]

Since I've started to recirculate until I can read through the wort my beer has been much better. No science on that just my personal observations. I've kept everything the same except I now run off crystal clear wort.

[EagleDude]

And is this recirculating and mashing out or just recirculating? I typically do both at the same time and start running off to the kettle when the mash gets to about 165F. I'll try skipping that step next time. If it doesn't make a difference, then I'll save myself about a half hour on brew days.

If you decide to skip the mash-out step, I would suggest turning your burner on low under the boil kettle so that the "mash-out" is effectively accomplished as the wort is collected (after you have collected a couple gallons). Otherwise wort temps will have dropped back down through the 140's without the various enzymes getting denatured resulting in low body/thin beers ... ok if that is on par with the style you are brewing.