Mash temp is low...

[wburn]

Ok, so I'm trying out my first all grain batch using a converted 70 qt coleman xtreme. I added 3.5 gallons of 165 deg water trying to hit 152. I pre-heated the cooler with boiling water about 10 mins before I doughed in.

My temp came in closer to 145...I added about 2 tea kettles of boiling water so far, and my temp still seems to be just barely hovering at 150.

Should I add some more boiling water? Also, should I let it go a little longer?

Any advice is much appreciated

Thanks

 

[devilishprune]

It's a little late now, but next time just add more boiling water.

Pour water into your cooler that's about 5 degrees warmer than strike (YMMV as far as the temperature goes) but that way you don't have to boil some additional water. Then, I just stir the grains until I get to my mash temp and leave it alone.

Hope that helps for next time.

 

[avidhomebrewer]

Plenty late by now, but when I want to mash in my coolers (a 10 and a 5 gallon), I heat the water up to about 175 - 180, pour it in the cooler, then add the grains to that. By the time all is said and done, the overall temp is around 155.

 

[wburn]

Things actually turned out pretty ok...in the end I just tried to keep things simple, and had another home brew. I ended up adding a little more boiling water, and let it sit...Temps settled at almost 152 on the dot. Took about 15 mins to get there, but once I was there I started the clock. An hour later, temp was only down 2 degrees. OG post boil came out at 1.050 and tasted pretty good. Decent airlock activity this morning. Calculated efficiency was about 65% but when OG was only supposed to be 1.051 doesn't really matter to me