Steam for Mash Tun

THE pressure cooker setup?

Why are you having problems maintaining temp in a 10 gal cooler?

 

I hadn't heard of steam in a homebrew setting, but it sounds pretty awesome, a quick google search turned up this nice article;

http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.4/jones.html

 

Are you wanting to use steam in a circulating system, or are you talking about injecting steam into your cooler? If you are injecting, that would be too hot at 212 degrees, plus you'd somehow have to allow for condensation.

 

Unless you have a steam jacketed kettle/mash tun, plenty of intestinal fortitude, and a death wish...just lag your ball valve on your cooler mash tun, use towels to insulate the lid and bottom and do what MANY other homebrewers do with excellent results. Don't overthink this. Cheers

 

I have a 40 gallon steam jacked kettle that I use to mash. Works perfect. Check Craigslist for restaurants that are going under.

 

I'm inclined to agree. To the OP: Are you having difficulty maintaining mash temps in your cooler, and are you convinced that being able to maintain them more precisely will improve your brewing? I mash in a cooler, and while the temps drop some during the mash, it always seems good enough. If you do not feel like it is good enough, try wrapping a blanket around your cooler to help insulate it. Working with steam sounds like an added and unnecessary level of hazard.

 

"Now I want to do the same with my Mash Tun , keep it within a degree or two."

Not a problem...keep the lid on except when stirring (batch sparging), lag your metal ball valve (dish cloth should do), wrap the whole thing (as others have suggested) or just the top and bottom (a few towels will do).

 

It obviously didn't work for you the first time with the yellow Walmart towels.

 

OK, I get where you are coming from. The "homebrewer as an engineer" thing isn't my bag, but I can see how some folks get into that. I think mash temp is one of those fairly forgiving variables in homebrews. I guess I feel this way because I don't always hit my numbers dead on, and because I see a great deal of variation in the temps within my mash tun. I don't feel like I have seen any obvious correlations with beer quality. The precision you seek may not have as big an impact as you think. In other words, you might be overengineering this. I'm just speculating, though, so knock yourself out. Take pictures (not of you knocked out -- of the steam adaptor thingy you are going to build).

 

HAHAHA. No. Throw it in the oven and cut the heat.

 

What I'm struggling with is the fact that in a mash tun, you want the wort to be recirculating or mixing when you are adding heat. That is why HERMS, RIMS and direct fire recirculating systems are so popular. So if you are recirculating the wort and want to send the wort through an exchanger with the steam or steam inject while vorlaufing...that would be a great idea. But to just put a steam coil into the mash tun I don't think would be a great idea as you'll have major discrepancy problems between the wort nearest the coil and furthest from the coil. My thoughts on it...
I use a RIMS system and personally like it.

 

Heh. Did you forget typing this...

You asked a question about something that nobody on this forum (or likely most any forum) has done. What would you expect other than speculation? Here's mine: There's are reasons people haven't tried this. And some of them have been mentioned.

 

If steam is your preferred way to maintain temp, you might not wont to use a cooler, plastic tun can get melted. You might consider using 8 gallon Stockpot.

If you decided to go mainstream with plastic cooler, use folded towel underneath the cooler, one around and on on top of it.