Yesterday during my mash I noticed something. I always poke my temperature probe into all different parts of the grain bed before I close the cover for the mash. Except yesterday I kept getting slightly different temperatures in different spots of the mash. I stirred more thinking that would fix it. But no, I couldn’t get it all even. The temperatures were only off by a 1-2degrees. Target temperature was 151, and I got temps in spots from 149 to 153. I eventually gave up and figured it would even itself out.
Is this something normal or did something…funky…happen yesterday.
And yes, my thermometer is accurate. I ran some tests with it to make sure it was working properly after that happened.
After doughing in, I like to stir the mash for about 2 min then take several readings around the mash. Variations +/-2 degrees are ideal…+/-1 degree is better but not necessary.
Good to know all is well, I wasn’t too worried about it to begin with.
As for the depth in the grain bed I take the reading - I try to vary that as well by trying to take readings from top, middle and bottom sections of the bed. I didn’t pay attention at the time to see if the temperature differences lined up with the how deep the thermometer was in the grain bed.
The reason I asked about the type of mashtun is because a cooler is probably the most thermally efficient. I typically get about 1-2 degrees of temp loss over the course of an hour in my blue Coleman Ultimate Extreme…which is bluish-gree btw.
I get almost identical efficiency when I mash in a bag in my stainless boil kettle with a tiny bit of added heat and occasional stirring compared to when I use my blue cooler. And now I got one of those orange cylindrical coolers so I’m wanting to try that sometime to see if it makes any difference.
And the reason I say that is even in my Coleman 70qt Extreme (dark-green) there was a 3-6 degree drop after 60+ minutes. Couldn’t keep the mash out of the upper 140’s while aiming for 153. I was fighting with this for years until out of frustration jammed the probe in deep and my fingers were nearly in the wort.
OK, I’ll bite…what is the history of the blue cooler meme? I imagine someone thought the outside color of a cooler had an effect on its ability to hold a temperature?
the effects of high energy quantum particles are enhanced by the blue plastic of the coleman cooler. This causes the mash to convert past 100% efficiency by moving some starch backwards and forwards in time whilecausing the enzymes to vibrate in n dimension space. This means that a stout can be a porter and a CDA becomes paler than a wit beer while hefeweizens are pushed through the clove phase transition into the banana spectrum modified by mit space.
