1st partial mash kit advice?

just ordered the northern brewer partial mash kit and a large grain bag
reading the instructions i am a little confused on the part where they want you to wrap the kettle in blankets. so you get the kettle up to temp put the lid on and shut the heat off, and wrap with blanket ? maybe i am just missing something here. why cant you just leave burner on for a hour @ 154deg
this is the oatmeal stout kit. thanks

Since you will have a few pounds of grain in a few quarts of water, it will maintain the temperature rather well, the blanket is just insurance to help buffer the temperature loss. You can actually set your oven at the lowest temp (150-170) and just set your kettle/mash in there (no blanket); you don't even need to have the oven on if you let it preheat for a good amount of time.

The reason for not keeping the burner on is that you may go way over mash temperatures and end up with scorched grains and a melted bag. Think about how you want to keep stirring thick foods (soups/stews) when cooking them to prevent burning.

If you add direct heat to pot, you basically have to stand there and stir to make sure it doesn't scorch the grain or the bag. Also, less your stove is a whole lot fancier than mine, you don't have a burner that knows when your wort is 154 degrees, so you would need to constantly be measuring temp and adjusting the flame.

Honestly, the "add hot water and let it sit in something insulated" ,method is the simplest way to get good conversion. Lots of people buy coolers to mash in, but wrapping the pot in towels is a free alternative that works fine for partial mashes. Alternatively, some people turn the oven on low (or preheat it) and just stick the pot in there for the hour.

ah ok, thank you very much i new you guys could help me out

Lowest my oven will go is 170, it's a gas stone

Do the wrap method, or just do what I do and kick on the heating elements/burners if the water gets below 150f. I have a very long probed metal candy thermometer with a pot clip built into it and it works perfectly for brewing.

Doing a dry run right now, brought the kettle up to temp. Pre heated oven to 170 then shut off and put kettle in the oven for a hour. Then I will check temp,

It's worked 156 deg after a hour
Sure it will be a little different with grains In the kettle

Good luck

why do you say that?

I just made my first partial mash 3 weeks ago. I heated my strike water to 170, dumped in my bottling bucket, added grains in a 5 gallon paint strainer bag, put lid on and wrapped with a sleeping bag. After mash was done I put a piece of tubing on my bottling bucket spigot and drained into my kettle. Then opened paint strainer bag and put over the kettle to do sparging.

very good idea!!

brewed it today everything went awesome, left the oven door cracked at 170 deg and it stayed 153 deg
partial mash is really fun, thanks everyone for all your help!

Fermenting away