Mashing in a brew kettle ?

[whiskeyjack]

I would like to batch sparge just to try it out however I don't have a cooler mash tun. I will use my 5.5 gallon kettle with a bazooka tube. I plan on doing brews in the range of 10-12 pounds, making the kettle almost full, which I'm hoping will help retain heat. I'm also planning on either direct fire heating, or setting it in my preheated oven and watching the temp of the inside of the oven keeping it around 150 (leaning more towards the oven).

What do you guys think, feasible or will I be disappointed ?

 

[sabo38]

Sounds like your doing BIAB?

 

[whiskeyjack]

No it will be mashing with 1.25 quarts/lb, followed by one or two batch sparges. My real concern is heat loss due to it being in a kettle and not a cooler. I see why you think it would be similar to biab, but I am not mashing with the full volume as biab, the reason it will be full in this case is because the mash tun is only 5.5 gallons

 

[acidrain]

The oven method works good I hear (never done it), but so does just wrapping it with a blanket. Lots of guys do this (including myself) and only loose a couple of degrees an hour.
Heat the strike water, add grains, stir and wrap. Easy.

 

[fortyseven]

same here. usually just wrap it with a blanket and it keeps the temp nice and steady-like.

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

Sounds like every batch I make. I use a single 7.5 gallon pot with bazooka screen for my mashing and boiling. I heat sparge water in my 3gallon stainless. Vorlauf and drain into my fermenter(ale pail) ten dump it all back into boil kettle after cleaning out grains.

Edit: I only lose a degree or two over 60mjn. Not even using a lid. And my pot is aluminium turkey fryer.

 

[Leggoma]

I have yet to do my first AG batch, but in anticipation I put together a 10 gallon cooler mash tun. It only cost about $80. I thought it would be difficult, but the hardest part was getting all of the parts (the SS washers were a ***** to find but after 2 weeks of searching all of the Home Depots and Lowes within 30 miles of me, the local Ace 2 miles from my house had them). Once I had the parts it took 10 minutes to assemble.

 

[Grannyknot]

I mash in my kettle every single time.
Due to the heat loss, I usually start about 2* higher than my target.
Its not a perfect method, but it works.

 

[whiskeyjack]

Sweet, thanks for all the replies! Looks like I have to get a whole drilled in my 5 gallon kettle

 

[geneticbiscuit]

I mash in a spare bottling bucket with a jury rigged false bottom (vegetable steamer wrapped in a large mesh bag) wrapped in an old sleeping bag. Way cheaper than messing with your boil kettle, and you could probably rig the bazooka screen to the bucket too.

 

[Klinzai]

You can mash in a kettle. I mash in a 7.5 gallon kettle with a big grain bag with the lid on. I generally lose 1 or often no temp depending on how much grain is in the bill. I heat up the "Sparge" water in another pot while mashing. pull the bag from the first pot, let it drain a bit put it in the other pot at about 175f for 10 minutes while i start the boil of the first pot. Pour the second pot into the first after draining the bag and off we go. It is basically Deathbrewer's easy stovetop all grain process. I dont even do extra insulation or anything.

 

[TBaGZ]

What are you going to boil in? Do you have another kettle, or are you going to run off to a bucket (or whatever), clean the kettle, and dump the runnings back in?

 

[whiskeyjack]

I have a 10 gallon megapot kettle that I generally biab in. I also have a 5.5 and a 3 from my partial mash days. So I was thinking of using the 5.5 for mashing and the 3 to heat the water, I just want to try batch sparging for a change without buying any new equipment