Heating mash water the night before.

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Waylit

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I batch sparge, and would like to find a way to safely heat my mash water the night before. Normally this is about 6 gallons of water at 170 degrees. I don't want to leave the stove on overnight, so I guess electric is the way to go. Any advice would be appreciated.
 
How handy with electrical are you? You would be basically making a small hot water heater. That means leaving homemade high amperage electrics nearby water for extended period of time. If that doesn't scare you then a trip to the hardware store for a heater/relay/thermostat, some time reading the Electric Brewing Forum will get you started.
 
Why would you feel the need to do this? Are you that pressed for time? If so, why not just turn the heat on your kettle when you wake up, take a shower, get dressed and then your water should be about there.
 
+1 on the "take a shower and eat some breakfast" while heating up your mash water. During your 60 min mash, you should then have ample time to heat up sparge water. If your stove isn't up to the task of heating 6 gal, break it up into 3 2 gallon pots or something like that. Definitely would not recommend leaving something like that turned on overnight.
 
I would set a timer for it to go on at 5 am. When I'm up at 6 my strike water is ready to go.
 
I had my mash/sparge water all up to temp,then had to cancle brew day. the pots were still warm the next morn when I fired up the burners. so you could heat them up the eve before. and shave off some time on brew day.
 
I do it because my brew day consists of a lot of time heating up water and various vessels I use in brewing. Each transfer looses me about 11 degrees, more if it involves splashing, etc. I am doing whatever I can to shorten my brew day.

I have a triple tier 12 gallon batch electric rig that I setup the night before, heat water in the kettle then pour it into MLT to preheat. When I wake up I just drain the water and bring up to temp and am setup and ready to go faster in the morning.

My last attempt was to use a 120V timer, $16 at home depot with complex timing functions to turn on an hour before I awake. Turning on the 120V will power on my PID and contactor switches which will heat up both my kettle and HLT to a preset temp. That way when I get up I will have 20 gallons of water ready to go and can mash in first thing. I had to work late the night before and was trying to setup the system at the last minute with SWMBO unhappily trying to sleep in the bedroom below, so the setup was rushed and the timer was set wrong. I have since tested it out and I should be good to go for future brew sessions.

One thing you neglected to mention is what is your MLT? If you are using a cooler maybe you could get it to 180 degrees before going to sleep. It should be around 160+ in the morning. If you have crushed your grains the night before you could get up and mash in within 10 minutes of waking, then take your shower, and begin heating the sparge water. You'd be an hour ahead of the game.

You could also create a timer for your stove to go on at a preset time but my guess would be $50+ for the parts alone.
 
I would set a timer for it to go on at 5 am. When I'm up at 6 my strike water is ready to go.

That timer could be pretty expensive. Most of them are rated at 600 watts and that heater is 1000 watts.
 
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