Separate mash tun or use boiler?

[davidmpye]

Hi guys,

I am still working on getting all my gear set up for my first AG brew

I now have a 30 litre burco boiler (3kW electric) and am trying to decide how to run things. I want to be able to brew lagers as well as ales as most of my friends will prefer those and am wondering whether to mash in the boiler or to have a separate coolbox as an insulated mash tun.

What I am thinking of at the moment is running things like this:

Mash in the boiler using the thermostat to control the mash temperature (with a couple of blankets over it to try to keep temperature stable)
Pour the boiler contents into a plastic fermentation bucket with tap and strainer for sparging.
Leave the grain sitting in the sparge bucket while the boiler heats up the sparging water.
Put the sparging water into another fermentation bucket, and put the now empty boiler under the sparge bucket to catch the run off ready for the boil.

Would this work, or am I better off getting an insulated mash tun to use instead so the boiler will be free to get heating the sparge water without the long wait that the above idea would cause?

Your thoughts very welcome!

Cheers,

David

[Hawkinspm]

If you can, I would go for the mash tun separate. Cuts out all that messing around with buckets and bins to transfer liquids ( which are hot..)
You mention having an empty FV with a tap and strainer anyway to sparge out of, you could always convert that just by insulating it. People have had good results with camping mats I believe - mine is an FV and has been done with insulating foam and works fine as a mash tun.
Then, before you know it you'll be converting another FV to an HLT - and life becomes easy!

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Build a proper mash tun.

[Horatio]

+1 on Build a proper mash tun. Life is much easier with one, and a HLT and, and, and...

[lancsSteve]

Mash in the boiler using the thermostat to control the mash temperature (with a couple of blankets over it to try to keep temperature stable)

You'd need element off while mashing or you'll likely burn the goods.

A mate of mine put a bunch of camping roll mats round an FV with tap which made a good mash tun - another design is 2 FV's one inside the other giving good false bottom - lots of designs out there. Moving/lifting/pouring hot liquids is NOT fun or very safe though!

[Mitchamitri]

Get an insulated box and make it into a separate mash tun.
Tell your friends to stop being girly lager drinkers and get some real ale down them, or b****r off!!

[kay-jay]

hi all,

some good advice here! though my grandad used to brew in a burco boil washer hooked up to a thermostat. he used to mash from midnight til 9.30 in the morning!! most people seem to mash for 90 mins for which an insulated fv seems fine. god knows why he mashed for so long but he did have high efficiencies.
in his brew journal he described 85 percent efficiency as very poor. most of his recipes came out at 95% plus which seems quite staggering.

when i make the step up to all grain i think i will at least try the overnight mash and will therefore use a boiler with thermostat for the mash and fath about with the transfer of liquids. i can then contrast the results with a standard 90 mash brew.

btw have any of you tried an overnight mash if so what were your results??


KJ

[CJBrew]

I have done an overnight mash with my 40l stainless thermobox (Nordic optical one). I am very tempted to do it again as it meant I was done with my (Saturday) brew day a lot earlier. All in all you are saving a lot of time when you'd ordinarily be sitting around waiting; you probably ought to stir a mash but it's not crucial if you are willing to let it stand for a few hours.

The mash lost something like 2'C of temperature overnight. I haven't got the numbers here but efficiency is related to more than just mash time -- sparge efficiency is probably more important. I don't think it was better than 80% though.

Did anyone else read the article in the latest BEER magazine where the William Worthington brewery made a barleywine that boiled 17 hours?! (reducing 6 barrels of pale wort to 3 barrels of black beer )