Mashing Out… Is It Worth It?

Mashing out is the term given to the act of boosting your mash temperature prior to running off your wort. For many brewers, a single infusion mash is what they use. This post will discuss if performing a mash out step is worth it.

In some mashing setups, adding heat to either the wort or mash is easy. When you mash in an insulated vessel with no external heat source, mashing out may not be so easy.

Common wisdom is that the mash out step stops enzyme action and helps fix the potential wort fermentability, but that is not totally true. Even at the typical 168F to 170F (75C to 77C) mash out temperature, the enzymes continue to work. They just become denatured more rapidly.

Significant benefits of mashing out is that it helps pull a bit more extract out of the grist and it elevates your wort temperature. Hotter wort just means that you will reach boiling a bit quicker, but its not that much of a benefit. However, getting a bit more extract out of your grist can be a worthwhile benefit.

In practice, mashing out can increase your wort gravity by about 1 to 2 Brix (0.004 to 0.008 specific gravity units). Your final saccharification rest temperature generally defines how big a boost you're wort will produce. Lower sacc rest temps will produce a bigger boost, while high sacc rest temps will produce less. So, if your final sacc rest was only in the mid to upper 140F (60C) range, you could see a nice efficiency boost from a mash out step.

BUT, IS IT WORTH IT? For those brewers that have a mashing system that can easily and effectively step up their mashing temperature, YES, it is worth it. For those of you that would have to add the proper volume of boiling water and stir, it may not be. Its even more questionable if you don't have much room in your tun to accept that mash out infusion.

The bottom line on Mashing Out...if you can accomplish it easily...do it. If its less feasible or troublesome for your system, its OK to skip.