Post a pic of your DIY mash-paddle

I usually just use a large spoon with holes in it... Guess Im cheap. That paddle looks great! Excellent work!

 

My spoon doesn't even have holes.

 

i am all about DIY. now, can you kindly DIY for me and mail one to Toronto?

 

Are you homebrewing on a 7bbl system? Nice.

 

Can't afford holes for your spoon, huh?

 

I don't get mash paddles. I stir my mash with a wooden kitchen spoon. I dough in. I stir to break up the any doughballs. I close the mash tun (cooler) and let the enzymes do the work. Maybe I'll stir it once or twice in a 60 minute mash just to feel like I'm helping.

I suppose if I were doing bigger batches, I might need something longer then a kitchen spoon, but for my 6 gallon system, my spoons work great.

 

I've been thinking about making a mash paddle for 20 years now. I'll get around to it some day. I use a long slotted SS spoon.

 

Debatable if stirring mash throughout helps. Probably only results in heat loss. Also, theory is that water weight pushes down on grains, thus stirring disrupts that

 

The potential tradeoff of stirring and heat loss is known to me but I neglected to make that clear in my post. This is why I don't stir continuously but only open up the mash tun 1-2 times during the mash to stir. Ocassionally I'll find a doughball that escaped my initial stir. I'll also check the temperature and know that I do not compromise it significantly with this level of stirring. Since I batch sparge, I'm not too concerned about disrupting my grain bed.

Aside: I was being a little ironic with my comment about stirring "to feel like I'm helping" but it's true. Except for the occassional overlooked doughball, it probably doesn't contribute to much more than the good vibe I get from feeling like I am industrious.

 

like a parent waking up their sleeping child to see if they're ok

a tangent to the original post, but i am always hesitant to check the temps. i find that it varies in my cooler based on the density. the liquid up top is warmer while the grains closer to the bottom are usually more than a few degrees lower. but perhaps all the more reason for stirring? or we talking about basic chemistry/cooking and that they'll always be cooler than the wort?

 

I've observed the same thing (top of the mash versus bottom of the mash) and I assume it has to do with differences in the heat capacity of grain vs. water (grain being more likely to lose heat). Or maybe coolers are prone to losing heat at the bottom via conduction? I find that if I think too hard about mash temperature, I cannot sleep at night. So I take a practical viewpoint regarding temp.

I use a home made cooler mash tun, recognizing that heat will not be perfectly distributed and retained. I use software to calculate my strike temp for a target mash temp. Even though I know the actual temp is going to vary from the calculated temp at different spaces in the cooler and over the course the mash, I feel like I do see differences in fermentability when I target certain mash temps. So I target a desired temp, cross my fingers, and try not to worry. RDWHAHB (although I usually wait until the yeast is is pitched)

It's also worth considering that there are multiple approaches to controlling fermentability. If you feel like your temps are heading south and your wort is more fermentable than you desire and your beer comes out thin in body, you can always make a recipe adjustment by subbing in a half pound of carapils for your base malt.

 

i'm of the school that i calculate things and i trust the calculations. if my temps are off by a few degrees, so be it. nothing i can do. sometimes the fidgeting and testing, in theory, may be what throws off what you're doing. the act of stirring causes heat loss. significant? who knows. depends how cold it is around the mash tun. but i'd guess that 1 minute of an open mash tun and 1 min of stirring with near-freezing winter temps results in a drop by 1 degree.

heat loss: that comes from the lid. 1. that's where the opening is 2. they tend to be poorly insulated 3. heat rises. my friend has designed a sensor system to monitor heat loss on mash tuns. kind of cool. guess it lets you tweak your system and better insulate it.

 

No worries on this count. I mash in my kitchen. I prefer not to brew outside. Temperatures get pretty darn frigid next to Lake Superior.

As for heat loss, it seems to me that it depends on the cooler design and the environment, like if the ground is colder than the air? But I think the observation that the top of the mash is warmer probably has more to do with the thermal properties of grain vs. water.