Water cooler mash tun temp

[tkdgeek]

I started out with a single 5gal kettle on the kitchen stove and since I only did all grain, I decided to purchase a BIAB. Love it.
Careful to lift every 15 min and give a bit more gentle heat to keep mash around my target. No real issues.

Thought I'd get fancy and make me a water cooler mash because people seem to think it's the bag of chips! 5 gallon one even nicely fits my BIAB, flash sale on orange igloo, valve and adapter ordered and done.
What water temperature do I need to use in this sort of thing to allow for the grain to crash your temps on initial stir in? I tried it once now and was so disappointed in how it went to hell on a butter greased basket my first try. Got horrible efficiency, poor temperatures, etc due to not knowing how to use it. Made me want to go back to single pot mash and boil that I know...

I'm thinking 10-15 degree higher than the mash temp I'm after but don't have an idea without a bunch of experimenting. If I can at least get this part I can figure out the pour through sparge and bag squeeze and a local beer supply that doesn't have a crap grinder issues. I only do 1-3 gallons to fermenter(s) so the 5gal water cooler is what I made.

 

[balrog]

Some folks preheat their mash tuns.
Some of the (BeerSmith, BrewersFriend, etc) will try to calc preheat strike temp.
Mainly you'll have to "dial in" through empirical trials what strike temp to use. Keep notes. Shouldn't take but a batch or two; keep icewater and boiling water handy to stir in after dough in to lower/raise temp as needed.

But with BIAB, ultimately, for me at least, why bother with mash tun? That for me is the beauty of BIAB. One pot.

 

[tkdgeek]

There is a calculator for that...
So good to know as that will give me a leg up on where to start and take notes. Thank you.
I agree with the BIAB one pot. I have in mind one day to get off the kitchen stove and maybe use an electric kettle on the island. Don't want to go through the scorch issues so I made an IGLOO. And watched a couple people at the local homebrew in Oklahoma use them in the Sat class. But to be fair, not BIAB. Was thinking the IGLOO thing would give a nice stable, valve to pour sparge a leg up on a more efficient mash. May just be a wrong turn in my brew learning and I need to cut loss, find someone who really needs an IGLOO that isn't 10gal and move backwards to success. Ha.

 

[balrog]

And I meant to say one more thing about BIAB (surprised @RM-MN hasn't jumped in) that typically we BIAB-ers mill finer than typical as the bag allows it and conversion likely is done quite early on in the one hour mash, like 10-20m, so holding temps for 60m is less a concern. I still promote a good long mash for flavor as my altbier and stout recipes in particular showed "thin" flavors when mashed 20-30m vs 60m, and it kinda makes sense.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I agree with the comments by @balrog. I do a number of 2.5-gallon batches on my stove in a 5 gallon kettle. That size does not maintain heat as well as a full 5-gallon batch, but I just wrap my kettle in a couple blankets during the mash. The temp will drop 4F to 5F over an hour, but that is fine with me.

I did recently pick up a 2-gallon cooler to help with making 1-gallon BIAB batches. I have only used it for one batch, but I just treat it like I would a BIAB batch. I did a full volume mash in the cooler, then pulled out the bag and dumped the wort into my kettle. No sparging involved. The 2-gallon cooler might not really be needed, but it was only $10 at Home Depot.

I a lot of people think that a cooler system with a sparge must produce better beer or be more efficient than just a simple bag in a kettle. I thought that too when I started with BIAB. I have embraced a very simple BIAB process using a fine crush and letting gravity do most of the draining of my brew bag (using a pulley for 5-gal batches, or a colander over a bucket for 2.5-gal batches). I hit pretty much the exact same efficiency with BIAB as I did with 3-vessel fly sparging...with 1 hour less time and less equipment to clean.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Try using the Rackers mash temp calculator. Note that the temp given will be the mash water temp after the cooler is preheated.

the easiest way to accomplish this is to overheat your water and add it to the cooler, then wait 5-10 minutes until the temp stabilizes.
you can temper the temperature down as needed to hit your strike temp by stirring or adding a couple ice cubes to dial in your strike temp in the cooler.

the trick with just simply heating to a certain temp and adding to the cooler is that you will have lots of cooling as you transfer, and also heat required for heating the cooler.
The method above eliminates those variables.
With a little experience, this will become second nature.

 

[tkdgeek]

I appreciate the info. Never knew there was a calculator and pre-heating is easy enough, as you say by dumping my water in there first. Smart ideas.
There may be some hope for me yet. I think I miss the starting day of a pot, a spoon, a gallon glass jug, weird powder sanitizer stuff and a big purchase of a hydrometer thing I made my wife read the directions for based on the advice of the nice LHBS lady. HA. She milled my grain and put it in a single use bag and I learned from day one that BIAB is for me.

Thank you very much

 

[Gusso]

I use this for my BIAB in an Igloo cooler. Gets extremely close to desired temp in my experience.

https://biabcalculator.com