Strike Temp Question

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river water brewing
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Strike Temp Question

Post by river water brewing »

Hello, I am getting ready do my first all grain batch, and I just put the schedule into beer tools and the strike temp for the dough in and sac rest infusion seem high:

Dough in target temp = 104, beer tools strike temp = 119.06
Sac Rest infusion target temp = 156, beer tools strike temp = 205

does this sound right??? the reason I ask is that in the reading i have done, it has suggested a strike temp about 15 degrees higher than target temp.

I have calibrated my mash tun and I lose about 5 degrees over an hours time. I have selected the mash tun in my "Mash In" editor.

Any help is appreciated!!
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slothrob
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strike temp

Post by slothrob »

So, your schedule is to dough in at 104°F, then step up with an infusion to 156°F (which is pretty high, by the way)?

If that's your plan, then the numbers sound about right. The ~15°F reference ifs for the strike water needed to raise the grain and tun temperature to the target. It takes more heat to then raise the greater thermal mass of the grain, the tun and the strike water with an infusion.

When I do a step mash by infusion, I typically need to add water close to boiling temperature.
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jawbox
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Post by jawbox »

you also need to select an arbitrary heating vessel for BTP to calc strike temps based on your mash tun.

WITH HEATING VESSEL SELECTED
Image

WITHOUT HEATING VESSEL SELECTED
Image

From experience I can tell you you're going to adjust your mash tun Heat Capacity and Heat Xfer Coefficient once you have performed an actual mash. The calibration gets you close but for whatever reason doesn't seem to match a real mash.
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river water brewing
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Post by river water brewing »

Thanks so much Jawbox!! i added it and its all good!!!

as for my mash temp, i have read that a higher temp being used to create a sweater maltier wort. if i am trying to get some of that effect is 156 to hot?
JG
Just trying to find the perfect batch!!!
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slothrob
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Post by slothrob »

river water brewing wrote:as for my mash temp, i have read that a higher temp being used to create a sweater maltier wort. if i am trying to get some of that effect is 156 to hot?
It will depend on variables in your system, the recipe, and the OG of the beer you're making, but 156°F would be uncommonly warm.

I find that 150°F is a good default temperature for a typical Pale Ale. If I want it a bit sweeter and fuller bodied, I'll bump that up to 152°F. If the recipe has more than about 5% Crystal Malt, 152°F can become cloyingly sweet, to me on my system, but can work nicely for a primarily Base Malt beer. For a drier beer, I'll go with 148°F (or a step mash of 148°F and 158°F).

Occasionally I'll go as high as 154°F, but that would only be for a primarily Base Malt beer with a very low OG (say less than 1.040). I've heard of people going as high as 158°F, but that would give me a very sweet, desert-like beer.

What kind of beer are you making and what's the recipe like?
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river water brewing
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Post by river water brewing »

thanks so much for the info about the temps, very interesting. would you use those same temps with a mash tun that loses about 5 degrees an hour?

my recipie is fusion of an irish red and an american brown, a malty nuty irish red.

the recipie is as follows:

12lb of 2 row
.75 american victory
.5 honey malt
.5 belgian aromatic
.5 belgian caramunich
.5 crystal 80
.25 roasted barley

nothern brewer, centennial and fuggal hops

wyeast 1084 irish ale

og = 1.062
tg = 1.016

26 IBU's


Thanks again for the feed back
JG
Just trying to find the perfect batch!!!
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slothrob
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strike temp

Post by slothrob »

river water brewing wrote:would you use those same temps with a mash tun that loses about 5 degrees an hour?
That's part of where the system variability comes in, so I can't really say for sure. When are you losing the heat? It takes 5-10 minutes for the tun and grain to equalize temperature. If you're losing moist of that heat in that time period, I'd stir in, walk away for 5 minutes or so, then take the temperature and consider that your mash temperature.

Preheating the tun to somewhere close to your mash temperature can eliminate a lot of heat loss, but you would need to set up your Mash In window in BTP a bit different to properly calculate your strike temperature.

All that said, 152F would probably give me a FG of about 1.012 - 1.014 from a beer that size and a half a pound of Crystal Malt. The additional pound of Crystal Malt that you're adding should add another 2-3 points to that, and the pound or so of toasted malt might add another point. So, I'd guess at an FG of about 1.015 - 1.018.

There's probably, depending on your efficiency, about 4-6 points of unfermentable sugar from your specialty grains. That should help prevent the FG from dropping too low.
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river water brewing
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Post by river water brewing »

Thanks so much slothrob!!!

i do plan to pre-heat my mash tun how would i go about adding that to my schedule? i am doing a dough in stage for about 20 min at 104 degrees then an infution to bring the mash temp up to about 152.

also you mention that i am adding another pound or so of crystal, do the other specialty grains fall into the "crystal" catagory? Also you mention the "pound or so" of roasted malt, but i am only using .25lb would that change anything?

Thanks!!
JG
Just trying to find the perfect batch!!!
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slothrob
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strike temp

Post by slothrob »

You can account for preheating the tun by choosing "none" as your mash tun in the Mash In editor window.

Since you're doing a dough-in, I wouldn't bother with preheating, just use the temperature at the end of that rest to calculate your infusion water temperature. The tun will be pretty well preheated by then.

I would treat the Crystal 80, Caramunich, and Honey Malt as Crystal Malts. Technically the Honey Malt might not be a Crystal Malt, but it acts like one and leaves a lot of residual sweetness. Roasted Barley and Chocolate Malts have similarly high levels of unfermentables, so I lump them in when trying to make these predictions.

I would consider the Victory and Aromatic malts to be toasted (not roasted) malts. They leave a bit more unfermentable sugars than base malt (about 12% from my reading), but less than Crystal Malts (which is closer to 50%).

I have to say that there's a lot of hand-waving, estimates, and assumptions going into this kind of prediction. It's really too complicated to accurately predict the FG on a system that you haven't even used yet. But this seems to fit my experience with a recipe like this.

If you want to try the higher temperature, go ahead. It won't make the beer undrinkable. If you're used to making extract beer, it might even make the beer more like what you're used to. I think most brewers tend toward lower mash temperatures over time, though.
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river water brewing
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Thanks so much slothrob

Post by river water brewing »

Great info!!! Very interesting about the specialty malts!!!
JG
Just trying to find the perfect batch!!!
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slothrob
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strike water

Post by slothrob »

I hope it works out for you!
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