Mash Out Query

[Jim]

Yo, I'm a fair few hours in but just want to make sure I haven't misunderstood the "mash out" instructions. I'll use a "small batch" recipe as an example.

After maintaining the grains at 65 degrees C for an hour, the instructions say to heat 11L of water to 100 degrees C, then to add it all to the mash tun. By this point though, this will cause the mash tun to overflow, as we have had to top it up with additional water during the mash to maintain the temperature.

How important is it that specifically 11L is added? Or is the intention of the instruction to basically top the mash tun up to it's maximum capacity? Or are you supposed to let it overflow?

Or am I adding too much water during the mash process to maintain it at 65 degrees C for an hour? I normally try to keep it with +/- 1 degree.

Any advice on this general stage would be great, I just want to make sure I am doing it right as the instructions aren't exactly black and white.

[BonPadre]

Tips coming from a non perfectionist player. And also with absolutely NO background knowledge of beer brewing, so had / still have to learn the game's ropes. (keep that in mind please)
So maybe a more experience and perfectionist player will add more tips, or even say otherwise, but at least it's how I do it.

First time I did like you, trying to keep that 65°C at all cost, adding water as soon as I went under 64°C.

Now one of the best tip you can get is learn to use your X rays (activating with [G] key)
Then try a single time to simply add your water up to your 65°C with the initial ~10L
With your X rays, just watch how your fermentable sugars evolve during the full hour (without adding any water). Try it once, do yourself this favor. One of the thing you could monitor is your fermentable sugars, but then if you also navigate in this "X ray menu" (Z & X) you can now see the flavors & flavors notes. All that will be very valuable informations later on in the game. (don't need to understand it all now, you will connect the dots later game)

Now if you really want to "try hard" to keep that temperature up to 65°C, what I do, I tend to add a little bit of water again after 30 minutes so I raise it up again up to 65°C

And then let the mash do it's thing, aka, stopping to release fermentable sugars. Usually even happens before the hour,

And then add the rest of your water at 100°C

I'll link you to a thread I made about that as how they should approach this very topic.

Now if you keep doing it the way you do, you simply add too much water diluting your mash.
I have seen YouTuber having same issue continusly draining mash to have room for the 11L... so yeah that's not how you do it.

Also worth noting that later on, on bigger batches and with better material, the temperature drops slower.

(Link to the thread about that very issue)
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1569200/discussions/3/5533260453824181712/

[Jim]

Good post and I agree, the wording is off for the recipe at that point. It doesn't help that the first mash tun seems to have really poor insulation compared to the ones your purchase, so it almost feels more compelling to top it up more.

I know the exact you tube videos you're talking about too! Haha, but they're the only ones that seem to exist. I really wish they had some official videos showing the intended method, but I do wonder sometimes if the point is to "experiment" and work it out?

I feel like a fool now that you mention the x-ray, you're completely right. I use this for the flavour but have never used it during the mash. The next recipe I do, I'll do a save before and after, do one maintaining at 65 degrees and one leaving and it to see what difference it makes.

[BonPadre]

Originally posted by Jim:

I feel like a fool now that you mention the x-ray, you're completely right. I use this for the flavour but have never used it during the mash. The next recipe I do, I'll do a save before and after, do one maintaining at 65 degrees and one leaving and it to see what difference it makes.

Don't feel like a fool, it's again a tool that is mentionned, but until you want / need to actually understand what impact has OG, what impact fermentable sugars have, need to reach or not reach x levels of flavors, you are not really needing.

I did not instantly used them, I also went through that learning process to actually learn that I needed to look at them, and as of today, I just really start to connect the dots. And pretty slowly at that, that is 🤣

[Auroch Matty]

I love our community helping each other

[ulteriormodem]

One thing I remember from back when I was brewing was the tedious process of sparging.

Slowly trickeling hot water over the grain to wring the last bit of sugars out of it.

Guess that was either over looked or I have not unlocked it yet.

[Jim]

Yea they seem to have removed that - and a good thing IMO as it is pretty tedious! Hah.

[Jim]

So having done some research (keeping in mind this is on a small batch).

When adding 10L of water to the grains, the contamination always seems to go to 4% minimum. I have't found a way to avoid this.

When at 4%, the contamination will remain that number as long as the temperature remains between 62 degrees celcius to 67 degrees celcius. When ever it goes above or below these values, the contamination begins to rise. I'm unsure whether it affects anything else during this process.

Later in the game, more efficient mash tuns become available. With the lid on, it holds the temperature pretty well.

With the above in mind, you can do minimal top ups to ensure you don't add too much water.

Also, when you unlock the advanced water chiller (the big red coil) and the electric kettle, you can actually utilise these bits of equipment to add temperature to the mash but not water. Unsure how accurate this is IRL but it's a late game method of keeping the water levels the same.

I hope the above helps anyone else in the future.

[Limmin]

I've got a simple process to share:
1. Try to use the orange coolers with lids; they stay close to the desired temperature very nicely.
2. Heat all your water for the recipe (typically 11 l + 10 l) to 0.5 C above the target for mashing.
3. Put in the 11 l to mash and shut the lid.
4. Start heating the remaining 10 l.
5. In about 20-30 minutes, you may need about 1 l of water added to your mash. So pour in 1 l of the currently heating water (not yet 100C but well over your mash temperature, so be careful to not put in too much)
6. Lid back on to the mash tun, and put pot with remaining water back onto the heat. Don't forget to put a lid on the heating water to speed things up.
7. At the mash-out time, your remaining water should be at 100% (keep the lid on) and your mashing should be done. Dump in the 100C water, and THERE WILL BE NO OVERFLOW.
8. Use the tap and tube to transfer the wort into your now-empty brew pot.

[viewtyjoe]

My non-standard methodology for small/medium batches for minimal contamination until you need to chill your wort:

1. Collect grain in mash tun (or a pot, we don't need this to do anything but hold the grain)
2. Fill electric kettle with the water volume for mashing (10/20L) and set the temperature on the kettle to .5-1C above the recipe temperature
3. Once water hits temperature, dump in grain, set temperature to 65-65.5C
4. Boil the rest of the water in your preferred brewing vessel
5. Mash out with the boiling water, set kettle temperature to 100C
6. Just boil the wort in the kettle and hop and add any adjuncts that go in at this point

If you use pumps and tubes to transfer the boiling water into the kettle, even better. I usually transfer the wort to a normal kettle and cool with an immersion coil, because I am either fundamentally misunderstanding how to use the other coolers, or they are somehow less effective.