Mash Outs

[mykafone]

Who does a mash out? Are these necessary?

[seanhagerty]

It MAY increase efficiency a bit.

I don't do them. It is too much of a pain in the butt to heat one batch of water higher then another to my sparge temp. BTW I batch sparge

Sean

[beer_bear]

I don't bother either. I just do my sparge and drink another beer. I also don't know much about mash outs. I don't know for sure if it's worth it. According to BUB, it's just a "fucking waste of time". That's good enough for me.

[seanhagerty]

I don't bother either. I just do my sparge and drink another beer. I also don't know much about mash outs. I don't know for sure if it's worth it. According to BUB, it's just a "fucking waste of time". That's good enough for me.

NEVER EVER EVER Quote Bub like that.

Sean

[Kaiser]

I usually do them, but may skip them when I'm in a rush.

Kai

[rich]

I voted no...but then thought it out.

I batch sparge also. I bring my sparge water up to about 185F, so the mash is brought to 168+, so I guess I do mash-out.

I think in the context of this poll, the mash out term is meant for folks who do step infusions. Since I mash in a cooler I can only step infuse by decocting or by starting with a very thick mash and diluting with water for temperature steps.

[Bugeater]

I don't mash out either. I batch sparge. When you stop and think about what the mash out is and how it works, it doesn't make sense to even try it in batch sparging.

Once you bring your mash up to the temperature needed to denature the enzymes it still takes a while to actually denature them. When you batch sparge, your sparge is done before the denaturing is even finished. The denaturing takes place in your boil kettle.

If you are fly sparging and taking the recommended hour to sparge, then it makes sense to mash out. Otherwise conversion will still be going on for that extra hour. That said, how many homebrewers are that bothered by extra conversion time? I normally mash for 60 minutes, but now and then I get distracted or forget to heat my sparge water and go for 90 minutes or more. My beers have never suffered from that extra mash time.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

[Thirsty Boy]

I batch sparge and run a herms... so my HLT is at sparge/mash out temp anyway. I run the HERMS for a while to vorlauff and that brings the mash up to sparge/mashout temp, then drain my first runnings.

I suppose I could just drain when the wort runs clear, but I just keep going for a couple more minutes till I hit 77C. hardly anymore effort, so I do it even if it is a waste of time.