Need Help Setting Up Mash Schedule

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splashmike
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Need Help Setting Up Mash Schedule

Post by splashmike »

I cannot figure this out for the life of me. I'm making an American Wheat this weekend (5 gal.). It's a single infusion with a 60 minute rest at 153 and a 10 minute mash out at 68. I have calibrated my mash tun (70 quart Coleman Xtreme) and entered the values in the "my equipment section". But I have no idea what I'm doing after that. How do I get the program to calculate infusion volume, temp, etc. Batch sparge volume, temp, etc. Any help is most appreciated. Thanks.
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jawbox
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Post by jawbox »

thats a huge mash tun for a 5gal wheat beer.

see here

http://beertoolspro.com/wiki/Mash_In

and here

http://beertoolspro.com/wiki/Rest

and finally here, you can download a template

http://beertoolspro.com/wiki/Batch_sparge

good luck.
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Post by splashmike »

I've finally calibrated my brewing equipment and am back to trying to set up a mash schedule. Can anyone explain when, when I've only added according to my schedule 6.75 gallons to the tun, the in vessel value shows 8 gallons? I don't understand what this value means. Thanks for any help.
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re: volume in tun

Post by slothrob »

splashmike wrote:I've finally calibrated my brewing equipment and am back to trying to set up a mash schedule. Can anyone explain when, when I've only added according to my schedule 6.75 gallons to the tun, the in vessel value shows 8 gallons? I don't understand what this value means. Thanks for any help.
I think you're looking at the total volume of liquid + grain, i.e. 6.75 gallons of water and 1.25 gallons of grain requires 8 gallons of tun space.
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Post by splashmike »

I don't think I would have figured that one out on my own. Thanks.
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total volume

Post by slothrob »

It's a great number to have when you're trying to figure out if a large grain bill is going to fit in your tun. I have a 5 gallon tun, and I use it to determine if I need to perform 1 or 2 batch sparges.
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Post by splashmike »

I don't know what happened but I undershot my strike temp by almost 10 degrees. I was shooting for 154 and the program said to heat everything to 166.9, which I did, but the dough in temp came in around 145. I did not pre heat the tun, but it was pretty warm out -- about 85 degrees. Not sure why I'm so off. I had to add a lot of extra water to get into the low 150's.
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low temperature

Post by slothrob »

In your mash-in edit window, did you choose your mash tun as your "Mash Vessel" and a kettle as your "Heating Vessel"? I made this exact mistake the first time and fell low.

A common reason for cooler mash tun users to fall about 10°F low is to select their tun as the "Heating Vessel".

The other big things to consider are the temperature of your grain and tun. Was the grain temp set correctly and was the tun the same starting temperature as when you did your calibration?
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Post by splashmike »

Both vessels were selected correctly. Ambient temp was about 85 degrees and I probably used the default designation of 70 degrees for grain and tun temps. I did not pre heat the tun. Could all of this account for the 10 degree differential?

I'm really not doubting the correctness of the numbers given to me by the program as I also ran them in Beersmith and they came out pretty much the same -- maybe two or three 10ths of a degree different.

It seems that I lose heat in the water immedately after taking the boil kettle off the burner -- so what looks like 167 degree water on the burner may quickly drop to 163 or something like that as soon as I start to transfer to the mash tun. Could the flame being on give a false high reading?

I guess I'll have to continue to tinker with the next batch -- but I'm seriously thinking about going to a mash tun that I can directly heat as this all seems like too hit or miss to me.
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Post by jeff »

splashmike wrote:It seems that I lose heat in the water immedately after taking the boil kettle off the burner -- so what looks like 167 degree water on the burner may quickly drop to 163 or something like that as soon as I start to transfer to the mash tun. Could the flame being on give a false high reading?
This amount of water shouldn't lose heat to the air quickly enough to experience a rapid temperature drop while in the heating vessel. Pouring or siphoning the water can cause rapid cooling but I personally don't think that's the problem. If you notice a 4 degree temperature change after removing from the heat and carrying the vessel to your mash tun, I suggest stirring your water thoroughly before taking a temperature reading and covering the vessel whenever possible. Convective currents can cause hot spots in the water during the heating process which can result in inaccurate temperature readings. :?
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Post by splashmike »

Thanks, Jeff. As i said, I don't think its the program but some other variable like the hot spots you mention. I don't think my thermometer is entirely inaccurate either as its a new digital type. But somehow I'm either not getting a good read on the tempurature of the strike water before taking it off the burner or once off the burner it is losing a lot of heat quickly, though, as you say, you doubt this is the case. Hopefully, the next batch will be better. This was my second all grain, but I had the same problem the first time around. Again, thanks for your help.
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