All grain kit - mash out or not?

[tominboston]

I am getting ready in a week or two to brew my first all grain kit ( dead ringer ipa).

Some instructions I see call for a mash out and some don't. I did just get the latest John Palmer how to brew book and will start reading about it, but I was just curious what you guys do.

I have the two 10 gal coolers set up for mash and sparge as well as a 10 gal boil kettle ( and my trusty old 5 gal as well to have on hand to heat extra water if necessary ).
My intent is to set the flow so I can sparge and fill my kettle very slowly. Just not sure about the mash out requirements.

Thank you for any insight,

Tom

[sneezles61]

Look at Denny's Batch Sparing method... He explains it nicely... And of course, many peeps here to help you along. I used to fly sparge. Which means, as I remove wort, I am adding 165* water at about the the same rate as it is removed. Thats after you Vorlaug, set the grain bed, by draining wort into a vessel, about 1-2 quarts, and quietly dump back into the mash-tun. Sneezles61

[loopie_beer]

@sneezles61 is correct. If you batch sparge mash out really isn't needed. If you fly it's much more important.

[tominboston]

Thanks, I am set up to fly sparge, and the all grain kit is sized for that as well it seems. So I will do the full Monty and mash out for 10 min and then consume a couple of home brews doing a slowwwwww fly sparge for this batch.

Tom

[brew_cat]

It's good to try the fly sparge and all the other techniques and then make your own decision which process you like.

[hd4mark]

I fly sparge and never mash out. Can't really see the point. The runnings will be brought to a boil shortly after collecting anyway. As soon as my kettle is about 1/2 or 1/4 full I start to apply heat to get the boil going faster.

[tominboston]

Thanks Mark, great idea on starting the heat while sparging to save a little time.
Do you do anything special regarding your water? I have another thread question running on that ...... I have never questioned my water on the past 5 or 6 extract batches, but it seems many people consider it closely. I guess I could install a RO filter system for a couple of hundred bucks. I have municipal water that seems to taste fine and has no odors to it.

[hd4mark]

The only thing I do with my water is either use campden tablets or a carbon filter to remove chlorine or chloramines. You should be able to get a water report from your municipal water supply. Ours has two sources and they do not specify which one is in use or if it's mixed so it's a crap shoot.

So I'm not the water expert here but there are some guys that are very knowledgeable about it.