what’s a good number to use? I’m doing for the first time in a cooler. Using ProMash. Will .05 get me in the ballpark?
Beersmith lists .3 as a good starting point for plastic mashtuns.bi pre-heat, so I don’t know if that is accurate.
Gotten spoiled with my RIMS. How on earth did a mortal brewer survive sans-PID???
I think you are best off ignoring the thermal mass except for your manifold and that you can probably ignore too.
I’m using Brewtarget. In the equipment editor under mash tun, it asks for volume, mass (which is basically the weight of your mash tun) and the specific heat (cal/g*K). The manual cites as “typical values”:
Aluminum - 0.215
Copper - 0.092
Iron/Steel - 0.108
Plastic - 0.359.
Hope that helps.
I preheat my 50 qt cooler with 2 gal of 180 degree water.
It sits in the cooler while I get everything else ready to mash in, maybe 15 min.
It reduces my thermal mass to “0”.
I mash in a 5G Igloo cooler.
I ignore Beersmith’s recommended strike temp and add 21F to my desired mash temp.
I recently messed around and found settings, post facto, that would have worked for my last 2 brews. Tun mass = 5.5#, tun specific heat = 0.55 Cal/g•C. We’ll see if these hold up for me over time.
I do pretty much the same. I run about 4 gallons of water heater hot water (I haven’t checked what that temp is) into the cooler and let it sit while the mash water heats up. I drain it right before mash in.
Works great!
Paul
+1. Strike temp calculators usually made me undershoot my mash temps, which I hate. I’d rather add ice cubes to come down a degree or two F if need be. So I bring the cooler tun in from the garage the night before to come to house temp (lid open) and add ~ 16 dF to target mash temp. For my system and process it works much more accurately.
In either of these scenarios, is this pre-heating water used in combination with the strike water, or tossed? What temp is your tun at then, or do you not need to worry about it? I am using Beersmith for my own sanity, and can tell it not to adjust for equipment temp, its just that every time I tried to pre-heat, I had no idea what temp to tell it my equipment was at. I have been using the same method as Jon, and telling beersmith I am at whatever ambient was and going from there and it has worked out well. I am never on the cold side but have been high by 2-5° ac ouple times though. I guess from the rest of the thoughts here are that I just need to figure out what my equipment needs and let the software get me in the ball park
I just overshoot my strike temp a bit and allow it to come down on its own. If I need a strike temp of 160°, I beat my water to 165-168° to cover the heat sink of the tun & the buckets I use to measure the water. Normally it takes about 10 minutes to get where I need it.
Steve, be careful of who sees you beating your water
:o
Stupid iPhone.
I use the preheat method and tell BS not to adjust for equipment temp, dumping the preheat water right before mashing in. This works pretty well unless I am doing a multi step mash, e.g. a protein rest. Then I still preheat to the lower rest temp, tell BS that my MT temp is the initial mash target temp, and let BS adjust for equipment for subsequent additions.
The water I use to pre-heat my mash tun is not included in the strike water.
I pour it out of the tun and mix it with Starsan for sanitizing.
I use ProMash so I can’t help with other brew programs.
In ProMash, I set the thermal mass setting to “0”.
That gets me where I need to be when I mash in.
As noted by others, there is some trial and error, even when using a computerized brew program.
Yes to this process. I am so anal I even make my ice cubes out of distilled water since I brew with all RO water.
I just add all my strike water at 180/185 then stir till i get it at the temp i want then dough in