I would like to brew a sour beer and I'm thinking I'll need to use my brew kettle as the mash tun instead of the 10 gallon cooler that I usually use. It's an 8 gallon kettle, so I'm assuming the matching false bottom (which I'm yet to purchase) fits pretty snug. My question is, should it go above or below the temperature gauge? Seems like it would make cleaning the kettle more difficult?

Not sure if I'm way off base here or not. Any suggestions are appreciated!

Why do you need to use your brew kettle as a mash tun instead of your typical mash tun cooler?

Might be planning on doing sour mash and is wary of using his cooler? Shouldn't me too much of an issue, even if you get bugs living in your cooler, you'll be boiling anything after that anyway...

According to the recipe, a "Lambic Style" mash schedule is needed, so I have to increase the temp about four times. Figured it would be easier to do this using my kettle on the burner rather than trying to increase the mash temp in a cooler. I've never brewed a sour beer before so it should be interesting. You guys have any tips?

Do the mash in your kettle, tranfer into your cooler, rinse out the kettle, start runoff as usual.

"Lambic style," meaning a turbid mash?

I have done turbid mashes with my cooler and several other boiling vessels. Typically you only need a fairly large amount of constant boiling water to help you raise the mash temps in your cooler. Plus a smaller kettle (think several quarts only) to keep your first pull runnings (kept around 180 or so to prevent conversion and added back later to provide extra unfermentables for the long term fermentation of bacteria and brett).

Honestly, as much as turbid mashes are reported as the only way to make a true lambic, there are other more simple ways to pull this off as well. I have done single infusion mashes, and extract lambics with maltodextrin and ground wheat (both flaked and raw) steeped to simulate the turbid mash with good results.

It's the Dawson's Kriek recipe from Northern Brewer. I don't even know what a turbid mash is, but this is what the recipe says to do:

MASH SCHEDULE: LAMBIC-STYLE MULTI STEP
Glucan Rest: 112° F for 20 minutes
Protein Rest: 125° F for 20 minutes
Beta Sacch’ Rest: 149° F for 45 minutes
Alpha Sacch’ Rest: 160° F for 30 minutes
Mashout: 170° F for 10 minutes

I just ordered my false bottom, so I'll just give it a shot using that in my kettle.

Thanks for all the responses