Mash Stirrer/Mixer Question.

I'm considering putting something to stir my mash onto the mash tun, but before I start something like that I was wondering if it really helps? I currently get 70-75% efficiency, and 86% was the highest I've ever gotten. Will adding something like this help to improve efficiency, or does it have some other purpose? Does anyone recommend doing this, or if it aint broke don't fix it?

Opening the lid once and giving it a stir seems to work fine for me.

Plus, 70-75% efficiency is good, and having a high efficiency isn't the end-all, be-all of brewing. What's better is a process that is repeatable at a given efficiency so your recipes will hit their numbers consistently when you base them at that efficiency.

If it were me, I wouldn't invest the time.

Before you make the investment into a mash stirring mechanism, try to find out if stirring the mash really helps your efficiency and if you could improve it by optimizing other mash parameters like crush, pH, water/grist ratio, time, etc.

Kai

I've gotten my crush to where I think its really good, and I have no clue about my ph. Well now I suppose my question is why do people use a stirring device in their mash? I know there are people on here that use them!

I know there are people on here that use them!

Click to expand...

Correct, I am one of them.
My Mash/Lauter tuns are heated, I do step mashing which requires stirring.
The larger mash tun stirrer is also used to remove the spent grain.

If you use a cooler I don't see the need for a stirrer unless you like DIY projects.
Follow Kaiser's advice first and get your parameters correct.


Cheers,
ClaudiusB

I switched from a herms to a stirrer and direct fired tun to get quicker step times and better temp control. Mash in a sanke with a screen and braid under the screen, stirrer runs at 20 rpm during mash, then shut it down during fly sparge. Got an efficiency bump from mid 70's to mid/hi 80's.

Whatever your setup- the reason to stir is to maintain your mash temps. Once you get a sort of baseline efficiency for your system, that's really all you're looking to hit. Keep in mind that you don't really want 100% efficiency, as that is based off of lab conditions.

The stirring, again, is simply to maintain mash temps. If you design a beer that is best mashed at 154 degrees, then you really want to stay as close to that number as possible, as you'll be making a very different beer if you stray down to, say, 148 degrees.

In the end, it's to help you make the beer you planned on making.