DoctorVenkman
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I recently bought a new stainless steel mash tun with a digital thermometer mounted on the outside, so I was eager to put it to use. After vigorously stirring my mash I hit 152.5F, with a target of 152F. So good so far!
I monitored the temp every 5-10 minutes and noticed minimal temperature loss. After 30 minutes the temp was still slightly above 151F. However, at the 40 minute mark, something weird happened: the temp dropped to 147F. As soon as I saw that I started to boil some water, during which the temp dropped further to 145F. Once I added the boiling water and gave a quick stir I finished the mash around 150F.
I don't think this temp loss can be explained purely from physics since heat transfer happens at a quicker rate the hotter something is, so it wouldn't make sense for the heat loss accelerate after 40 minutes. I can think few things that could have caused this:
1) There was a cold "pocket" of grain/dough somewhere that was insulated and took a while to absorb the heat around it. I think this is somewhat unlikely since I stirred the mash pretty hard before putting the lid on.
2) The thermometer bugged out. Also unlikely since it is brand new, and the temp increased when I put boiling water in so it wasn't like it was producing nonsense numbers.
3) Someone dosed my homebrew with LSD and I hallucinated the whole thing. Most plausible of the three options, IMO
Has anyone else experienced this? Did you ever find out what the cause was? It's a bit disconcerting since I bought this SS mash tun to increase my consistency!
Cheers
edit: I forgot to mention that I preheated the mash tun with boiling water as well.
I monitored the temp every 5-10 minutes and noticed minimal temperature loss. After 30 minutes the temp was still slightly above 151F. However, at the 40 minute mark, something weird happened: the temp dropped to 147F. As soon as I saw that I started to boil some water, during which the temp dropped further to 145F. Once I added the boiling water and gave a quick stir I finished the mash around 150F.
I don't think this temp loss can be explained purely from physics since heat transfer happens at a quicker rate the hotter something is, so it wouldn't make sense for the heat loss accelerate after 40 minutes. I can think few things that could have caused this:
1) There was a cold "pocket" of grain/dough somewhere that was insulated and took a while to absorb the heat around it. I think this is somewhat unlikely since I stirred the mash pretty hard before putting the lid on.
2) The thermometer bugged out. Also unlikely since it is brand new, and the temp increased when I put boiling water in so it wasn't like it was producing nonsense numbers.
3) Someone dosed my homebrew with LSD and I hallucinated the whole thing. Most plausible of the three options, IMO
Has anyone else experienced this? Did you ever find out what the cause was? It's a bit disconcerting since I bought this SS mash tun to increase my consistency!
Cheers
edit: I forgot to mention that I preheated the mash tun with boiling water as well.