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Sparge Water Temperature

Merkur

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Joined
Feb 7, 2017
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Hi - I have made several All-grain batches but still have a lot to learn.  I have just registered my BeerSmith copy and am making my first batch using my equipment profile and technique.

I am making the Old Hound Dog Pre-Prohibition Porter and the BeerSmith instructions show I should sparge with water at 168F.  On previous batches of other beers I have used 185F and measured the mash temp to ensure that it does not exceed 170F.  Using water at 168 to Batch Sparge seems to me a little on the low side and would result in a mash temp in the high 150s.  I thought that the sparging purpose was a) to rinse out the sugars and b) to raise the mash temperature to end the Saccharification step.

I have the Mash name set to 'Single infusion, Medium Body, Batch sparge'.

Any thoughts?  Am I interpreting the instructions correctly?

Paul
 
Open up your mash profile and you will find a place to specify your sparge water temperature.  You can change it to the temperature you want. 

 
Understood.  Thanks. 

Since this is a Beersmith recipe and was already loaded I assume that the 168F sparge temperature is correct.  It just seemed a little low to me in my [very limited] experience.

Thanks,

Paul
 
Even with recipes that come with the program or that you download, you should be scaling them to your equipment profile and preferred mash schedule (profile) in order to achieve the most out of BeerSmith.  It is actually one of the best aspects of the program is the ability to customize any recipe to your process!
 
The "exceeding 170 degrees" is a myth, IMO. A good portion of the issues we are told to watch out for come from commercial level brewers and don't apply to homebrewer volumes...again, IMO. I sparge at 175-180 and do not extract tannins, etc. I do treat my RO water for sparging to ensure pH stays below 6 but that's about it.

Mark
 
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