
mashing temp
mashing temp

sounds familiar!
I did the same thing, first time around, trying to maintain the temp with the thermostat on my bruheat boiler. god what a nightmare!
bit weird that the manufacturers give you those instructions - without this forum I probably would have given up by now.
My bruheat boiler now features a second element, ripped out of tossco's cheapest kettle. i use my bruheat boiler to heat my mashing liquor, sparging liquor and then to do the boil.
I mash in a spare fermenting bin, which has a camping mat gaffer taped around it and i put an old sleeping bag over that. Temperature drops by one or two degrees over the period of the mash - insignificant really, especially compared to the wild and unpredictable temp variations that I suspect you may have been getting wound up by!
so forget trying to heat your whole mash in that damn thing - research "strike temperature" instead.
I did the same thing, first time around, trying to maintain the temp with the thermostat on my bruheat boiler. god what a nightmare!
bit weird that the manufacturers give you those instructions - without this forum I probably would have given up by now.
My bruheat boiler now features a second element, ripped out of tossco's cheapest kettle. i use my bruheat boiler to heat my mashing liquor, sparging liquor and then to do the boil.
I mash in a spare fermenting bin, which has a camping mat gaffer taped around it and i put an old sleeping bag over that. Temperature drops by one or two degrees over the period of the mash - insignificant really, especially compared to the wild and unpredictable temp variations that I suspect you may have been getting wound up by!
so forget trying to heat your whole mash in that damn thing - research "strike temperature" instead.
I used to spend ages faffing around with mashing temperatures in my mashing bin. Now all I do is make sure that I've got the strike water about right and then sling it, along with the grain into a cool box for a couple of hours and forget about it. Much easier and on average much better efficency too.