First all grain brew , strike water

Getting Started
1

Brewing all grain for the first time, I have a question on using the strike water. Do I drain my mash all the way first and then rinse the grain, or just open the mash at a slow trickle and slowly put strike water in the top as it’s draining .

Thank you for the help.

2

Drain slow and keep adding as you drain… If you can, keep the wort just under the top off the grain bed… It seems that if you recirc, vorlauf, the first few runnings, your wort will clear up. If you run it dry… You’ll get cloudy wort… So you’ll have to recirc again… Sneezles61

3

Depends if you are fly sparging or batch sparging.
Fly sparging requires you to maintain water above the grain bed. Batch sparging you can drain, add water and stir, vorlauf, and drain. Repeat that process to get your desired boil volume.

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4

Would not be strike water but sparge water. Sneezles is fly sparging. I am a batch sparger, so I just drain the mash tun, add the entire water amount for the sparge, wait a bit and drain to the kettle.

Different methods but both work.

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5

thank you for the advice .

6

Me succesfull with both methods. Me do. Fly sparge.

7

Welcome to the forum!

Just to add a bit to what the others have said:

  1. The first wort you get from the mash is called “first runnings”.
  2. The first part of your first runnings and will likely contain a bunch of husks and material from the mash that you don’t want in your boil.
  3. Vorlauf or catch the wort in a container until and dump back into the mash tun until it’s clear.

Here’s a little video to help clarify. (No pun intended!)

Good luck and happy brewing!

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