[twodogbrew69]

Grain into the water or water onto the grain?  I have heard and read both ways.  Thanks for the help!

[denny]

Either way works fine.  It pretty much depends on your techniques and system.  I do grain into water because I've found it works better for me.  Pick a method, try it, and see how it works.

[tygo]

This will be a matter of opinion here but:

Grain into water for me.  

[blatz]

I'm a big proponent of grain into water.  If you put your water into your MLT first, it gives you the chance to preheat your MLT and gives you the opportunity to make corrections to the temp if you erred - i.e. if the temp is way above your strike, you can either wait or add ice, and if its below, you can remove some of the water and reheat it.  I always heat my water to about 3-5df over my strike since that seems to be what my MLT drops the temp immediately.

You can still 'fix' things when the grain is in there, but its messier and now you are running against the clock.

[theDarkSide]

Either way works fine.  It pretty much depends on your techniques and system.  I do grain into water because I've found it works better for me.  Pick a method, try it, and see how it works.

I do grain into water because it's what Denny does 

Acually I do 1/2 water, 1/2 grain, the rest of the water and the rest of the grain.  Works well for me...no dough balls.

[morticaixavier]

I too am a grain into water proponant. I got terrible dough balls (tee hee) when I did it the other way for my first couple of batchs. but that was probably because i was working with a 5 gallon bucket as mash tun. but the preheating of the mash tun is also usefull

[davidgzach]

+1 to the above.  Grain in to water.  No dough balls here!   

[bluesman]

I've done it both ways with success. I prefer grain into water because I get less dough balls and I can adjust my water prior to adding grain if need be.

[Jimmy K]

I do water into grain because I'm pretty gangsta.

[tschmidlin]

I do grain into water because I direct fire my mash tun.

[bluesman]

I do grain into water because I direct fire my mash tun.

Another good point that I forgot to mention.

[dhacker]

I put roughly 1/3 of my strike water in as a foundation, then add all the grain then add the remaining water. Reasons . . .

When doing high gravity mashes that require the full volume of the mash tun, it lets the grain settle lower in the tun when doughing in, First time I added all the water then the grain I had grain falling out the top of the tun till it soaked enough water to settle.

My water inlet into my tun enters the top of the tun through a copper "T"  which has two 10" copper pipes with a total of a dozen drain holes. It spreads the remaining 2/3 of the strike water evenly across the top of the grain while the 4 motorized stirring propellers eliminate any dough ball formation. It worked so well the first time I did it, I do it that way for all my mashes now. The only variable is contending with the tun's thermal mass when the ambient temperature changes considerably, but Promash can compensate the numbers pretty well . .   

[davidgzach]

Grain into the water or water onto the grain?  I have heard and read both ways.  Thanks for the help!

Now that you've heard arguments for both ways, it seems that it really depends upon your particular brewery and the type of beer you are making.  How are you mashing and how big is the beer?

[Hokerer]

I'm a big proponent of grain into water.  If you put your water into your MLT first, it gives you the chance to preheat your MLT and gives you the opportunity to make corrections to the temp if you erred - i.e. if the temp is way above your strike, you can either wait or add ice, and if its below, you can remove some of the water and reheat it.  I always heat my water to about 3-5df over my strike since that seems to be what my MLT drops the temp immediately.

You can still 'fix' things when the grain is in there, but its messier and now you are running against the clock.

+1.  That's how I do it and for the very same reasons

[tygo]

but the preheating of the mash tun is also usefull

If you're doing infusion mashing in a cooler this is a really good argument for grain into water.  It can be pretty tough to hit your temps until the temperature of the cooler is stabilized up near your mash temp.