Strike water temperature

[natural]

Hello,

This has to have been asked endlessly but everything i'm finding is from like 6 years ago. Peoples opinions may have changed.

How important is the temperature of your sparge water? I think that's called strike water temperature!

From what I understand is to sparge at 170. But i've read people saying it doesn't matter or make any real difference. I'm just curious what everyones opinion is, or what you're doing in your brews.

 

[photobru]

Strike water temperature is the temperature of the water you add your grain to at the beginning of your mash. This is important, and depends on your target mash temp and your grain temp.

Sparge water is what you rinse your grain with at the end of the mash. I believe the reason for the 170 F temperature is that this is high enough to denature the enzymes in the mash and halt conversion, but I could be wrong on that.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

Sparge water temp does not matter at all. Strike temp does, as it is primarily what determines your mash temperature after you dough in (add the grains).

Sparge temp used to be recommended 170 so that you accomplished a mash out which stops conversion and denatures both alpha and beta enzymes, however analysis has shown that cold water is equally effective at producing the same gravity and has no chance of ruining it by extracting tannins if you sparge too hot and get about 170 for the grains. I would recommend at most 165 to new brewers, as a warm sparge will let you get to boil a few minutes faster.

 

[Kharnynb]

cold sparge water is not quite as effective at removing the sugar from the grains, too hot and you extract tannins.

165-170 is a good sparging temperature.

 

[jtratcliff]

Sparge water temp can matter if you're fly sparging. Not so much for batch sparging.

Since fly sparging can take a long time, the enzymes can keep snipping away at the longer starch chains to make simpler sugars and thus a more fermentable wort. So you want your sparge water hot enough to denature the amylase enzymes in order to lock in your wort sugar profile where you want it and not keep going during the sparge.

With batch sparging you often just add your sparge water, stir, then vorlauf to set your grain bed and run off as fast as you can. While this can take a few minutes, it's not nearly as time consuming as fly sparging and is less likely to change your wort profile as much.

Often people will "mash out" at higher temps (170F+), ostensibly to reduce the viscoscity of the wort. And thus more easily rinse the sugars from the grain.

I BIAB so have never really batch sparged in the traditional sense (a dunk sparge is similar to a batch sparge) or fly sparged. All of the above is just from what I've read here on HBT.

Many BIABers say the a cold water "pour over" sparge is just as effective as a hot sparge.

 

[doug293cz]

cold sparge water is not quite as effective at removing the sugar from the grains...

This is a common misconception. While hot water can dissolve more total sugar than cold water, that only comes into play if the working sugar concentrations are high relative to the saturation concentrations. Water at 70°F saturates at about 44 Plato (with maltose), which works out to an SG of about 1.200. Your sparged wort SG is very unlikely to ever be more than 1.060, even for a very large beer. So you don't need hot water to get the sugar into the sparge water. This was confirmed by Kai here. If you are doing batch sparging, vigorous stirring will do a better job, faster, at getting the sugar out of the grain particles than will hot water.

When fly sparging, you can't benefit from stirring in the sparge water, and you are dependent on diffusion of sugar from the grain particles into the sparge water. Since diffusion is faster at higher temperatures, hot sparge water may actually be beneficial when fly sparging, or it may not make a difference, depending on the relative rates of diffusion vs. sparge water flow. (Doing that simulation is beyond my pay grade.)

Brew on

 

[Kharnynb]

Huh, learn something new every day

I'll still heat my sparge water though, if only to give my poor stove a bit of help with getting to the boil.....

 

[doug293cz]

Huh, learn something new every day

I'll still heat my sparge water though, if only to give my poor stove a bit of help with getting to the boil.....

Yeah, quicker time to boil is a definite advantage of hot sparge water.

Brew on

 

[VegasBrew1]

Interesting. I've always batch sparged in 2 consecutive processes. But heating 1 gallon of water (boiling) to add to the first sparge never really got my tun to the necessary temp to halt the breakdown of starches. Perhaps I should just heat the remaining water to 180, add to tun, and drain it all in one go? It would save time and get the required results? I'll give it a go, see what happens.

 

[andy6026]

Wow, let me get this straight - if I'm batch sparging then I don't need to heat my spare water at all? And it won't effect the outcome of the beer? It simply saves time in bringing the wort to a boil?

What if I plan to mash now and boil later... for example, sometimes in the winter I like to mash and sparge in the house by heating water on the stove. I collect all of the runnings in sanitized fermenter pails. I do this in the evening. And then the next day I take it outside for the boil. Leaving it overnight like that would I need to hit the sparge at165-170 to prevent further breakdown? Logically no, because the mash runnings never hit 165-170.

I ask this because when mashing in the house using the stove top to heat water, my biggest limiting factor is always heating my volume of sparge water. If I don't have to heat the sparge water at all then this is a winter time brewing game changer for me.

 

[fartinmartin]

Hot sparge reduces brew hours, so less agg from swmbo.

 

[Natdavis777]

What if I plan to mash now and boil later... for example, sometimes in the winter I like to mash and sparge in the house by heating water on the stove. I collect all of the runnings in sanitized fermenter pails. I do this in the evening. And then the next day I take it outside for the boil. Leaving it overnight like that would I need to hit the sparge at165-170 to prevent further breakdown? Logically no, because the mash runnings never hit 165-170.

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to, but one thing to note is that the wort isn't sterile. Letting it sit too long before boiling could allow some bacteria to start taking hold. This is how sour mashes are performed, though a handful of grains are usually tossed into the mash to contribute the bacteria, and most sour mashes last a few days. If you have performed next day boils in the past with good results, I say keep on keeping on

 

[jtratcliff]

What if I plan to mash now and boil later....

You definitely want to mash out here at 170F+ (i.e. mash temp, not just sparge water temp)... otherwise the amylase will keep working and dry you out...

I've reduced my time to get to get to temps by supplementing my gas stove with a 1000W electric heat stick. Big time saver.

They make higher wattage sticks for even faster heat up, but then you need a 20amp circuit.

 

[mtyquinn]

I never really worried about stopping the conversion because it was minutes from a boil anyways. However, I still sparge with the 168ish water because it would logically do a better job of getting sugars in solutions and your closer to a boil. Maybe I'm wrong about the sugars in solution thing.

 

[doug293cz]

I never really worried about stopping the conversion because it was minutes from a boil anyways. However, I still sparge with the 168ish water because it would logically do a better job of getting sugars in solutions and your closer to a boil. Maybe I'm wrong about the sugars in solution thing.

The sugars are in solution when they are formed. There is never any undissolved sugar in a mash (unless you add granulated sugar.)

Brew on

 

[kombat]

Hot water is also less viscous than cold, decreasing the chance of a stuck sparge, even if only slightly.

 

[andy6026]

You definitely want to mash out here at 170F+ (i.e. mash temp, not just sparge water temp)... otherwise the amylase will keep working and dry you out...

I've reduced my time to get to get to temps by supplementing my gas stove with a 1000W electric heat stick. Big time saver.

They make higher wattage sticks for even faster heat up, but then you need a 20amp circuit.

Ah, ok, so does that mean that I'd do my regular mash at around 152, and then before collect the runnings I'd step it up to 170+, and then sparge again at 170+?. Thanks for your advice on this.

 

[natural]

Awesome responses thanks a lot everyone.