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Mash out or not

Posted: Sat Apr 13, 2013 9:47 am
by jjbuck
I have searched the forum past posts but could not find the thread that discussed this (I think about a year ago). I have never mashed out but I've read some recipes that do and others that don't. I wondered if the ones that didn't just assumed you would.
What benefit is there to a mash out?

Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 8:42 am
by Matt F
Short answer on mashing out is it will increase your efficiency in a fly sparge and do some other stuff.

The way I use to brew I found it to be a pain in the butt to mash out so I didn't. This topic was discussed in the Mr. Wizard section of BYO years ago. Mr. Wizard recommended that a mash out was not necessary at the homebrew level. Pros need to have high efficiency to keep cost down. It doesn't do much at the homebrew level. Now that I use a HERMS setup I do mash out simply because I can so easily. I am already recirculating wort so I just change the temp setting on my PID and I am mashed out.

Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 3:49 pm
by Steven P
I mash out if I'm using a high percentage of adjuncts (wheat or rolled oats) to aid in lautering.

For all malt beers I haven't had seen a difference either way.

Mash out or not

Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 4:00 pm
by DrPaulsen
I used to mash out around 170F when I did single temp mashes in an attempt to control fermentability.  A mash out generally helped keep my beers from drying out too much.  In the absence of a mash out, I would routinely hit 80-85% attenuation.  With a mash out, it was closer to 75%.  I don't think the mash out did anything to improve my sparge efficiency.

I now use a stepped mash regimen for all my beers and no longer bother with a mash out.  I start around 145F and leave it there for a set period to control fermentability via a Beta-Amylase rest.  After 30-60 mins, I then ramp up to around 160F for an Alpha-Amylase rest until conversion is complete (i.e. subsequent refractometer readings are nearly identical).  Under these conditions, a mash-out doesn't do much good since conversion is already completed and any residual Beta-Amylase enzymes were denatured during the Alpha-Amylase rest.



On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 4:49 PM, Steven P <brew-tech@crbeernuts.org (brew-tech@crbeernuts.org)> wrote:
I mash out if I'm using a high percentage of adjuncts (wheat or rolled oats) to aid in lautering.

For all malt beers I haven't had seen a difference either way.



"Payday came and with it beer"
- Rudyard Kipling




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