Avoiding Dough Balls
TroubleShooting
Neal Steward • Springville, New York asks,
I brew 10-gallon (38-L) batches, so there is quite a bit of grain used in every batch. I find that as I slowly dump the crushed grains into the mash tun while gently stirring, occasionally the grain falls in as a larger clump and yields dough balls. These can be difficult to break up without splashing/adding oxygen to the mash. I’ve got a couple of questions related to this: Is there a better way to control the grain addition to the mash tun? Would a homemade grist hydrator prevent the dough balls? Also, would a grist hydrator introduce hot-side aeration (HSA)? Is HSA even an issue on such a small scale?
Dough balls are an undeniable nuisance to brewers of all sizes because the malt in the dough ball is not wetted and does us brewers no good.
Unless you are stirring with unrestrained vigor, hot-side aeration is not something to lose sleep over. A few things that may help you out include using a mash paddle that is designed to help minimize these pesky clumps, smashing the dough ball into the mash paddle with a spoon, blasting the dough ball with targeted and judiciously applied jets of water from your favorite hose nozzle, or sequentially adding a bit of water followed by a bit of malt to spread your additions out. Some of these methods double as stress relief for cranky brewers!
Grist hydrators are common in commercial breweries of nearly all sizes, but they are not inexpensive to purchase or easy to build without access to stainless welding. Unless you are a gearhead looking for a project, I don’t suggest the grist hydrator route. Thanks for the question, Neal, and hope you solve your dough ball woes with one of the low-cost, manual methods.
