mash tun thermal mass

[seanhagerty]

I want to make an attempt to shorten my brew days a bit..one of the things im looking at is how i mash. In the past i have preheated my mash tun by putting boiling water in there and letting it sit while the strike water heats to temp. I have used promash to set the temp of my strike water with the thermal mass of my mash tun set to zero. I want to stop preheating my mash tun but dont know what the default value is for a thermal mass. Any one have any idea where to start with this?

[Speyedr]

What do you use for a Mash Tun?

Keeping it real,

Jamil's Underwear

[seanhagerty]

A keg with a bulkhead fitting and a bazooka screen

[Speyedr]

According to beersmith, Stainless has a thermal mass of 0.12. Unless someone knows the exact number for a stainless keg, I'd start there.

Rob

[ragin_cajun]

I think I read somewhere in the promash help file that they recommend you use 0.30 if you don't know your thermal mass. I have a 15.5 gal Sanke keg with a false bottm for my mash tun. I brewed with it for teh first time a little over a week ago. HLT water was heated to 180, run in the mash tun over grain at 1.25 quarts/pound, and came out with 152 mash temperature. So I went into ProMash, adjusted the "mash tun thermal mass" up to 0.50 in the default values section, and then opened up "calculate dough-in temperature" in a session I'd already calculated, and the values ProMash calculated matched exactly my first experience with my mash tun. So it's gotta be between 0.30 and 0.50.? Seems reasonable to me...

[beer_bear]

That's the same thing that I did. I found that mine was .40. Now this is only on two attempts, but it worked good for the third try. I was able to hit my mash temp a bit better. Sean, you were there for this one. I didn't use the calculation, but had I, it would have worked..

[mykafone]

I keep my setting at 0 - its hot as hell here in the summer so 0 works for me. once winter rolls around it will only be in the 80s so i may have to change it..

[brewsters millionths]

dont know if this helps or not, but trial and error for me found that a hlt temp of 75c into the mash tun left for ten mins everything settles to 70c. add grain at room temp and whole thing comes out at bang on 65c perfect.