First all-grain batch questions...I finaly did it!

[CurtE]

OK so, after 15+ years of brewing…I did my first all-grain batch yesterday. I did a batch sparge. I did a Porter recipe so I’d have some flexibility. All my low budget/home-made equipment worked pretty kick-ass, as planned however my use of said equipment needs a little adjustment:

I did not hit my mash temp with my strike water even though I am certain that it was calculated and measured to be the right temp. (170F for 1qt/lb @ 60F initial grain temp to get a 152F mash) I wanted a 152F mash but instead I got a 145F mash temp. I reckon this’ll make the beer a little dry but …live and learn.

I think I know the culprit(s):
1) I drained from my HLT into a jug first, then poured it into the mashtun. I did this so I could accurately measure the amount of water going into the mash with the jug …dumb move!…of course the heat loss through the jug while waiting for it to fill attributed directly to the low mash temp.
2) I don’t think I pre-heated my tun properly. I did pour a gallon of boiling water into the tun to pre-warm it for about 10 min or so but I think I should have poured in more and waited longer for the mashtun to soak up the heat.

After a 30 min rest (and waiting for my HLT to get hotter) I added a few gallons of ~190F water to heat the mash up to ~148F and held that for 30 min. Now my mash is about 1.75 qt/lb grain. This will give me more water than I intended to have on my first runnings because, since I am batch sparging, this means I will have less room in the kettle to “top-off” with sparge water. i.e. less sparging = lower efficiency.

I added enough boiling water to the tun to raise the temp to ~158F for sparging. I wanted ~170F but I didn’t want to add more water and not have anywhere to drain it to as my kettle would be full with just a couple more gallons.

After all this I had 8 gallons of wort to boil down to ~5.5 gallons.

After evaporating 3 gallons in 90 minutes of boiling "vigorously" I actually hit my target OG 1.065 dead on @ the 5.2 gallon mark! F'nA kick-ass!!! ~65% efficiency despite the crappy sparge temps and amounts. I think next time I can get over 70%.

So:
How do y’all pre-warm up your coolers?
What thermal mass do y’all use in y’all’s calcs typically for calculating strike water temp?
What are the pro’s and con’s of sight tubes and other water/level measuring devices/techniques?
How much temperature loss do you figure in to your strike water temp for transferring water from your HLT to the tun?
How much temp loss should I be getting with my 20+ year old cooler in degrees per hour in ~60F ambient?
Should I really spend a whole $25 for one of those 55qt "5-day" coolers or is the much cheaper $21 60 qt rolling "ice cube" better?

Any answer is greatly appreciated.

Curt E.

[Bugeater]

Sounds like you did pretty much everything right. I think you may be able to solve your low mash temperature pretty easy. One quart per pound is pretty thick. 1.25 qt/lb is pretty much standard and you can go as high as 2 qt/lb without any problem. I state this for two reasons.

First by adding more 170° water at the beginning, the temperature of your mash will be higher. With 1.5 qt/lb with 170° water in a preheated mashtun you should be able to hit your 150-152 mash temp pretty close. You would need to do one run and adjust your water temperature from there for the next batch.

The second reason is that you will get a little better efficiency and a little more fermentable wort with the higher water to grain ratio. (at least in my experience).

Don't worry about the mashbed temperature during the sparge. Just sparge with 180-185 degree water and don't worry about it.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

[beer_bear]

The only thing you did wrong is tear your first time appart. I bet you still made beer.

There are a lot of things that you did right. It takes a few batches to get used to the temps on your system. One thing you could do is wrap your mash tun with someting to keep it warm. I use a blanket on mine. I don't lose any heat in a one hour mash. I start my mash temp at 154 and finish at 154. That took a few tries to get there.
I don't worry about the thermal mass calculation. It's a pain in the ass.

As for the cooler that you're using, practice with it, it can work just fine. If you don't like it buy another one.

Otherwise, just practice. You'll figure out your system.