First Partial Mash - Atleast the MLT Looks Good

Well after four extract + specialty grain brews, I am trying a partial mash of 6 lbs of grain. It seems like it should be pretty straight forward, but if anyone has any comments let them fly.

Recipe:

batch size: 6 gallons (23 litres) - canadian eh...
boil volume: 4 gallons

5 lbs American 2 row
0.5 lbs Crystal
0.5 lbs Carapils

5 lbs pale liquid extract - late addition

1.5 oz bittering hops (90 min) - American Perle
0.5 oz flavour (15 min) - Cascade
0.5 oz aroma (5 min) - Cascade
0.5 oz dry (secondary) - Cascade

Danstar Windsor Yeast

I plan to follow the advice on this site regarding using a 3 gallon beverage cooler to do a single infusion mash and a batch sparge. I also have some extra LME on hand to ensure I can hit a decent OG.

Here is a look at my just built partial mash MLT:

Good luck, sounds like a pleasant beer from the recipe. You will be buying a bigger cooler soon, you won't be able to help yourself from moving to all-grain after doing this partial mash.

That keg unfortunately doesn't hold temperature very well at all. I used one for a few batches, but had to wrap it into a blanket to keep close to mash temp. It tops out around 6lb of grains.

Looks great. Hope that system works well for you!

I have the exact same keg that I used for a bunch of PMs and a few 3 gal AG batches. It held temps fine. Dropped about 2 to 3 degrees in an hour, which is pretty good given the small volume of the mash.

So far so good.

The cooler held the heat exceptionally well. Better than I expected which inadvertently caused a higher than desried mash temp.

I started the mash at 160.3 degrees. With the cooler well wrapped with towels, an hour later with no peaking, the temp was 160.0

I collected 3 gallons of wort with a gravity reading of 1.055

Well it is in the secondary. It has cleared up nicely, and has been invigorated with a nice addition of cascades. I will let it sit in here for another two weeks before bottling.