Consistently Low Pre/Post Boil OG

[maida7]

you can just over heat your strike water, pre-heat the MLT, then lower the heat via ice cubes and stirring (but doing that sucks). You really just have to calibrate your own equipment.

I find this method works very well. I put in my strike water extra hot. Give the cooler some time to absorb the extra heat. Then dough in and use a few ice cubes if necessary to bring it down to the proper temp. With this method I loose very little temp during the mash.

With out pre-heating the cooler I would loose 5 or more degrees during the mash

 

[funkswing]

Phatuna's response is a good idea too, but ultimately, if you are batch sparging the copper manifold is a waste of space. Since you already have that steel braid, it shouldn't be too much of a hassle to switch it over to your cooler. If you ever want to start fly sparging, keep that copper manifold around.

Also, looks like you would have to cut and re-solder that manifold to make it fit upside-down.

 

[chapa]

Use an elbow or some tubing to lower the braid to the floor of the cooler.

Wouldn't gravity still be a factor? Even if I got the braid to lay on the floor of my cooler, it seems like the amount that it had to raise up from the braid to the drain would still restrict the drainage...but maybe I'm wrong. I suppose as long as the actual DRAIN HOSE ended up below the cooler it would still work...

I can't see the opening in the lid, but if it is there, would placing something heavy on top of the lip help? Like a dictionary or some lifting weights? Also, you could put a blanket over whole cooler after you mix in the grains to help with the heat.

Another idea is to pre-heat your cooler with your strike water. Usually ppl with coolers don't need to do this (unless your cooler is stored someplace where it is cold before mashing, like a cold basement/garage), and usually only ppl that use metal MLT pre-heat it. After pre-heating, you either re-heat the water to the strike temp (if needed) or you can just over heat your strike water, pre-heat the MLT, then lower the heat via ice cubes and stirring (but doing that sucks). You really just have to calibrate your own equipment.

Also, most ppl tend to put something under the cooler to make it slant to drain out most of the wort; that is perfectly fine to do. You will never get all of the wort out.

Putting a weight on top may actually help, and to be safe I could still maybe throw a little duct tape on the front and a blanket over the top.

I do always pre-heat my mash tun, previously I would just add part of my strike water for a few minutes, and then throw the grains on top and immediately top off with the rest of the strike water. Then I was reading some people who drained the water after pre-heating(which I guess just rids the potentially gross water that sat at the bottom(doubt it really matters), but the problem with that is it will create inconsistencies in the strike water volume) so last time I just heated a small separate pot of near boiling water, and used that to pre-heat, then just drained and added the grains/proper volume of strike water.

 

[maida7]

Wouldn't gravity still be a factor? Even if I got the braid to lay on the floor of my cooler, it seems like the amount that it had to raise up from the braid to the drain would still restrict the drainage...but maybe I'm wrong. I suppose as long as the actual DRAIN HOSE ended up below the cooler it would still work...

If you can create a siphon effect it will drain the space below the level of the spigot.