How to decide on a mash temp?

[Manngold]

Hey all.

After a long break of about 6 months due to the arrival of a little one I have finally been able to get back into brewing. I was at the stage where I was beginning to make my own recipes, but came stuck when it came to mash temps. How do you decide the the to mash at?

Coincidentally on my first brew I must have left my heating elememtn on and mashed for 30 mins or more at 80c, what will happen to this wort? Saying that I got great efficiency from 4kg of grain with a og of 1.060.

Thanks all.

[gobuchul]

That sounds very high!

I always mash at about 66°C.

As I understand it, the normal range is 65°- 68° for a single stage infusion.

At that very high temperature, you may of appeared to have great efficiency but I guess you have released a lot of unfermentable sugars, so you will not get a very low final gravity. Probably have a sweet weak beer I guess?

[AnthonyUK]

A lot will depend on where in the mash process it reached 80°c.
As you can see that in the image below 80°c is outside the viable mashing range and usually the tem you would aim for to reach to stop any further enzyme activity.



I tend to always go for 67-68°c of my system as I prefer the results.

[Chug]

Generally, lower mash temp will create more fermentable sugars and will give a dry lower fg beer, higher mash temps will give more unfermentable sugars and sweeter higher fg beer.

some good reading here

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.ph ... of_Mashing

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.ph ... of_Mashing

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.ph ... edirect=no

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.ph ... Efficiency

[barneey]

Mash at 67c to begin with, for say 60 to 90 mins.

Personally I wouldn't go above 72c when rinsing the grain. Anything above you risk extracting things you don't really want in the beer.

[Manngold]

Thanks for all the responses. I generally had it at 66 - 68 for close to an hour. Then flicked the switch whilst plugin in the microwave.

I guess that certain styles suit different mash temps? Thanks for the links, will read them later.

[Hanglow]

Mash at 67c to begin with, for say 60 to 90 mins.

Personally I wouldn't go above 72c when rinsing the grain. Anything above you risk extracting things you don't really want in the beer.

I thought ph was more important than temp, otherwise decoction mashed beers would taste awful

I tend to sparge at about 75C i think. seems to work fine

[barneey]

All depends on what you are brewing but as a general rule of thumb I tend to follow the 67c & 72c.

Take mash temps:- mash in take a temp reading, move probe and take another reading are they the same? There is a lot written about fixing the profile of a wort by sparging at higher temps and increased efficiency, some seem to chase efficiency like its the holy grail. Say a 3V system is used, start the sparge run off into boiler, fire boiler up asap to start the next stage. Say a BM unit, with all those wonderful multi step mashes, how many are actually necessary for say a standard style beer? I tend to think that a so called sugar rest 1 & 2 and the majority of those at the earlier stages are unnecessary to produce a quality wort. Yes Mash pH / liquor alkalinity is very important to, if not more so. My fear is that as more and more people buy a BM or GF unit the more and more people will think a multi step mash is required to brew.

Sorry for the ramble, but my simple advice would still be to the original poster mash at 67c and sparge at 72c or below for a typical standard brew. If you like the results try altering the temps to see what difference that makes to the finished article, get the Alkalinity / make up of liquor right to begin with though to hit the "wide" ballpark of mash pH.

[Matt in Birdham]

"Sweeter" beer at high mash temps is one of those home-brew myths that never seems to die. The unfermentable dextrins that remain when mashing higher will certainly give you a higher final gravity (and lower ABV), but they do not taste very sweet. Brusolophy did quite a surprising experiment on it where they couldn't reliably tell the difference between the same beer mashed high/low, finishing a full 9 graivty points apart - even based on mouthfeel.

[mosquat]

A lot will depend on where in the mash process it reached 80°c.
As you can see that in the image below 80°c is outside the viable mashing range and usually the tem you would aim for to reach to stop any further enzyme activity.



I tend to always go for 67-68°c of my system as I prefer the results.

Thats such a great graph...gonna nab it, cheers for posting

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[MTW]

"Sweeter" beer at high mash temps is one of those home-brew myths that never seems to die. The unfermentable dextrins that remain when mashing higher will certainly give you a higher final gravity (and lower ABV), but they do not taste very sweet. Brusolophy did quite a surprising experiment on it where they couldn't reliably tell the difference between the same beer mashed high/low, finishing a full 9 graivty points apart - even based on mouthfeel.

I just read that experiment (assuming you mean this) and of the 9 (out of 20) who distinguished the different samples correctly, 7 did pick up on the difference in mouthfeel, preferring the higher mash. Only a small experiment, but considering people have different tolerances to different factors, I'd say that might show something, at least.

You're right that the longer chains are not 'sweet' - I recently mashed a Lagunitas IPA clone at 70.5C and the wort was noticeably not as 'sweet' as I'd expect. However, a fuller mouthfeel and higher FG does counter the bitterness, alcohol and even carbonation in the final beer IMHO, with all else pretty equal. Sweetness is a hard thing to nail, and I think many people perceive it differently - no doubt like those in the sample.

I did read something though, which suggested modern malts have such strong enzymes that mash temperature difference is perhaps not as much of a factor as it may have been in the past. If you want to guarantee a full body, it may well be worth not relying on mash temp alone, and stick some cara, oats or whatever in there.

[Matt in Birdham]

Yeah - I must admit I was more surprised by the fact that some tasters couldn't discern a difference in mouth feel or even detect the difference in alcohol, especially for such a small beer and a large relative difference in ABV.

I did read something though, which suggested modern malts have such strong enzymes that mash temperature difference is perhaps not as much of a factor as it may have been in the past.

I'm not sure how that squares with the fact the different mash temps most definitely do change the fermentability of the wort?

[MTW]

Yeah - I must admit I was more surprised by the fact that some tasters couldn't discern a difference in mouth feel or even detect the difference in alcohol, especially for such a small beer and a large relative difference in ABV.

I did read something though, which suggested modern malts have such strong enzymes that mash temperature difference is perhaps not as much of a factor as it may have been in the past.

I'm not sure how that squares with the fact the different mash temps most definitely do change the fermentability of the wort?

I thought it was worth mentioning that mash temp may have been even more of a factor in the past, according to whatever it was I read.

I don't think we were disagreeing that 'mash temps most definitely do change the fermentability of the wort' anyway, just what effect that has on mouthfeel, sweetness etc.

[Kev888]

The fermentability of the wort, and our ability to change it with mash temperature, is quite reliant on the yeast used and how they react to this - some seem more affected than others by more challenging sugars. But yes it isn't in question that we can (and do) achieve this.

What is hard to fathom is how an 8 point difference in FG wasn't fairly obvious in direct comparisons. I wonder if the the choice of beer is behind it, especially if it relies on hops for much of the character (and perhaps the fining may have had some kind of masking/equalising effect). I'd be really quite surprised if people couldn't notice the difference in a decently malty British style beer.

[Matt in Birdham]

What is hard to fathom is how an 8 point difference in FG wasn't fairly obvious in direct comparisons. I wonder if the the choice of beer is behind it, especially if it relies on hops for much of the character (and perhaps the fining may have had some kind of masking/equalising effect). I'd be really quite surprised if people couldn't notice the difference in a decently malty British style beer.

Yes - it was interesting. I don't think they gave the full recipe - I suppose it could have been very hop forward but you would hope that they would have kept things simple so that the malt difference would get the best chance to show. Also it wasn't a big beer - just 1.040 SG - so the difference in ABV was something like 25%. It would be interesting to modify this experiment a little so that you target the same ABV with different mash temps - i.e. a much higher OG for the high mash temp. That would perhaps produce more difference in the finished beers?
I think the fundamental point though, is that you can't make a simple "higher mash temp=sweeter finished beer" assumption. There is no doubt in my mind that *perceived* sweetness depends mostly on the balance of the beer (how bitter it is) and how attenuative the yeast is - and if you want a sweeter beer those are the things to look at first.