Mash tun, little worried.

[chungking]

I added about 2-3 gallons of 180* water to my 5 gallon mash tun, mostly to sanitize, for a about one hour. Came back and checked temp, was in the mid 160's.

Now, I tested this before with 120* water, and only lost about 3 degrees. But I had it full of water, so five gallons. I am doing my first partial mash tonight, using 5 lbs of grain and 1.6 gallons of water at 152*. Should I be worried about the temp dropping to fast?

 

[slarkin712]

This is an issue of thermal mass. The larger mass of water/mash mix, the slower it will be to cool. Another issue to consider is the head space in your mash tun. A larger head space will cause a larger loss of heat. If you haven't already, insulate your mass tun as well. Simply using blankets wrapped around may help quite a bit.

 

[bknifefight]

Preheat your mash tun. When you dumped the 180* water in, I bet that it dropped in temp pretty instantaneously.