So I recently upgraded to a Keggle mash tun, and have been struggling with keeping my Mash temperatures respectable.
I bought one of those Keg Koozies (http://thekegkoozy.com/) thinking that would be a great way to keep my temperatures up, but in the first couple mashes, I was all over the place. Also, I'm doing a 5 gallon batch, so I'm typically mashing 6.25 gallons (my keg has 2.25 wasted liquid at the bottom) out of a 15.5 gallon container, so there's quite a bit of air at the top of the keg. YMMV if you're mashing a larger volume of water, which I'd expect to hold its temperature better.
One problem could be that I can't actually zip the thing all the way to the bottom due to the spigot that I'm using, also the neoprene doesn't fit tightly where the thermometer/thermowell is mounted in the bottom of my keg:
Last weekend I bought the 2'x25' Reflectix roll from Lowes (~$25) and some Velcro sticky pads (got 3 of them at $2 each) and built my own.
I wrapped around 4 times, and had enough spare leftover material for a 4-layer lid:
The Velcro works great and was pretty cheap:
Tonight I did a test-run where I heated water inside my Keggle (direct fire Mash Tun) and let it sit for 60 minutes to see what the temperature response was. In each test-run, I heated until the thermometer read 170F, removed from heat and wrapped up the Keggle when it hit 160F. I started the clock there and recorded temperature at 10 minute increments for an hour.
Here are the results:
As you can see, the temperature drop-off for the Keg Koozie is really crappy. Given the performance of the Reflectix and the fact that it was half the cost of the Keg Koozie, I just thought I'd post here to let others know that the Keg Koozie *DOES NOT* work well at all to maintain Mash temperatures over 60 minutes.
Given the choice between the two, the Reflectix was very east to cut to shape and work with (it's just bubble wrap with foil wrapping).
I bought one of those Keg Koozies (http://thekegkoozy.com/) thinking that would be a great way to keep my temperatures up, but in the first couple mashes, I was all over the place. Also, I'm doing a 5 gallon batch, so I'm typically mashing 6.25 gallons (my keg has 2.25 wasted liquid at the bottom) out of a 15.5 gallon container, so there's quite a bit of air at the top of the keg. YMMV if you're mashing a larger volume of water, which I'd expect to hold its temperature better.
One problem could be that I can't actually zip the thing all the way to the bottom due to the spigot that I'm using, also the neoprene doesn't fit tightly where the thermometer/thermowell is mounted in the bottom of my keg:
Last weekend I bought the 2'x25' Reflectix roll from Lowes (~$25) and some Velcro sticky pads (got 3 of them at $2 each) and built my own.
I wrapped around 4 times, and had enough spare leftover material for a 4-layer lid:
The Velcro works great and was pretty cheap:
Tonight I did a test-run where I heated water inside my Keggle (direct fire Mash Tun) and let it sit for 60 minutes to see what the temperature response was. In each test-run, I heated until the thermometer read 170F, removed from heat and wrapped up the Keggle when it hit 160F. I started the clock there and recorded temperature at 10 minute increments for an hour.
Here are the results:
Code:
Time Keg Koozie Reflectix Wrap
0 160F 160F
10 150F 154F
20 144F 150F
30 140F 150F
40 139F 150F
50 137F 150F
60 134F 150FAs you can see, the temperature drop-off for the Keg Koozie is really crappy. Given the performance of the Reflectix and the fact that it was half the cost of the Keg Koozie, I just thought I'd post here to let others know that the Keg Koozie *DOES NOT* work well at all to maintain Mash temperatures over 60 minutes.
Given the choice between the two, the Reflectix was very east to cut to shape and work with (it's just bubble wrap with foil wrapping).
