When doing Polenta beers, rice lagers, etc. it's normal to boil the adjunct to a mush in a stockpot and add to the main grain mash. Or if doing an American style cereal mash you can bring the results to the boil to complete gelatinisation of the starch in the adjunct and pour this "cooker mash" as they call it, to the main mash. Like they do at Bud, basically.
I know a lot of guys let their rice porridge etc cool to 66 for example, as it's a bitch to get the mixed temperature right, but using this calculator you can simply add the boiling goop to the main mash, provided you have kept track of how much water used in each, and know what strike liquor temperature you are looking for. This is probably more useful for BIAB.
So for example I've "stolen" 5L of water out of my 33L in the urn to boil 500g of polenta to a thin mush. I've adjusted the water still in the urn, using the Calculator, to get an eventual strike temp of 68 degrees which will drop to a 66 degree mash when I pour in the main grain, so Calculator tells me to add the boiling goop into the urn water at 62 degrees. In practice I do the dough in first then add the goop - same thermodynamic outcome. Bag fitted, needless to say. Saves a lot of waiting around.
In the case of the polenta, the presence of the polenta itself would have a fairly minute influence, so I've adjusted it to take account of this by saying that I actually have 5.3L of goop- which sounds about right ish.
Edit: I know it's a good calculator because I use it with my "post cube hop boil" - so I posted the above before doughing in - which I've just done with the pot o polenta etc. And I hit right on to an accuracy of 0.2 C.
It can be fine tuned further by using the Brewmate grain temperature vs strike temperature calculator widget as well, which I'll do next time, but 0.2 floats my boat for this brew.
I know a lot of guys let their rice porridge etc cool to 66 for example, as it's a bitch to get the mixed temperature right, but using this calculator you can simply add the boiling goop to the main mash, provided you have kept track of how much water used in each, and know what strike liquor temperature you are looking for. This is probably more useful for BIAB.
So for example I've "stolen" 5L of water out of my 33L in the urn to boil 500g of polenta to a thin mush. I've adjusted the water still in the urn, using the Calculator, to get an eventual strike temp of 68 degrees which will drop to a 66 degree mash when I pour in the main grain, so Calculator tells me to add the boiling goop into the urn water at 62 degrees. In practice I do the dough in first then add the goop - same thermodynamic outcome. Bag fitted, needless to say. Saves a lot of waiting around.
In the case of the polenta, the presence of the polenta itself would have a fairly minute influence, so I've adjusted it to take account of this by saying that I actually have 5.3L of goop- which sounds about right ish.
Edit: I know it's a good calculator because I use it with my "post cube hop boil" - so I posted the above before doughing in - which I've just done with the pot o polenta etc. And I hit right on to an accuracy of 0.2 C.
It can be fine tuned further by using the Brewmate grain temperature vs strike temperature calculator widget as well, which I'll do next time, but 0.2 floats my boat for this brew.
