So I have 8 brews under my belt (yes, a legend in my mind), 3 from extract kits, 4 from extract recipes, and one was a mini mash because I couldnt’ find the right extracts, prodded and guided by Islandlizard (many thanks, membership incoming, can’t justify not donating after all the help I get here). And of course, that was much easier than I had anticipated, so now I’m planning an all grain beer for tomorrow. Like usual, filled with questions from all the reading I’ve been doing. The pictorial in this forum was outstanding, by the way.
Mash tun / sparse thing - I have a cooler - it looks like it’ll hold about 6gallons, will this work? Do I need to build some sort of spare rig / filtering thing on the bottom like in the pictorial? I have a couple more coolers, but SWMBO (really love that btw, although she does not) would rather I not repurpose our camping coolers. Should I be using some sort of filtration? I like the PVC setup on the bottom in that thread, it appeals in it’s simplicity, but how does it work? I didn’t see any holes. I would imagine I’d need some type of strainer, just not seeing it.
I’m confused about the volume - using the calculator that was in the post (and just round numbers), I need 9 gallons of water. That is split into a mash volume of 4.3 and a spare volume of 4.7. then it turns into fuzzy math - I take 9 gallons of water, slosh it around in a pile of grain for an hour, and then I come up with 6.5 gallons of wort, and boil it down to 5. Where is the other 2.5 gallons? Does the grain soak it up?
How specific is the mash temperature requirement? I can be pretty anal, and I’ve been known to change the temperature of an entire lab. My assumption is that I can get water slightly above temp, put it in the cooler and let the cooler equalize for about 30 mins, hopefully it’s still slightly over, and pour in the grains? Is there a band I should maintain, or just don’t go over 165f?
So once I get the mash wet and drained, I sparge. For clarification, I first pour the liquid that I just drained over the grain pile until that’s clear, and then I do the same with the ‘sparge volume’ (probably into another vessel than the mash volume?)?
And lastly for now - sparge water - Does that need to be the same temp as the mash? Not wanting to mess around with hot water if I don’t need to.
Seems the rest is like a full volume boil - just sit back, drink beer, clean up my mess, and hope it doesn’t boil over...
Thanks
Dave
Mash tun / sparse thing - I have a cooler - it looks like it’ll hold about 6gallons, will this work? Do I need to build some sort of spare rig / filtering thing on the bottom like in the pictorial? I have a couple more coolers, but SWMBO (really love that btw, although she does not) would rather I not repurpose our camping coolers. Should I be using some sort of filtration? I like the PVC setup on the bottom in that thread, it appeals in it’s simplicity, but how does it work? I didn’t see any holes. I would imagine I’d need some type of strainer, just not seeing it.
I’m confused about the volume - using the calculator that was in the post (and just round numbers), I need 9 gallons of water. That is split into a mash volume of 4.3 and a spare volume of 4.7. then it turns into fuzzy math - I take 9 gallons of water, slosh it around in a pile of grain for an hour, and then I come up with 6.5 gallons of wort, and boil it down to 5. Where is the other 2.5 gallons? Does the grain soak it up?
How specific is the mash temperature requirement? I can be pretty anal, and I’ve been known to change the temperature of an entire lab. My assumption is that I can get water slightly above temp, put it in the cooler and let the cooler equalize for about 30 mins, hopefully it’s still slightly over, and pour in the grains? Is there a band I should maintain, or just don’t go over 165f?
So once I get the mash wet and drained, I sparge. For clarification, I first pour the liquid that I just drained over the grain pile until that’s clear, and then I do the same with the ‘sparge volume’ (probably into another vessel than the mash volume?)?
And lastly for now - sparge water - Does that need to be the same temp as the mash? Not wanting to mess around with hot water if I don’t need to.
Seems the rest is like a full volume boil - just sit back, drink beer, clean up my mess, and hope it doesn’t boil over...
Thanks
Dave