Worth pre-heating 2-gal cooler for partial mash?

skifast1 · 02-12-2007, 06:21 PM

Hi all - I'm going to take my first swing at a partial mash this weekend (per the oft-referenced BYO article). Modding the 2-gal cooler was the easy part, and i'm wondering if anyone has found it worth the effort to pre-heat the cooler with hot water to minimize the temperature drop when mashing in. I've seen other threads on this for the larger 48-qt size. Does the notional "11 deg above target temp" assume a room-temperature cooler?

Thanks!

**Orfy** · 02-12-2007, 06:48 PM

I don't pre heat mine.

You can do one of the following.

Pre heat and go for a lower strike temp.
Don't bother and go for a higher strike temp.
Suck it and see.

I like the KISS method.

**Lil' Sparky** · 02-12-2007, 06:49 PM

It's the same concept. If you pre-heat your cooler, then your cooler won't have to absorb as much heat from the mash to stabilize. If you were using a larger cooler, I would think it would be even MORE important. A 2 gal cooler can't absorb that much heat, but then again, you're working with less mass to begin with.

**bradsul** · 02-12-2007, 07:49 PM

I always pre-heated my cooler with hot tap water. I was using a huge 48QT cooler for my partial mashes though. I found that if I didn't pre-heat I would need strike water about 40F higher than my mash temp, the cooler drew most of the heat out.

If your tap water is hot enough I would say take the 4 or 5 minutes and do it. But as was mentioned, if you adjust your strike temp it's essentially the same thing.

**RichBrewer** · 02-12-2007, 09:41 PM

I was always missing my mash temps until I started pre-heating the tun. I also noticed that my temps don't drop as much either when I pre-heat.
I would recommend it.

**the_bird** · 02-12-2007, 09:48 PM

It may be less important simply because you aren't using the mash to get many fermentables, just some, therefore mash temp is less critical. With that said, a few minutes with hot water (I just use a little from the tea kettle), makes hitting (and maintaining) your temp a LOT easier. I'd do it.

Brewsmith · 02-12-2007, 10:11 PM

As said above, filling it with the hottest tap water you can get will pretty much do the trick. My tap water is hot at almost 140, so even heating the 2 gallons to 160 isn't much of a chore either.

FlyGuy · 02-12-2007, 11:53 PM

I would do it. The other thing about pre-heating a small cooler is that it is way easier than a big one. Boil a couple of cups of water in an electric kettle or microwave, and dump it in. What could be easier?

Also, given the small amount of grain and water you will be using, it is probably a bit trickier to adjust your strike water temperature to offset the heat loss to the cooler than in a big mash.

Having said that, I do agree with Bird (above) that precise temperature control is usually much less critical with a partial mash than a full all grain batch. But if it is really easy to do, why not?

**Brew-boy** · 02-13-2007, 01:24 AM

I did the same thing as the BYO article, but what I found was the 2 gallon was to small. I went out and bought 3GALLON Igloo and it was WAY better.

**david_42** · 02-13-2007, 01:47 PM

I think preheating is a good idea regardless of cooler size. The smaller a cooler is, the higher its surface to volume ratio and the more heat it will absorb relative to the water volume. But you can do it by heating your strike water to near boiling, pour it into the cooler and after ten minutes adjust to strike temperature, then add the grains.