First time mashing

[ODUBrew]

So I don't have a mash tun and don't want to have to buy one so here's what I plan to do, tell me if this will be sufficient:

I plan to use a pot and heat the water to 168F and then add in my grain, stirring it in and letting it sit for an hour with insulation and shooting for 154F as my mash temperature. Then I was going to transfer it all over to a bucket with a spigot and drain out all the wort I can by opening the spigot. Then I was going to heat up more water to about 165F and sparge by slowly pouring the water over the grains(trying to distribute the sparge water as much as possible) while leaving the spigot open to collect the wort that runs out.

Will this be effective or should I try something else?

 

[billf2112]

Use the BIAB method. You can get either a large paint strainer or a reusable grain bag from your LHBS and you will be ok. If you have a good coolet you can clean out, that would work better than insulation on your brew pot. Besides you will want to keep your brew pot available to heat more water if you need to raise your mash temp.

 

[ODUBrew]

So if I get the bag and use that method, once the mashing is done, can I sparge by dumping water into the grain that is still in the bag? I know I saw the partial method was to tea bag it but that doesn't seem very efficient. Also, if I use a bag should I twist the top of the bag tightly to squeeze out any extra wort or will the bag break if I do this?

 

[Painless406]

I think that without some type of manifold your idea sounds like a stuck sparge waiting to happen. Here's something that worked for me

The army sent me on a trip for a few months and my 26 gallon morebeer kettles wouldn't fit in my checked luggage, so I had to improvise... Using a 46qt cooler from the local hardware store, I conducted my mash as usual. When conversion was complete, I scooped the grain out with a measuring cup and spread it across a strainer on top of a 6 gallon bucket. When I had scooped all the wort I could, I added more water, stirred, waited 15 minutes and repeated until I had the desired pre-boil volume. It wasn't pretty, but I got about 55% efficiency and it ended up as beer. I think that counts as a win...