Sparge temperature of 180F for a wheat beer?

[Brewer #457364]

Hi - I am about to brew an Allagash Wheat beer and the recipe says that after a 60 minute infusion mash, there's a 10 minute sparge at 180 F. That seems dangerously high to me. Is it? Thanks!

 

[Craigerrr]

Sounds like a "mash out" step, which I do, but not that high, I do a mash out around 170F, and my sparge water is at the same temperature.
The mash out denatures the enzymes which will stop any further conversion.

 

[Minbari]

At our scale, mash out and sparge aren't super critical. Lower it if you want, you will be on to boil in 10 minutes. Mostly you want the rinse

 

[J A]

A lot depends on the method you're using. I heat sparge water up to well over 170 but I transfer to a different vessel for gravity fed fly-sparge. It doesn't hold that temp for long and doesn't raise the temp of the grain bed.
If you're doing full-volume BIAB and heating the tun with the bag in it, I'd be careful of raising the temp that high because the submerged grain will heat to the same temp. If you're heating water and/or wort separately and doing a dunk sparge, you'll be fine because 180 is a strike temp and will be losing heat as it's raising the temp of the grain.

 

[Donoroto]

As @Minbari said, on our scale the sparge is more accurately a rinse, since the enzymatic action will cease shortly before the boil, just minutes.

On a large scale, hundreds or thousands of liters, it can take a while (an hour?) to get up to boil, so a sparge to stop the enzymes is important. Not here.

That being said, it won’t be harmful either.

 

[Brewer #457364]

Thanks for the helpful information - I'll be rinsing for sure!!

 

[Yooper]

Thanks for the helpful information - I'll be rinsing for sure!!

You can even use cold water for the sparge- it'll just take longer to get the wort up to a boil. I do no-sparge now, but when I did sparge, I sometimes did just a quick batch sparge, using water easily over 170F. The idea is that you want to rinse the grainbed, not really needing any enzymatic activity at that point.

 

[Dave Y]

Hi - I am about to brew an Allagash Wheat beer and the recipe says that after a 60 minute infusion mash, there's a 10 minute sparge at 180 F. That seems dangerously high to me. Is it? Thanks!

That’s a generalized instruction, and not to be taken as the 11th commandment. You should start taking gravity readings at about 30-45 minutes into the mash with a refractometer to gauge gravity. You want to see a gravity higher than what B/F predicts you will need going into the boil. You mash out; raise the temp to 168-170F for at least 10 minutes - I’ve gone as long as 30minutes and picked up some gravity in this step. Not always, but a good many times.
I sparge about 175-176, while the wort is still at 168-170F Once I have my volume I take a reading again to gauge my gravity and compare to what I need to have and my boil off rate to see how close I am to the target.

Using an all in one compromises some efficiency for simplicity, so mashing may take longer to reach the pre-boil gravity. I typically mash 90 or so minutes before achieving pre-boil gravity + enough to survive the sparge.

Since you mention a wheat beer, rice hulls will help the wort flow better and that should help improve the extraction efficiency.

 

[Brewer #457364]

Thanks - I will use rice hulls next time for sure. Just started primary fermentation!