BeerBorg

Curious...what's the harm in just using room temp water to sparge? I know making your mash too hot (170+) causes the pH to go up and a potential to extract tannins (im almost akin to saying ive either never fracked up enough to do this, or it's one of those things people assume/live by), but honestly what harm can it be if i drop my mash temp when im doing my batch sparge?

I think:

If you are doing a full duration mash, it probably matters little, except that it will take longer to bring your wort to a boil later.

If you are doing one of those newfangled 10-20 minute mashes, it might matter more however. Because your wort might still have enzymes actively converting starches to sugars. The shorter the mash, the more likely this is the case I'd think. So if you drop your mash temps you will change and/or halt that extra conversion that folks aren't "considering" when they are doing that 10-20 minute short mash. As in really their mash/conversion is really going on as long as it takes to sparge and/or bring up to mash out temps after the mash if that makes sense.

It might cause some kind of cold break in the mash, before you get a hot break in the boil and a cold break while chilling. I don't know if that would matter / what that would do.

Heating up your sparge water helps to get more out of the grains when you batch sparge, it makes the sugars more soluable and easier to drain from the mashtun or through the bag if doing BIAB. It also is kind of a pre-heat making your runnings going into the kettle much closer to boil temp. If you were to use room temp water, your effeciency might drop. If it's not someting that bothers you, go for it.

Extracting tannins from oversparging or going over 170* is real, but it takes a combo of high ph and high temps to do so. Also, people doing 2-3 batch sparges are more likely to do it.

Heat is said to stop any additional conversion and "loosen" the grain to get a good rinse of sugar. Think dissolving a tablespoon of sugar in a glass of water at room temp water as compared to 165 degree water.

thanks all. i was just curious because i saw a few videos where people straight up used tap water/bottled water for batch sparging.

I think the temperature does effect fluidity, which might matter more if you are working with some type of sticky mash, but as far as the sugars, I would bet that it's more a matter of them simply needing more "solvent" to flush out. The already saturated water (your wort) is not such a good solvent. Plain water is a much more effective solvent. So I would be willing to bet you would find that efficiency doesn't get effected so much as folks would think, maybe not at all, and this is again "one of those things we know because we were told it, but it's not really exactly true". But you'd have to try it to know for sure. I've never done it for a full mash.

I can say that using room temp vs. heated water makes little to no difference on "sparging" steeping grains. Because I've done that.

As far as stopping conversion / affecting conversion. The enzymes do not instantaneously de-nature and stop working with temperature fluctuations. They will do their thing for a while even if heat goes out of their preferred range. And their range is much more then what we use as brewing convention. The ranges we use are simply where they work *best*. That doesn't mean they don't work at all outside those ranges. Beta amylase works at quite low temperatures.

That thought did make me think of a potential side effect of a cool sparge - if you are already working at preferred beta amylase temps (cool mashing for say a light bodied Belgian), during the sparge with hot water you might be temporarily turning on more of the alphas. Which will give you potentially some small amount of less fermentable sugars and some little bit of body. If you do a cool water sparge, you will potentially keep the betas going and end up with an even more fermentable wort, and even lighter bodied beer.

That would all depend on how well your conversion had already gone of course, so YMMV. But its something to consider, and it's what doing a mashout would help prevent if it was unwanted.

The betas will work at quite cool temperatures. Much lower then folks think of when they do a cool temperature mash.

EDIT's due to a bazillion types and crap...

'Cold sparging' has credible proponents who report no loss of efficiency or lautering trubbles.

Rinsing is rinsing no matter the water temperature. But, i imagine rinsing dishes... butter off a knife, maple syrup off a spoon, etc. Everything rinses cleaner and quicker using hot water and out hot water tank isn't 170 degrees. Any corilation?

Btw, conversion is done within an hour. I don't buy into denaturing enzymes to stop conversion with 170 degree hot water after an hour mash. The reason strike temp is so important is because it starts quick and can finish well under 60 minutes. You need to get is as close as possible right from the start. I've heard of brewers mashing far less than 60 minutes.

Thats a good way to explain it Pudge. Kind of what I was thinking.

Sounds like we are starting to interchange Mashout and Sparging. Different steps doing different things.

Pudge wrote:Rinsing is rinsing no matter the water temperature. But, i imagine rinsing dishes... butter off a knife, maple syrup off a spoon, etc. Everything rinses cleaner and quicker using hot water and out hot water tank isn't 170 degrees. Any corilation?

Btw, conversion is done within an hour. I don't buy into denaturing enzymes to stop conversion with 170 degree hot water after an hour mash. The reason strike temp is so important is because it starts quick and can finish well under 60 minutes. You need to get is as close as possible right from the start. I've heard of brewers mashing far less than 60 minutes.

I agree totally with the mashout likely being silly if you do a 60 minute mash.

If you are one of those new-fangled 10-20 minute mashers however, and you are trying to mash at low temps, then I think you might not really have full conversion yet, and what I mentioned above about raising temps might matter / make some difference as far as how the final product is perceived (body wise).

RE: temps... if you want to be a chemist, then you have a solvent (water) and solutes (the mash sugars). And yes, how much of a solute that can be dissolved into your solution (your mash) is affected by temperature. So your initial mash contains some amount of sugar, the max possible being what water as a solvent can dissolve at that temperature. (it gets more complex then this due to ph changes, etc. but lets keep it simple). The question them becomes, is the amount of sugar left in the grains during your sparge so much that it can't be brought into solution by the amount of plain water added (which is a different ph then your mash btw, IE back to it being more complex) at room temps.

My bet is that at least in most mashes, the answer would be that it can easily do it - most of the sugars are already out, and the water can likely take up whatever is left. Which is why folks who do the cold sparges have success. The remaining sugar in your grains is not like peanut butter smeared on a plate. It is not so hard to get into solution.

As far as strike water temps, they are more important if you are trying to do a less fermentable alpha amylase driven mash.

If you are going for a highly fermentable mash more beta amylase driven, it's not so important. If you are doing a step mash, the beta amylase will actually be doing stuff while you are doing a protein rest. It's working more slowly at those low temps, but it's doing stuff. At the higher end of that kind of rest temperature range it is actually doing a lot of stuff. (this is one of the reasons why folks who like to brew light bodied Belgians and want to make them as close as possible to the real thing have the best results with step mashes, they are extending the influence of the betas and more seriously suppressing the influence of the alphas until the very end).

That's why some ancient women could have accidently invented small beer by crushing up grains in a bowl and leaving it sit out in the sun and overnight after getting rained on. The beta amylase works at low temps. A lot lower then most people seem to think.

EDITS for clarity and because I can't type for $*&$ and the preview button and my brain do not regsiter LOL.

Cold Water Sparging
http://braukaiser.com/blog/blog/2009/05 ... -sparging/

Search 'cold sparge' @ Mad Fermentationist
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/

Realize these guys are pure amateurs but maybe they're onto to something.