jscherff
Active Member
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2013
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Yesterday I brewed or attempted to brew my first partial mash. It was a disaster. In fact, it was a comedy of errors fit for a sitcom.
My equipment is a 10 gallon stainless steel Bayou Classic brew kettle, a 10 gallon igloo MT/LT, and a 10 gallon igloo HLT. The recipe calls for a partial mash using 2 1/2 pounds of grain. I mashed in with about 3 quarts of 164° water, stirred well, and ended up at 152°. Perfect. I put the lid back on the cooler and waited.
About 10 minutes later, I checked the mash temperature. It was down to 140°. At that point I put my HLT up on the [unlit] stove and added enough 170° sparge water to get back up to 152°, but 10 minutes later, the mash was back down near 140°.
The above describes my basic problem: maintaining mash temperature until conversion, which I never achieved (tested with tincture of iodine at various points). I believe the root cause of the temperature drop was too much cooler for too small a grain bill, but I would like to hear the opinions of some more experienced home brewers.
The rest of this post is the comedy of errors part, which you can read if you want to have a chuckle at my expense.
Panicking, I decided to heat some water to boiling in my boil kettle so I could raise the temperature of my mash without diluting it too much (i.e., with sparge water). While I did this, I failed to notice that my Igloo HLT was sitting on the unused burner next to my boil kettle. Failed to notice, that is, until I saw a puddle of molten orange plastic forming beneath the stove.
When the water reached boiling, I opened the valve to let some hot water run through the vinyl tubing and into my MT. A hot steam of 200° water on my arm informed me that I had neglected to use hose clamps and that vinyl tubing loses it's grip at higher temperatures.
Still the temperature did not stabilize.
Next I decided to pour the mash into a second stainless pot and apply heat directly. As I did this, I splashed a good deal of liquid on the stainless brew kettle, so I set the kettle on the ground to spray off the sticky brown mess with the garden hose. With cold water. On a cold night. On a hot (recently boiling) brew kettle. One minute later the lid of the brew kettle collapsed inward like it was made of tin foil from the pressure differential caused by the rapid cooling.
The tale goes on, but the rest is significantly less funny. I worked on that damned mash for three hours and never achieved conversion. I only quit trying because I grew too drunk to continue safely.
It was only after all this time, effort, and pain that I realized starting over from scratch would cost less than $5 in raw materials, which I picked up from my LHBS today.
John
My equipment is a 10 gallon stainless steel Bayou Classic brew kettle, a 10 gallon igloo MT/LT, and a 10 gallon igloo HLT. The recipe calls for a partial mash using 2 1/2 pounds of grain. I mashed in with about 3 quarts of 164° water, stirred well, and ended up at 152°. Perfect. I put the lid back on the cooler and waited.
About 10 minutes later, I checked the mash temperature. It was down to 140°. At that point I put my HLT up on the [unlit] stove and added enough 170° sparge water to get back up to 152°, but 10 minutes later, the mash was back down near 140°.
The above describes my basic problem: maintaining mash temperature until conversion, which I never achieved (tested with tincture of iodine at various points). I believe the root cause of the temperature drop was too much cooler for too small a grain bill, but I would like to hear the opinions of some more experienced home brewers.
The rest of this post is the comedy of errors part, which you can read if you want to have a chuckle at my expense.
Panicking, I decided to heat some water to boiling in my boil kettle so I could raise the temperature of my mash without diluting it too much (i.e., with sparge water). While I did this, I failed to notice that my Igloo HLT was sitting on the unused burner next to my boil kettle. Failed to notice, that is, until I saw a puddle of molten orange plastic forming beneath the stove.
When the water reached boiling, I opened the valve to let some hot water run through the vinyl tubing and into my MT. A hot steam of 200° water on my arm informed me that I had neglected to use hose clamps and that vinyl tubing loses it's grip at higher temperatures.
Still the temperature did not stabilize.
Next I decided to pour the mash into a second stainless pot and apply heat directly. As I did this, I splashed a good deal of liquid on the stainless brew kettle, so I set the kettle on the ground to spray off the sticky brown mess with the garden hose. With cold water. On a cold night. On a hot (recently boiling) brew kettle. One minute later the lid of the brew kettle collapsed inward like it was made of tin foil from the pressure differential caused by the rapid cooling.
The tale goes on, but the rest is significantly less funny. I worked on that damned mash for three hours and never achieved conversion. I only quit trying because I grew too drunk to continue safely.
It was only after all this time, effort, and pain that I realized starting over from scratch would cost less than $5 in raw materials, which I picked up from my LHBS today.
John
