Strike and Sparge water temps

[PaulStat]

This might be a bit of a boring topic, but I thought it might be interesting for people to see what temperatures people get their Liquour up to to keep it in the 65-67C range.

For me personally this is what I aim for (hope I've got the terminology right now)

Strike water: 85C , by the time I've added this to the tun and doughed in the mash is bang on 65C
Sparge water: 67C , I have this significantly cooler as the grain retains a lot of it's heat from the mash stage

I'm sure it must be different for everyone's setup

[Parva]

The purpose of the sparge (other than rinsing the grains) is to bring the temperature up to such a point that conversion stops. All of the water I use is at 82c. I mash in with 82c water (I don't preheat the tun) and I invariably hit 67c doing it this way. My first sparge is at 82c and I find that once I've added the first batch sparge I hit around 72c. Once drained I refill again and usually hit 76c. As long as I get 72c-80c on the batch sparging (and I invariably do) then I'm happy.

Just mashed in now as it happens.

[PaulStat]

Ahhh ok misunderstood that then, ok then my sparge water is generally over 70C so it looks like I'm doing it right :p

[tangoman]

Strike water @ 82c
Sparge water @ 80c

[edit1now]

Strike about 4 or 5 C over first mash temp step. The calculator here on JBK is great. My sparge liquor hits the sparging tee at 85C, and it then cools a bit as it's sprayed over the mash, such that the grain bed stays about 76 or 77C, which is the maximum solubility temperature for malt sugars.

[subsub]

Not going to answer it Paul, you're right it is really boring

[Eric]

Hi Paul, it is a boring but essential question. The answer depends largely upon whether you mash in or out of doors or if it relates to summer or winter.
80C is a good ballpark figure but keep a logbook and record the ambient temperature and conditions, noting what variations there are in both the conditions and the product. This process is highly scientific but it isn't without art, in the past I've made some good brews by mistake.