First Partial Mash Question

[azingsheim]

Brewing my first - Two questions.
First what is the best way to keep at mash temp for the duration of the 60 min? I could carefuly keep warm on the stove or put in the oven but I'm afraid it'll get too hot. Otherwise just take the kettle and wrap it in a blanket.

Second - When I sparge am I better off Dunking all my grains in my grain bag with the "tea bag" technique, or dumping the sparge water over the grain bag like my instructions suggest. Thanks gang

Aaron

 

[HOPCousin]

I would suggest putting the whole pot in the oven to maintain temp. This has worked well for me in the past. Preheat you over to 155 depending on its settings.
In relation to the other you could pour your sparge water into the same pot with the grains and let them mash together for 15 min "tea bag technique" and then pour them into the strainer again or follow the directions and just sparge over the grain and into the pot. You might get a little more efficiency and flavor by tea bagging in the pot for 15 minutes. I think really will be ok either way.

 

[Mermaid]

Depends on what you're using for your partial mash.
For my 2 PM brews I used a mini (plastic) cooler - like a soda/beer cooler, and kept my bag of grain in there. Kept the temp just fine.

The last small AG brew I did I pre-heated my oven to 200 while my mash water was heating, turned off the oven and put the mash/kettle in the oven. I also used an oven thermometer to be able to keep an eye on the temperature (as well as a thermometer in the mash kettle). Worked great.

I've heard you can also use a heating pad/blanket to cover your kettle.

I find that putting my kettles on the floor and/or on a table makes it easier to lift the bag out of the mash container and let it drain for as long as it takes for the water to slow to a drip, then take the bag and drop it right into the sparge water. I've let it sit in the sparge water for 10 minutes or so. YMMV.

I'm sure others will have good suggestions too.

 

[Frodo]

First what is the best way to keep at mash temp for the duration of the 60 min? I could carefuly keep warm on the stove or put in the oven but I'm afraid it'll get too hot. Otherwise just take the kettle and wrap it in a blanket. .

This one of those things you'll have to just figure out as you go and do what works best for you. You could try the blanket around the pot idea, but still check the temp every 5-10 minutes, and when you notice the temp starting to drop more than a couple degrees put the pot on a burner for a couple minutes (just be sure to stir as you add heat so you don't burn the grain on the bottom).

Second - When I sparge am I better off Dunking all my grains in my grain bag with the "tea bag" technique, or dumping the sparge water over the grain bag like my instructions suggest.

I prefered the dunk method when I was doing partial mash/steeping. I found it worked best with only two hands. Then I'd hang the bag on a cabinet door pull over the pot and let it drain for a while when done dunking.

 

[ChshreCat]

+1 on using the oven if you're doing your mash in a pot. Most ovens won't go as low as mash temps, but if you set it for the lowest temp you can then turn it off before you open the oven to put your covered mash pot in, it'll be just fine. It'll hold the heat much longer than sitting on the stove. Stir it about halfway through the mash and when you do that, turn the oven on for a minute at it's lowest setting to rewarm it. I mashed like this all the time before I upgraded to a cooler. It works great and if I were able to get a pot the size of a cooler into my oven, I'd have kept doing it. Just needed to do bigger mashes so I moved to the mash tun.

 

[DarkUncle]

Sorry to jump in but could one use a 10 gal. MLT for a partial mash of 4# grain as well? If so, and if you plan on going AG, might as well make one and use that, no?