How long will a drink cooler hold temp of hot liquor?

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wookiemofo

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I am going to try something new today for my AG batch... actually just started doughing in.

I am going to collect my first runnings into my kettle and start the boil immediately. Normally I collect it into my 3gal cooler and use my 2 pots (10gal and 4 gallon) to heat up my sparge water. I do a double batch so I heat half my water in each kettle. Anyway, I want to heat up half and store it in my 3 gal cooler while I heat up the other half. Since i will be collecting in my boil kettle... how long will the cooler hold 180 degree water?

Would it be best to dump say 190+ water in so the temp will adjust for the cooler heating up?
 
I wouldn't worry so much about it keeping temp in the cooler, what I would suggest is to do a mash out and raise the grain bed to 170 w/ a very hot/boiling addition and let it sit for 15 minutes. This will denature the ezymes in your mash and the first runnings wont continue to "break down" while you finish sparging.
 
Would it be best to dump say 190+ water in so the temp will adjust for the cooler heating up?

You have the right idea. You can add the water in, let it heat up the tun, and measure how much heat loss you get from it. After that, record that number down. Next, calculate how much temp you need to make the water + grain your target mash, then add the number you recorded to that temp (say 15 min or however long you let it raise temp. So for example:

[heat to 185F, pour, let sit for 15min] -15F [170F, add grain] -15F [155F, mash]

I've noticed most of my temp loss is probably by opening the lid, but it does hold the temp pretty well. I tend to leave the target temp a few degrees higher to compensate for loss.
 
Quite a few folks mash overnight in their cooler, and tend not to experience more that a degree or 2 drop in temp. Like someone else said, it all depends on your cooler.
 
Most coolers have hollow lids, so it would be wise of you to either spray some foam insulation in there or wrap the whole thing in a blanket (making sure to really cover the lid).

I wrap in a blanket and only lose about 1 degree in a 90 minute mash.
 
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