fuji6100
02-12-2005, 03:15 PM
I did a mini-mash today with the "Handy Masher" and it seemed like it would be the perfect tool for partial mashes. I did, however, run into several snags that severly limit the usefullness of the device.
I used 4# of grain and wanted to collect my boil volume of 3 gallons, but it was too small to do so. Doing a batch sparge I was only able to fit enough water in with the grain to get a total of 5 quarts per infusion. (2 1/2 gallons total).
Also, the heat fell from 155 to 149 in 45 minutes, so I had to add some hot water to bring it back up to 152 for the last 15 minutes.
The screen didn't do a super job of filtering, even after recircilating almost a gallon. I still had some husks floating around that I had to filter out by hand with a small seive. Also, I had to wedge a large water bottle cap into the end of the slotted pvc to make up for expansion of the cooler to give it a tight fit.
The hole through the cooler wall leaked a bit, but only a few drops over an hour.
Overall, this tool is pretty limited and the only way to get more out of it would be to fly sparge and you still couldn't get more than 5# of grain in it.
It was a good learning experience and so I don't consider the $20 a waste. I will probably use what I've learned from this to build a full sized mash tun and go from there.
I've also documented my brew day at this link for any interested (with pretty pictures too!)
http://www.livejournal.com/users/fuji6100/171376.html?#cutid1
I used 4# of grain and wanted to collect my boil volume of 3 gallons, but it was too small to do so. Doing a batch sparge I was only able to fit enough water in with the grain to get a total of 5 quarts per infusion. (2 1/2 gallons total).
Also, the heat fell from 155 to 149 in 45 minutes, so I had to add some hot water to bring it back up to 152 for the last 15 minutes.
The screen didn't do a super job of filtering, even after recircilating almost a gallon. I still had some husks floating around that I had to filter out by hand with a small seive. Also, I had to wedge a large water bottle cap into the end of the slotted pvc to make up for expansion of the cooler to give it a tight fit.
The hole through the cooler wall leaked a bit, but only a few drops over an hour.
Overall, this tool is pretty limited and the only way to get more out of it would be to fly sparge and you still couldn't get more than 5# of grain in it.
It was a good learning experience and so I don't consider the $20 a waste. I will probably use what I've learned from this to build a full sized mash tun and go from there.
I've also documented my brew day at this link for any interested (with pretty pictures too!)
http://www.livejournal.com/users/fuji6100/171376.html?#cutid1