Grain in first when mashing

Has anyone here tried adding the water into the grain in the mash tun as oppose to stirring in the grain to the strike water? Does it work well or does it create dry clumps?

I want to switch to this method so I don't get the barley dust on me as I have eczema and my hands get really irritated by barley for some reason.

Is it better to pump the water up from underneath or just add it from the top? Would I even have to stir it when I have a HERMS that can recirculate the mash?

I know bugger all about HERMS and underletting and all that jazz . But when using an insulated mash tun I always go grain first and then add the water . Different routine when doing boil in the bag , though . Havent had a problem with cold spots , just stir it up well .

The ecxema issue - would you not be well served by using the blue vinyl catering gloves ? They are food grade and hypoallergenic ? I suffer from chemically sensitised skin so when I was working as a tattoo artist I couldnt use the latex gloves most people did , I was fine with the vinyl and nitrile though . They are cheap enough from a catering supplier like Nisbetts or even screwfix or toolstation . I get mine from the local market for £3 a hundred ! Plus ...imagine how impressed the Enviromental or food standards people would be if they dropped in !

Hi Ryan,

underletting is your best bet to avoid 'flour clouds'. I know a few folk on the forum do it including Aleman, so well worth dropping him a pm and doing a search on the forum/net.
Personally, I've tried it several times and it didn't work for me. The malt simply rose up on water addition, and tried to get out of the tun :shock:
Have you thought about using a hopper to add the malt to the MT just above the height of the water?

Yeah I thought that might happen! Well I was thinking of trying underletting but with an inch of water underneath to get it evenly soaking up water as I've read other people do. Hopefully I'll still be able to get the water in at a decent speed.

A hopper is another option but I'd prefer to give the grain first method a shot because I could mill my barley straight into the MT and there wouldn't be any chance of a flour cloud that way. Also wouldn't need to clean another thing that's had grist in it.

I'll give Aleman a shout and see what he does.

I underlet all the time. I use a 50 litre thermopot with a false bottom which bottom drains. I add the water through the bottom, gravity fed from the HLT.
You need to get your water temperatures right in the HLT.
I've never had the grains float on me, I usually have approx 10kg of grain in the Mash Tun.
I still have to stir, but not as much as if you add the grain to the water.

I underlet all the time now too - just make sure your connections are good!! - the grain still needs a little stir, but you don't get the balls and lumps of grain.

I also have excema - there is still the dust from pouring the grain into the dry mash tun at the start - I've tried putting it in a bit at a time, but didn't really find it any better - and it makes a lovely smell :lol:

I've been underletting for years, apart from the lack of clumps I have also found I can reach a more consistent strike temperature.

shocker said:

...imagine how impressed the Enviromental or food standards people would be if they dropped in !

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Impressive! lol :lol:

So you just pour it all on the top in one go then give it a stir then do you?

I was about to order some latex gloves, didn't know you could get hypoallergenic ones.. found a pack of nitrile ones on ebay, I'll give them a go. :)

How long does it take to get all the strike water in then? I've got a 30L mash tun so it's probably a fair bit narrower than your 50L one Steve. I often have about 8 - 10kg in there too so I'll probably have to watch out for it floating.

Does it really matter how fast it goes in? I imagine you're probably letting it in about as fast as the grain can soak it up. If you do it faster I think that's what would push it up and float the grain because there's still air in the grain that's below the water level.

Might be best gravity feeding it so it doesn't push too hard on it. I can gravity feed it half way but then because the tuns are both at the same height I'd have to pump the rest to the bottom, or I could just pump all of it to the bottom once I've got an idea of the speed it soaks it up.

So I can weigh my grain out, stick the mill on the table I screwed it to in the garden and leave it to mill my grain while I stand back from it.. well, untill the wind blows it all back in my face :lol: Then I just carry the mash tun in and underlet the strike water to it.. shouldn't get any grain on me at all that way if things plan out right.

I'm going to try 'conditioning' the grain too.. wetting it the night before I mill it too so that should keep the powder down while it gets milled .. stops it going all over the mill and the table it's on that I have to take away and clean afterwards.

Ryan , from what others say and what you say yourself , wetting down the grain and then underletting sounds ideal for you . I would want to be taking the temperature of the wetted grain before the underlet to get my strike temps right ...if I did it , which I dont . But in theory , I would .....I reckon .

Me , I have only done AG alongside someone who knew what they were doing but then I let the water in gently from a higher HLT through a hose , sort of a maxi sparge ,and stirred it as I went . Doing it this way you would have to up the HLT temp a bit to compensate for the loss stirring and so on . This was going into a coolbox mash tun so it would be different if you had a heated mash tun and could control the temperature .

But you are getting some advice from people who know , now , so you should be OK ....good luck with the nitriles !

A lot of people seem to like this under letting adea :hmm:
As shock says, heat stole by the mash tun need allowing for, in my case with a big heavy tun it would not work.
Just an observation R, if the dust gives you a problem why not minimise it by buying ready milled grain, I may be wrong but I think most people do it this way. :?
S

If you do go down the underletting route I also recomend pre-heating the mash tun.

That would solve it Den , so what does under letting achieve, less dust and stirring, better temperature distribution :?
S

Springer said:

That would solve it Den , so what does under letting achieve, less dust and stirring, better temperature distribution :?
S

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All that and less clumping.

Vossy1 said:

Personally, I've tried it several times and it didn't work for me. The malt simply rose up on water addition, and tried to get out of the tun

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That happend to me the first couple of times I "underlet".
The secret I discovered was to let the water in slowly to give the grain chance to absorb it.
I now get evidence of water on top of the grain and all you need do is stir for less than a minute!

shocker said:

I would want to be taking the temperature of the wetted grain before the underlet to get my strike temps right ...if I did it , which I dont . But in theory , I would .....I reckon .

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Well, I reckon you would, in theory, and I would do too, so I'll do that too now then .....I reckon.

shocker said:

Me , I have only done AG alongside someone who knew what they were doing but then I let the water in gently from a higher HLT through a hose , sort of a maxi sparge ,and stirred it as I went . Doing it this way you would have to up the HLT temp a bit to compensate for the loss stirring and so on . This was going into a coolbox mash tun so it would be different if you had a heated mash tun and could control the temperature .
But you are getting some advice from people who know , now , so you should be OK ....good luck with the nitriles !

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Thanks mate, Well I usually warm the mash tun up one way or another with the initial strike water, usually recirculating it through my HLT then back to the mash tun. Then, once the temp settles around the strike temp that I'm after I start adding the grain in. That usually gets it pretty spot on but I brewed the other day (first time in ages) and thought I'd try something I read someone else was doing, on.. i think it was an aussie forum.. where he was putting the whole mash tun in the oven set at 70C. I overshot my mash temp by almost 4C but I think if I wet the grain before milling it could balace it out. I could stick the tun in the oven with all the grain next time I brew, then the water strike temp wouldn't have to be much higher than the actual mash temp that I'm going for so I'd be more likley to hit the mash temp. I'd just take the MT out of the oven, whack the insulation on, stir the grist up and take the temp, then calculate what the strike water temp needs to be.

Anyone think that could affect the beer in some way? Would I be roasting the grain at all if it's in there for about 45 minutes? The grain shouldn't be too wet so I don't think it'd be 'mashing' there in the oven!

evanvine said:

Vossy1 said:

Personally, I've tried it several times and it didn't work for me. The malt simply rose up on water addition, and tried to get out of the tun

Click to expand...

That happend to me the first couple of times I "underlet".
The secret I discovered was to let the water in slowly to give the grain chance to absorb it.
I now get evidence of water on top of the grain and all you need do is stir for less than a minute!

Click to expand...

Right, I'll keep that in mind then.. I suppose if you're doing it too fast then you see it rising up and you'll know to stop for a minute and run it slower.

I think you may be onto something with your oven warming first thing , mate . The way I understand it you would be making the conversion easier , if anything . I dont think you would be roasting it if its thoroughly wet through , so long as you didnt let it dry out .....but , yes , I do think you would be starting the mashing process during its time in the oven , but I would think that would be a good thing . This sparks a memory of a commercial process I heard about years ago....but then I might be getting it confused with grandads malting memories ....dunno . But it sounds like a good idea....reckons I

Yeah I'll have to see how long it takes to come up to about 66C and just keep stirring it every 10 min and checking on the temp. Might only take 30 minutes but even if it only reaches about 30 or 40C then like I say I'll just use the calc to check what temp the strike water will need to be. Should eliminate cold spots from the mash anyway!!