How to reach your arm into a 155F mash....

Homebrew Talk

Help Support Homebrew Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
PS This was at the end of mashing, and was because my manifold came apart and was letting grain out with the wort, so I drained the grainy wort and then pushed the grain around wearing the rubber glove, squeezed the manifold back together, and poured the wort back in to properly filter.

So basically, if you can, wait until the mash is done and drain the liquid before reaching in there, it'll be a lot easier and safer.

Wasnt an option on the HERMS. The hose needs to be on from the start.

And yes, generally it makes more sense to hook it up before one pumps thier strike water over.
 
It doesnt drop the temp. of the water.

An oven glove doesnt cool the oven.

It is an insulator.

The water is an insualtor.

The thermal mass of both will take time to change.

And this is the the heart of my concern for you POL. As well as my concern for others who may try your method. If your Foodsaver bag fails, it only takes an instant for serious injury to occur. Is there not a better solution for your setup?

Yes I know there are risks involved with brewing, as there are risks in life. But why not try to mitigate some of those needles risks?
 
And this is the the heart of my concern for you POL. As well as my concern for others who may try your method. If your Foodsaver bag fails, it only takes an instant for serious injury to occur. Is there not a better solution for your setup?

Yes I know there are risks involved with brewing, as there are risks in life. But why not try to mitigate some of those needles risks?

Yah, the solution is to hook up the hose before you start brewing. But if you read the OP, that was exactly the reason for a quick solution that would not trash my mash temp. This is not how my system operates, it is not a normal procedure.

FoodSaver bags made sense to me, because they are good to 210F plus... I mean you boil food in them. I had no concern about it withstanding 155F.

Mitigating the risk, means just looking in the MLT to hook up the hose like I normally do when I brew. But, once I had 5 gallons of Hefe mash sitting there at sacc. rest temp, my choices became more limited.

Sometimes simple mistakes call for some improv and simple solutions.
 
I would just hook up my false bottom or wahtever before I began my mash, but what do I know, I use a stainless steel braid for filtering..


As stated in the OP, since everyone read that I am sure... hooking up the hose was overlooked prior to the mash-in. This is not "procedure". This is a technique to solve a problem that "can" arise.
 
Hey Pol,
Im just messin with yuh man, more power to yuh. Sounds like another sloution to a common problem for some people.

Zac,

Hey, you need to use smileys or something, your sarcasm was lost. I was thinking, what the heck? Now I have to add this guy to the list of people that argue with ANYTHING I say?

Yah, it was not an ideal situation, but my mash temp never wavered and I got the HERMS running immediately. SWMBO was watching like she was going to be rushing me to the ER at any minute!
 
Well Pol, you sure knocked the bottom off the hornets nest with this one! :D
I applaud your ingenuity, as that would be something I would do. Hell, on occasion I have been known to rewire a contactor or other component "live". (As long as it is 240 or less)
I understand the dissenter's view, and agree that we should all strive to be safe. But let's face it, if I want to be really safe, I would have to stay in bed and get the wife to bring me beer from the grocery and give up homebrewing altogether.
Sorry, but there is no way to completely eliminate accidents. Plus, you really don't want to. Accidents are nature's way of eliminating stupid people from society, or so I have been led to believe. hehehe

Hey Zac, pass the popcorn. I got a feeling this is going to get interesting...
 
Well Pol, you sure knocked the bottom off the hornets nest with this one! :D
I applaud your ingenuity, as that would be something I would do. Hell, on occasion I have been known to rewire a contactor or other component "live". (As long as it is 240 or less)
I understand the dissenter's view, and agree that we should all strive to be safe. But let's face it, if I want to be really safe, I would have to stay in bed and get the wife to bring me beer from the grocery and give up homebrewing altogether.
Sorry, but there is no way to completely eliminate accidents. Plus, you really don't want to. Accidents are nature's way of eliminating stupid people from society, or so I have been led to believe. hehehe

Hey Zac, pass the popcorn. I got a feeling this is going to get interesting...

Meh, Ollllo wont allow that... :D
 
It happened once for me. After manning up and shoving my arm down in it, I managed to fix the problem. Would I do it again? Are you fucin kidding!? I had blisters on the inside of the elbow and it taught me a life lesson, liquid is far hotter than air, and takes less time to burn you. Use you brain, use a calving glove or something equivalent to making tipping the next bottle less painful. ;) (I think I could have gotten away with it if it was a 5G batch)
 
I love the 'ghetto' solutions! And the 'life lessons' from the heat-of-the-moment (pun intended y'all - I spent the last 4 hours crafting that one!)

Both just as valuable a learning tool. :rockin:
 
This brings to mind an NPR segment the other day about a guy back a century or two who, with two other guys, experimented with standing in a room that was 210*-240*. They found that they could easily bear it for upwards of 30 minutes, as long as they weren't moving and the air was dry (so sweat would cool them properly).

Shows what a difference there is between hot air and hot water. 140* liquid will do serious damage in seconds, 240* air is fine for minutes. They even brought a dog in for almost 10 and discovered that, although the dog was not happy, she survived without any ill effects just by panting.

Also, I suppose I'm confused... Is a false bottom more than just a screen that sits above the bottom of a ported vessel? What's the hose hookup for?
 
This brings to mind an NPR segment the other day about a guy back a century or two who, with two other guys, experimented with standing in a room that was 210*-240*. They found that they could easily bear it for upwards of 30 minutes, as long as they weren't moving and the air was dry (so sweat would cool them properly).

Shows what a difference there is between hot air and hot water. 140* liquid will do serious damage in seconds, 240* air is fine for minutes. They even brought a dog in for almost 10 and discovered that, although the dog was not happy, she survived without any ill effects just by panting.

Also, I suppose I'm confused... Is a false bottom more than just a screen that sits above the bottom of a ported vessel? What's the hose hookup for?

To get the wort from under the false bottom to the spigot. Here is what a falsie looks like, that barb needs to connect to the spigot.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/pics/fullsize/stainless-false-bottom.jpg
 
I've seen that picture before, but it's not actually as helpful as it may be to someone who has used one before...

Is it more than just a mesh screen? Is there a solid backing or something that the hose attaches to?

It is a domed screen, the wort has to make it from under the screen, up to the spigot. The barb on the falsie is open to the space under the falsie so allow the wort to travel up and through the tube to the spigot and out of the MLT
 
My braid is connected to a shoulder fitting that screws into a nipple on the back of the valve in the MLT. I left it off once, and just did what several others have done- poured off the mash into a suitably sized container, attached the braid, put it back in, and mashed. Seemed to work OK.
 
It is a domed screen, the wort has to make it from under the screen, up to the spigot. The barb on the falsie is open to the space under the falsie so allow the wort to travel up and through the tube to the spigot and out of the MLT

Ohhhh, okay. The mesh screen sits just above the bottom of the MLT, beneath the spigot, and the pipe brings the wort UP from beneath. I thought the pipe fitting went on the other side, hence my confusion.
 
Sure now I see this post. Just started to mash in, put in my strike water and as I was dumping in my second scoop of grain I notice the pickup tube from my manifold to spigot is disconnected. Luckely I was doing a Kolsch with a protien rest so I "only" had heated the water to about 135-140 when I had to stick my hand in.
 
Heh, I just had my first stuck mash, after only one gallon drained. So, I grabbed the old 10gallon Army kettle that used to be my Grandfather's. Dumped the mash into the kettle, blasted the braid with the hose, poured out that water, dumped the mash back in, and everything's golden!

See Pol, if you'd simply keep an extra large, good quality, spare kettle around, you wouldn't need to use Foodsaver bags that could store more hops! :D
 
Back
Top