Temp Loss In Mash Tun

[jagerbrau]

i was almost put off all grain, i had some bad advice from a home brew shop and went out and got a 54litre colman eskie. every mash out of this was rubbish, being a perfectionist i stoped brewing until i sorted this problem.

end of the day it was temp loss, and mash in and sparge temps, thanks to the hbs. these eskies have a lid that have about an 8 litre cavity in them, on top of this the lid is not insulated.

after thought and some chat on the chat room. consultation with people like aaron, wee stu the drunk arab, thanks lads. other s that helped sorry the pints in the blood have made me forget. oh P-O-L cheers. kai diserves a big thanks for putting the initial idea in my head.

well a mix of all advice led me to making a floating lid, this is comprised of a bladder of a sringwater container wrapped around a sandwich of sleeping mat foam ( brought for an ilfated early attempt at a mash tun). only 2 layers of this wrapped in the blader to relect the heat.

i filled the tun with water at 5.36 at 56 deg C and at 824 it was still sitting on slightly over 54deg C. if there was grain that would prob be better.

so just a thanks for all the help.

Cheers David

 

[johnno]

Sounds great jagerbrau,
Thats what AHB is all about, people at all levels of craft brewing willing to share ideas and help in anyway they can.

If it was not for rescources like this I for one would probably still be following Coopers kit instructions or drinking CUB products.

johnno

 

[jagerbrau]

i have grumpys to thank for changing me to mixing it, but what scares me it was the jovial monk that made me cross to the dark side of ag. had played with it for ages. but advice here, drinks with the guys off of here that made me look at things differently.

cheers

 

[sosman]

I have a 48 litre coleman and it works really nicely for me. I have trouble imagining how a 56 litre job could be that bad, were you calculating the strike temperatures correctly and adjusting your thermal mass?

I did fill the lid with urethane foam but a bit of temperature loss can be used to advantage in the mash.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

A 26ltr esky is great for doing 5kg mashes. A trick ( Thanks to Tony) is to put a paice of styrafoam on top of the mash to help stop heat loss.

 

[johnno]

I too have a 45 Quart? igloo.
Heat loss is minimal.

johnno


I should add its about 1C an hour.

 

[Joel]

Never even thought of (or heard of for that matter) a floating lid for the mash tun. What a great idea!

'Course, now I just HAVE to make one... :beerbang:

 

[wee stu]

drinks with the guys off of here cheers

[post="112144"][/post]​

phew, now I understand my role!

I would agree with you jagerbrau, there is a great bunch of blokes in the Adelaide AHB crew, and we mostly contribute where we can.

awrabest, stu

 

[redbeard]

you could also fill the esky lid with expanding foam via a few holes. alow 24 hours to dry, then clean it up and presto - insulated lid

 

[Mr Bond]

Funny this should come up now. <_<

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/Aint...unel-t9176.html

Is athread i started over in o/topics about a similar thing.

 

[Malnourished]

every mash out of this was rubbish, being a perfectionist i stoped brewing until i sorted this problem.

Just curious, what kind of temp drops were you getting and what was so bad with the resulting beer? And are the problems definitely fixed now that you have a more consistent mash temp?

The reason I ask is that I often have rather large temp drops over the course of a mash (5+C sometimes) when I only half-fill my MT, but I can't say I've had any problems as a result.

 

[jagerbrau]

playing with but up to and beyond 4 deg c. other probs didnt help as well like a bugga thermometer. i found that with 5 deg C huge noticeable difference in flavours and body

 

[jagerbrau]

ps sorry colman it was a rubber maid, bloddy booze

 

[stephen]

I use a 24 liter esky as my mash tun. In the beginning I found that I was losing about 2-3 deg per half hour. The good man, Weizguy, shared with me his way of preventing this. He uses a windscreen reflector folded over the top of his esky. I now do this myself and find that I'm only losing 1-2 deg per hour.

Food for thought.

Steve

 

[Malnourished]

i found that with 5 deg C huge noticeable difference in flavours and body

Care to elaborate? Are the differences in flavour and body different to previous extract batches or different to subsequent AG ones? And how exactly are they different?

 

[jagerbrau]

trying to remember, i was having trouble with a thermometer that was up to 10deg C out at time too. so had trouble hiting mash in and sparge temps. once that was fixed still was not happy. asked on here if a loss of up to 5deg would make much difference, the fealing was that would be, the beer had no body was very thin and wrong flav, trying to recall the flav. it was a while ago. will see if can find the note made on it.

 

[Aaron]

Glad to hear you got it all sorted out mate. Once we get that thermostat wired up you will be all ready to go. The guys are waiting for an invitation to come and drink your beer.

 

[jagerbrau]

finally got themo up and working now the temp is starting to drop. fixed up the tun with a manafold both top and bottom. bottom one will have a layer of temi mesh over the top. the top manifold recesed in to the lid is for sparging.

have made up an insulating mat to keep mash temps even.

so that return match of brewing sould not be to far off.

 

[mudsta]

It seems that every ag brewer on here uses an esky of some sort to mash in.

Just thought id show a pic of my setup. As for temp loss is wont move half a degree in over 90mins+

I made a hexagonal box out of ply, my tun sits inside of that. Between the two i use R 3.5 insulation, that keeps the temp constant. Ive got two holes on the sides for my element plugs and one hole in the base for my ball valve.

For the lid ive got a plastic lundry bucket lid screwed to a matching hex piece of ply. I leave my tun in here all the time (during mash, sparge and boil)

Works great for me. :chug:

Regards,

Mudsta :beerbang:

 

[Kai]

Mudsta, very slick.

Jager, glad to know I put a good idea in someone's head for once.