Foil On Top Of Mash

Any adverse effect on covering the top of the mash in foil? My thoughts is that it may help regulate temps and also help with deadspace in the mash tun.

I can see no worthwhile benefit nor adverse effect if you mash in a cooler with a lid.

Get some insulating foam and wrap that in the foil. That'll give you what you're looking for.

JonM said:

Get some insulating foam and wrap that in the foil. That'll give you what you're looking for.

Click to expand...

otherwise your foil will just be a kind of cooling fin.

Agreed, just wrap the cooler in blankets! Foil won't do much, but add another step! If you're loosing too much heat, make sure you are preheating your cooler with boiling water before doughing in and insulating your cooler.

I put my strike water at 180F in my cooler (10G rubbermaid) and allow the cooler to preheat for 30 minutes. By the time the 30 min is up, I'm within a few degrees of my strike temp. Doing this, I don't lose a full degree (F) on a 60 minute mash. Conversely, I've found that being in a hurry and shortening the preheat to 20 minutes results in as much as a 2 degree loss on a 60 minute mash.

That being said, I concurr with the above posts that if you preheat properly, additional steps won't be necessary.

I use a rectangular cooler, and it's elevated off of the ground. We average <1 degree fahrenheit temp drop for the hour, and we don't even preheat.