What do you use for a mash tun?

I currently use a Coleman rectangular cooler that holds the temp just fine, without any blankets, just a towel on the floor. I mash in my kitchen so the temp is a steady 70 degrees. I did pre warm the cooler and still lost 10 degrees. I will however test it again and get it off of the floor and wrap with a blanket. I would like to make this one work as the yellow Igloo with the screw on top that seems to be the preferred cooler for mashing is about twice the cost.

 

Can you describe exactly what you did? Was this just water? How much? What temp? What was the 'pre-warmed' temp of the cooler before you added test water (or whatever it was)?

 

I pre-warmed with hot tap water (not sure the temp) while the test water was heating. Did not measure the test water, but it was probably 2 1/2-3 gallons warmed to 167. Cooler was on the kitchen floor with a towel underneath. House temp at 70. After one hour the water temp had dropped to 157.3. Did the same test with the Coleman before I started using it and lost only 1 degree. I don't recall how much water I used to test the Coleman. No blankets or anything else either time.

 

5 gallon round igloo cooler. I can't put much more than 12.5 pounds of grain in it, but for 5 gallon batches in the kitchen of my apartment, I'm not complaining.

 

Interesting. You say you did the "same" test with the Coleman, but you're not sure about some of the temps and volumes. One thing to note though... with (about) 2.5 gallons of water and no grains, that's not a lot of thermal mass, so I'd expect to lose more heat over an hour than under mash conditions.

 

Noted. will give it another test using 5 gallons of water. Not going to test using grain so that is out. will wrap and get it off of the floor and see what happens. Pre warming was not the problem as I let the test water stabilize for about 5 minutes before taking initial temp so the 167 temp was stable before I started the timer.