How difficult is direct heat mashing?

Hello all, I've been thinking of trying out the direct heat mashing technique with an old sanke keg I have laying around. I'm going to install a SS valve and a bazooka screen for wort extraction. I want to give this a shot so that I can start utilizing some of the other mash rests that are more difficult to perform in a cooler tun. My question is how difficult is it to control your mash temps in a direct heat mash tun? It seems to me like it would be easy to overshoot target temps and hard to maintain constant rest temps. Does it require alot of ON/OFF switching to maintain your target? Is direct heat mashing more trouble than its worth? Thanks for any info.

the biggest problem would be circulating a sufficiently thick mash.

I use the deathbrewer method on my stovetop, and use either boiling water infusions or decoctions to reach my multi-step rest temps. I use the burners on their lowest setting to keep the pot warm and not drop too much temp, so I basically use a direct heat method. A cooler MLT should work even better than my method, because your cooler should insulate better than my SS pots.

JBrady,

If you're going to do Direct heat you may want to think about putting in a false bottom to separate your grains from the direct heat. Otherwise you could be vulnerable to scorching your grain and getting some undesired flavors. Then you can insulate it to keep your you temps longer thus lowering the time the burner has on your mash tun. Here's a great thread on insulating. Insulating you keggle will help you maintain temp control better you won't have as much fluctuation and it will make it a lot easier on you and your beer. Kind of a "Set it, annnnnd....... FORGET IT!

thanks for the responses guys

This thread is better for direct fire insulation https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/direct-fire-mlt-insulation-project-154652/

Hey Darpa I noticed that you live in the panhandle, what part? I'm in Panama City, FL.

Well if you head about 2000 miles northwest to Panhandle, Idaho.... We're practically neighbors, right?

Darpa17 said:

Well if you head about 2000 miles northwest to Panhandle, Idaho.... We're practically neighbors, right?

Click to expand...

HAHA! I had a feeling if I assumed that you were in the FL panhandle I'd end up wrong, lol.