Strike Temp Problems

Hey all I'm a newbie here and this is my first post. I am currently brewing my second all grain batch and jumped straight to doing 10 gallon batches. My issue is that I'm entering all my calculations into a strike temp calculator and still coming up short of my target temperature... My setup is a half barrel hot liquor tank that I'm heating liquor to 175 and then pouring into a water cooler mash tun and stirring in my grain only to come up shy of my 154 target temperature by 7 to 10 degrees. What am I doing wrong and what can I do to assist this issue?

did you check the calibration on all of your thermometers?

Do you preheat your cooler?
If it is cold outside and your cooler is nice and cold, it can suck a lot of heat out of the mash just getting up to temp.

EDIT: oh you are in Florida lol......most likely not the problem Im guessing.

HBTrublife said:

...then pouring into a water cooler mash tun and stirring in my grain only to come up shy of my 154 target temperature by 7 to 10 degrees. What am I doing wrong and what can I do to assist this issue?

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Wait a minute.
Are you pouring the water into your tun THEN putting the grain in?
This is not a good idea.

Pour all of your grain into the tun, then slowly add the water while stirring it around.

Doomsday said:

Wait a minute.
Are you pouring the water into your tun THEN putting the grain in?
This is not a good idea.

Pour all of your grain into the tun, then slowly add the water while stirring it around.

Click to expand...

Interesting, all videos I have seen including northern brewers shows them adding grain to the water.... It helps reduce dough ball problems

OP did you input the temp of your grain, quanity, temp of mashtun.

I pour my water into grains just for this reason. No problem with dough balls here. Allows me to control my temps better

grem135 said:

Interesting, all videos I have seen including northern brewers shows them adding grain to the water.... It helps reduce dough ball problems

Click to expand...

The other poster has his own way that differs from most everyone else. If it works for him fine. But the accepted method used by most is adding the grain to the water.

iaefebs said:

The other poster has his own way that differs from most everyone else. If it works for him fine. But the accepted method used by most is adding the grain to the water.

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Most everyone else? I thought water to grain was standard practice.

I guess when I started brewing and read HBT I just thought that's how everyone did it.

Although I never have doughball problems or temp problems so I dont see changing any time soon.

Just goes to show you there really is no "right" way to brew beer.
I would like to split my next batch of wheat, half normal with airlock half open fermentation just to see the difference.

Rules? What rules? I dont see no stinken rules!

I could be completely off base here but are you accounting for the temperature loss that occurs during the transfer of water from the HLT to the mash tun? The strike water calculator I use does not.

I know from experience that I lose 6 degrees during this transfer. If the strike water calculator says to dough in at 166 degrees I know my water needs to be 172 leaving the HLT so that it will be 166 when I start adding the grain.

When you say you are coming up shy of your 154 mark do you mean the temperature is too high, like around 160+ or too low, like around 147.

thank you everyone for posting I think my issue was not heating up my mash tun prior to doughing in and losing most of my heat to the MT. Now I know to heat it up so I don't lose so much heat. Everything turned out well and I'm heating up my 13 gallons of 1.040 wort to boil for my wheat beer 1/2 is going to be watermelon wheat the other half Hefe.

Cheers and I guess I'll just have to RDWHAHB