Mashing: Brewpot vs. Cooler for Infusion

[O2 Mash]

Hey Guys, I've just about had it with mashing in my cooler. I can't seem to keep the temp up for 45 minutes.:mad: I even preheat my cooler in the oven before adding grain and water. A few times, my recipes have turned into decoctions, and I've had to scoop up some mash and throw some on the stove for a while, add it back to the cooler to bring up the temperature. Sometimes I just throw it all in the brewpot and heat the whole thing up to temp, then throw it back in the cooler.

I'm thinking of mashing in the brewpot. How many guys out there are doing this? Have you had much luck? I just have a 10 gallon brewpot with a glass thermometer, and was wondering how easy it is keep the temp steady in this manner.

What's the best?????

[OldHooky]

What type of cooler are you using? I use a 10 gallon round beverage cooler, and I've held temperatures dead on for 2 hours.

[Tweek]

Your strike temp is prob off. You need to be heating the strike water up much higher than the target temp. Your grain will be sitting at room temp and will abosrb and dissapte a lot of heat. so you need to compensate for that. How much will depend on your setup/surroundings. Play around with it you will get it.

[Stumptown]

Yeah, I use a crappy 10 year old cooler and even that holds my temps for an hour, with maybe 1 or 2 degrees drop in that time. There are plenty of strike temperature calculators out there you can use. I find they get me pretty damn close every time.

[denver brewhoo]

While I agree w/ everybody else, I did have a similar experience, with temps falling unacceptably (like 10 degrees in 90 minutes)though, brewing outdoors this winter when it was below 15 degrees....and I'm also thinking about doing the same thing for another reason, space--my Victory round rubbermaid/Gott coolers are 10 gallons, unless I want to do decoctions it's hard to do multiple temp rests the easy way, ie step infusions, on high gravity 10 gal brews, because I run out of volume.

So if anybody does mash in their brewkettle, I'd be interested in knowing how hard it is to maintain temps. It doesn't seem to me that it would be very easy at all given the sort of crudeness of the regulator on my propane burner, a fairly old turkey fryer deal.

[sallad]

i do partial mashes on an electric stove. took me a few tries to get it down, but i think i've got it now. its nice cuz the stove surface retains lots of heat, helping prevent temp drops.

on the other hand, the surface retains heat, so the mash temp will continue to rise even after you cut the heat.

so, basically, you have to keep it well stirred and a close eye on the temp when giving it a little more heat. i imagine results would vary from stove to stove, depending on the surface area in contact with the burner, etc.

[O2 Mash]

Originally posted by OldHooky
What type of cooler are you using? I use a 10 gallon round beverage cooler, and I've held temperatures dead on for 2 hours.

I'm using a Coleman rectangular cooler. Looks like its about 36 quarts or so. I'm striking it at about 174F or so, and I'm getting about 157 or 158 right off the bat, but it just goes down from there!

[Fast_Eddy]

I do full mashes(I've done up to 14 lbs) in my kettle on the stove. Temp drops are not drastic....I might lose 5 degrees in 35 minutes if I didn't apply heat. I give it a few short bursts every 10 minutes or so. Keeps the temps very close.

[MARK123]

Fasteddy?
How big is your kettle and how much water do you use per pound??? How do you sparge??

[Fast_Eddy]

I use a 30 qt kettle - how much water/lb depends on what I'm trying to accomplish but it's usually in the 1-1.5 qt/lb range.

I have a separate lauter tun - which is a bucket with a Phils Phalse Bottom. I transfer to it for lauter/sparge.