I am hopefully going to be going all grain for the first time this weekend, and I was going to do it outside. The weather is supposed to be in the mid 50s. I converted a 10 gal Rubbermaid cooler for my mash tun. In people’s experience if I keep the lid on the cooler the whole time I mash, will the temp stay constant in that kind of weather or will I have to add hot water?
There are a number of options. The simple - let it ride, it will lose some temp. The pretty easy – use a blanket, sleeping bag, keg koozy, winter coat and throw it over the mashtun. The slightly more difficult - heat water outside, carry inside, mash-in inside, carry back outside for run-off, sparge and boil. Personally, my rubbermaid looses a few degrees over an hour’s time with 60s ambient, not a big deal. I brew outside even in the coldest of temps and improvise from all of the options I listed above. cheers, j
don’t sweat it
I did my first all grain last friday outside and it was about 40ish out. I didn’t have a problem maintaining my temp. Got the grain bed to 152…covered the cooler and then threw a blanket on for good measure and forgot about it for an hour.
I’ll mash outside in a snowstorm (we’ll get a snowstorm in July if I decide to brew…) and I won’t get a significant drop in temperature over an hour in a cooler.
I like your style. Maybe I’ll do a brew while its hailing one time so I can call it Pale Hail…yep I just said that.
Thanks for all the input. I am just going to insulate it and go with it.
I am hopfully going to hit 1.083 OG with this beer and I was wondering if it will be ok to just pitch two bags of liquid yeast rather than making a starter because I don’t have time to make one before the weekend. The liquid yeast I used last time said it started out with 500 billion* cells in the bag.
Edit: 100 Billion
Is that some sort of commercial bag? Even the large Wyeast bags only claim 100 billion.
Whoops, yes I did mean 100 billion.
Well, according to http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html, you need 283 billion cells for a 5 gallon batch. Even if you had a brand new pack at close to 100% viability, you’d be grossly underpitching. You should consider making a starter or buying a couple more packs.
Yes, 4 vials/smackpacks or a 3.6L starter with one package of liquid yeast.