My Partial Mash and some questions

[Exo]

Yesterday was brew-day and it was my first true mash of any kind. I was suprised at how much room I had for more grain in my 6-gal DIY mash-tun. Guessing I could get 14# in.

So I have a few questions and hopefully ya'll don't think they are stupid.

1.) For those of you that use plastic...do you warm your vessel with hot water prior to dough-in? It was difficult to hit my target temp and I think it was because of a cold container.

2.) For a standard diameter plastic bucket...what would be a safe-ish max. depth for a grainbed? If the bed is to deep will the sparge effeciency suffer?

3.) When re-circulating the wort I had issues where I would get clear wort for a while and then it would cloud again. I narrowed it to the wort getting pushed back into the tun and disturbing the grain-bed. How can I minimize this? I'm thinking spigot with hose attached to that...?

4.) During my boil I didn't have any shade. Therefore had to boil under the hot-ass sun. Sunlight did fall on a portion of the keggle during the boil. Will this have any effect and give me the dreaded skunk? I did shade the setup when transferring to a carboy. Is 1hr going to make ANY difference?

5.) How do you guys measure your 6gal. mark? I don't want to etch a line into the inside of the pot but there must be a way?

edit:
6.) Does the conversion in the mash/lauter-tun occur in suspension or is it occurring right on/in the grain? I was concerned about my efficiency due to temp problems so while boiling I gave the wort a rest at 158deg. for 15min then brought it to a boil. Think that helped efficiency at all?

 

[EdWort]

#1. I preheated my 5 gallon cooler with about 6 quarts of 175 degree water for about 10 minutes.

#5. I used a dremel to mark the 7 gallon line and a 5.5 gallon line. Works for me. I know when the pot is full and when I've boiled enough off.

 

[Desert_Sky]

1.) For those of you that use plastic...do you warm your vessel with hot water prior to dough-in? It was difficult to hit my target temp and I think it was because of a cold container.

2.) For a standard diameter plastic bucket...what would be a safe-ish max. depth for a grainbed? If the bed is to deep will the sparge effeciency suffer?

3.) When re-circulating the wort I had issues where I would get clear wort for a while and then it would cloud again. I narrowed it to the wort getting pushed back into the tun and disturbing the grain-bed. How can I minimize this? I'm thinking spigot with hose attached to that...?

4.) During my boil I didn't have any shade. Therefore had to boil under the hot-ass sun. Sunlight did fall on a portion of the keggle during the boil. Will this have any effect and give me the dreaded skunk? I did shade the setup when transferring to a carboy. Is 1hr going to make ANY difference?

5.) How do you guys measure your 6gal. mark? I don't want to etch a line into the inside of the pot but there must be a way?

edit:
6.) Does the conversion in the mash/lauter-tun occur in suspension or is it occurring right on/in the grain? I was concerned about my efficiency due to temp problems so while boiling I gave the wort a rest at 158deg. for 15min then brought it to a boil. Think that helped efficiency at all?

1. Yea, I just use tap water as hot as it will go

2. I have an 5 gallon Igloo, and Ive had it almost full of grain. I batch sparge so who knows, it turned out great.

3. I have that problem when my false floor isnt all the way on the bottom

4. Not sure on that one.

5. Make a mark on your spoon and then put it all the way to the bottom

6. Ill let someone else answer that one.

 

[Blender]

#1 - I put the strike water in hotter than needed and let it sit until it hits the temperature needed. It helps warm things up.

2- I batch sparge so can't help you there.

#5- I have read that some brewers use a marked stick to gauge the gallons in their vessels.

#6 - I don't think it helped with efficiency at that point.

 

[Exo]

Regarding the re-circulation...the false bottom was well, on the bottom. I have it weighted with two stainless steel T's that are fairly heavy. I think what was happening was the wort was going back into the tun and pushing back up through the grain-bed, disturbing it.

It wasn't much liquid that got pushed back in (via gravity) but that's all I could narrow down.

It's also a plastic false-bottom. Might also be an issue...

Solution? Bought two in-line valves.

 

[RichBrewer]

You will definitely want to pre-heat your tun. The plastic absorbers heat from the water and will cause you to miss your target. Are you using the plastic buckets like the ZAPAP Lauter tun in Papazian's book? You should also insulate the bucket if you are.
I'm guessing that your grain bed was too shallow. A deeper grain bed will help clarify your wort. I think you could fill your tun to the top and it wouldn't be too deep. (It would be a pain in the a$$ to sparge however)

 

[Exo]

Heres my setup:

The insulation is from Home Depot. It's ridged and does a nice job. Held my mash at 144 for 30min and it didn't drop by much...a degree I believe.

I still wonder if that little bit of liquid forced back up through the grain-bed disturbed it somehow...but your right...it will definitely help to have a thicker bed.