+1. No preheat here either. I bring my mash tun in from the garage the day before and let it warm to ambient room temp, with the lid open. I heat my strike water 12-13 dF above mash temp as well, and adjust with boiling water or ice if need be. I’m always within 2dF and usually 1dF of target, but most often don’t need to adjust.
My mash tun will melt at 2,750°F. Also I use it to heat my mash water, and can throw heat on it midway if needed. But with a $5 homemade insulator and no stir, it only loses 2° in 90 minutes. Thanks to Denny
I use either a 5 or 10 gallon rubbermade round mash tun depending on what size batch I am doing, don’t pre heat. For both I usually go 12+ above my mash temp. Maybe a little more with MO which gives me dough balls for some reason, usually needs a little extra stirring. I don’t see much of a drop in temp even with a 90 min mash no more than a degree or two.
Kai’s wiki has probably my favorite studies on efficiency (and fermentability):
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Effects_of_mash_parameters_on_fermentability_and_efficiency_in_single_infusion_mashing
I think it’s worth a read.
Dude, I’m no smarter than anybody else here. It’s just that after brewing hundreds and hundreds of batches you learn a few things!
I don’t insulate my cooler mash tun and I never lose more than 2F over a 90 min. mash. I used to preheat, but decided that I was too lazy foe the extra step. It took me about 2-3 brews to figure out how much hotter I had to make my strike water to account for not preheating.
Just that you’re wasting time and effort.
OK. Got it. Thanks.
I used to pre-heat. Haven’t lately. It’s summer, I brew outside when I can and it just hasn’t been necessary. Come winter, I’ll mash in the kitchen. I’ll probably pre-heat again because everything is just cooler. It’s not that big a deal really. I throw a couple quarts of water in the ol’ microwave while I’m getting stuff together and dump that in the tun while I’m milling my grain…bim, badda-boom, done.
I preheated a few times, but I ended up coming in a little hot compared to what the calculator I was using gave me as a strike temp. So now I just let it ride and end up within a degree or two. In the end, it’s simply a matter of what works for you to get you where you need to be. Frankly, the less steps in my process the better.
I always preheat my mash tun, but I’ve never seen it as requiring much additional time or effort. I just heat my strike water an additional 6 or 8 degrees, dump it in my cooler/tun, and let it sit for a few minutes before dumping in the grain. Maybe five minutes or so for the added heating and five to let the tun warm up. No biggie, and I hit my mash temps consistently.
Since I brew in a barn in Ohio, I don’t find it necessary to preheat the tun in the 90-100 degree summer heat, but when it’s 10 degrees in the winter, I find it necessary to preheat it. But by preheating, I just leave inside next to the wood burner until I need it.
However, I am confused by this paradox since I usually keep my ratio around 1.75 quarts per pound, but I need my strike temp about 18 degrees over the target mash temp with bigger beers that use lets say 15 lb of grain. I run my strike temp 13 or 14 over for smaller beers that require 10ish lbs.
Any problem with dough balls? You’ll get the same results, with very few if any dough balls, if you have the grain in first and dump the hot water on top of it. I don’t mean to start arguments on this, but it has been my experience. YMMV
Dave, for 15 years and 440+ batches I’ve added grain to water. I only recall seeing doughballs a few times and that seemed dependent on the malt I used.
I’m still just a pigeon scout at brewing but no doh balls with slow pour of grain and steady stir.
+1 to slowly pouring into water and stirring.
Yep. Exactly what I do.
I guess I shouldn’t have said “dump in the grain”; I actually pour it in pretty carefully and stir it, either while pouring if I have an “assistant brewer” with me to help, or pour a bit, stir, pour a bit more if I’m solo. Never had any problems with dough balls (knock wood).
Nice thing about doing it the other way dumping the water into the grain is that you don’t need to do it slowly, just dump it in and the stirring pretty much takes care of itself except maybe in the corners or beneath the Bazooka (or equivalent). Probably shaves 2 minutes off my brew day. 
I may preheat just to see how that affects, Ive usually been heating my strike water about 12 degrees higher than temp needed. Going to see if that can help, plus only going to stir grain at beginning and very end so as not to lose temp.