Water To Grain Or Grain To Water?

[cpsmusic]

Hi,

In the AG brews I've done so far (mashing in an esky) I've warmed up the esky, drained it, then put the grain in and then finally added the strike water. In HTB it suggests adding the water to the grain. However, I've heard that people take a different approach and fill the esky with the strike water and then add the grain (maybe 1/3 of the total grain bill at a time).

Which is the preferred method? Does it matter?

Cheers,

Chris

 

[big78sam]

dejavu...

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...?showtopic=8953

 

[bignath]

I preheat my esky with a couple of litres of boiling water straight from a kitchen kettle, leave this for 5 or so minutes, drain it, add my strike water, add grain, stir like buggery for a minute getting rid of clumped grain, then walk away for the mash and have a beer while i prepare my sparge water.

Works for me, never tried any other method.

 

[Charst]

I stir the grain into the water, otherwise you just asking for doughballs to form i reckon. Think about adding Milk to a glass half full of milo and there's always dry spots and even after to stirring the crap out of it you end up with floating lumps of dry milo. similar thing in the mash tun.

 

[mika]

Always had the grain in the tun and underlet the water into it. I have had the odd dough ball and one time when I had the grain crushed by a friend (appeared to be a lot finer) I got a few doughballs then. But most of the time I underlet, give it a good stir and wait for 5mins to check the temp.

 

[peaky]

I run my strike water into the esky mash tun at about 5 degrees hotter than what I need for mash in. Then close the lid and leave it for 10min or so to heat the tun, then give it a stir to get down to strike temp. In goes the grain and stir it heaps with the mash paddle. Seems to work ok, I hit my mash temps pretty much bang on and haven't had any dough ball issues.

 

[WarmBeer]

I preheat my esky with a couple of litres of boiling water straight from a kitchen kettle, leave this for 5 or so minutes, drain it, add my strike water, add grain, stir like buggery for a minute getting rid of clumped grain, then walk away for the mash and have a beer while i prepare my sparge water.

Works for me, never tried any other method.

I use the same methodology, but employ a spare 6 year old I happen to have hanging around the house to stir the grain as I pour it into the water.

 

[brotom7]

I'm adding water to the esky at about 3 degree more than Beersmith says to compensate for the cool esky.
Mill and hopper is made to fit the esky so I just fit it ontop of the esky and mill straight down on the water in the esky, never had a dough ball.

 

[manticle]

This topic appears multiple times on just about every grain brewing site I've seen.

People have all sorts of reasons for doing whatever they do (I for one belong in the 1/3 water,1/3 grain camp) but I'm convinced it makes a beesdick's worth of difference to the mash so long as you don't kill off half your enzymes by adding too little grain to too much hot water.