Preheating your (Cooler) Mash tunn.

I'm wondering what you who use coolers do in regards to pre heating your coolers before you actually add the grain/strike water.

I've seen some info where people bring a gallon of water to a boil and add that in, the drain it after a half hour or so...others just heat their strike water higher than strike temp and let it cool to whatever a strike water calculator tells them their temp should be, then add the grain.

Others still heat up 5 gallons of water to 170, put that in the cooler, then drain that after 30 minutes...

What do you all do?

I heat a gallon and let it sit for probably 15mins. The first time I used the 5gal Igloo cooler I forgot to pre-heat and it sucked quite a few F out of the mash. Pre-heated it held temperature awesome over 60mins (about 2F).

I run the faucet till I get the hottest water, then I fill it a third and let it sit for at least 20 minutes or about the time it takes me to heat my mash liquor.

I have ten gallon coolers and heat about two gallons to 175 and let it set until I'm ready to add the actual mash water. Some have said that boiling water has warped their coolers and I'm not going to see if it warps mine. My temps hold fine.

I just fill it about 1/4 of the way with hot tap water, seal it up and let it sit until the strike water is to temperature.

I also fill mine with hot tap water, about half full. (My cooler is just 5 gallons.) Slap the lid on, and let it sit while I mill my grain. So far, so good.

I think the important thing is to be consistent with your procedures each time you brew. That way, you can accurately make adjustments (if necessary) to your strike water temp.

I add my strike volume at 175°F...usually takes about 20-30 minutes to cool down.

I do something similar to Chef. I bring my strike water 15F higher than my mash temp then dump it all in the MLT. Some heat is lost in transfer and usually within 5 minutes I'm at 10F above my mash temp and it's time to dough-in.

Thanks, gang...

I did notice on my reading, the need like Blindlemonlars said, to be consistant each time.

Up til now my mini-mashes have all been in 2 gallon coolers, but Wally World had 5 gallon igloos on sale for 18 bucks and I couldn't resist....Now I just gotta take the parts list for Flyguy's conversion over to the hardware store tomorrow!

I think I'm going to initially go with the hot tap water suggestion for a bit and see how it goes.

I preheat mine with very hot tap water. I drain it just before adding the strike water which is about 5 degrees over the desired strike temp. I let it cool until it is at the perfect temp then add the grain. I get very consistant and acurate mashes this way.

Like pseudochef I use my full volume of strike water heated to 175 then close the lid. In around 20 minutes or so it will be near the desired temp. Seemed to me to be easier than adding two separate volumes of water and trying to hit my temp. Thanks to bobby_m for the idea.

It seems pretty evenly split down the middle between the heat water to 175 and let cool to strike temps, and the use hot tap water methods...

I guess I'll have to give them both a try and see which ultimately works for me...

I used to preheat. Found it to be a wasted step and waste of time.

Now I just adjust my strike temp to allow for loss.

I mean the choice is to preheat with hot water for 20 minutes...or raise my strike water by 8 degrees....

Seems that the latter is quicker and more efficient.

BierMuncher said:

Now I just adjust my strike temp to allow for loss.

I mean the choice is to preheat with hot water for 20 minutes...or raise my strike water by 8 degrees....

Click to expand...

I tried that for a few batches, using Beersmith as a guide for my strike temperature...since it has a built-in equipment profile that matches my gear, I thought it would be dead on. Problem is, I'd end up with a mash that started about five degrees too hot, and was 5 degrees too cold by the end.

Results for me are more consistent if I preheat with hot tap water, chose the "preheat tun" option in Beersmith and heat my strike water to about 3 degrees over what the program tells me. Using this method, I only seem to lose about 2 degrees over the duration of the mash.