Hot Liquor question

[crookedeyeboy]

How do most people transfer the liquor from the HLT to the mash tun? I just let it drop in but I am losing quite a few degrees of temperature I was wondering if I attached a pipe to the HLT tap and fed it into the MT that way it might reduce the loss of temp.
Ive got no probs with my new MT it only loses 0.5C over 90 mins compared to my last one which on one occasion lost 7C in 60 mins!

Thanks

[vacant]

I pick up my H&G boiler and tip all 12 litres into the MT. During the mash I heat up another 24 litres for sparging. It's also a shorter brew day waiting for 12 litres to heat up rather than 36.

[thankyousam]

I preheat the mashtun and copper manifold with boiling water and leave the lid on for a couple of hours before hand - assuming I remember in time . The cold mashtun and (especially) the copper manifold take a lot of heat out of boiling water. Empty out that water, place the mashtun under the HLT tap and transfer about 10 litres (by eye against the volume markings on the outside of the bucket). My mash has so far needed around 11 litres so I then transfer the odd fraction of a litre in a plastic jug. The water in the HLT was heated to above 80C, then I leave the lid off until it reaches strike temperature.

I also follow a similar heating scheme to vacant.

[crookedeyeboy]

Ive been doing all these things (apart from the heated MT) and still I get a varying drop in temp.

I half filled the MT with hot water from the tap and left it for 15mins which i know helps as when I didnt do this the temp drop was even worse.

A always heat the HLT up to about mid to late 70C's and it always seems to drop to the low 60C's.

One thing I did notice on the last brew was that the MT temp actually went UP instead of down! It was only a degree but it went from 64C to 65C.....

Hmm not sure I have a massive problem but I just wondered if I could better the way I am doing it now...

Thanks

[borischarlton]

The temp of your grains will have a big effect and if they are cold will really drag down the temp of your strike water. There is a calculator somewhere that allows you to take the temperature and weight of the grain and it gives you the temperature of your strike water. I will try and find it.....

Rob

[borischarlton]

Its right here

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/calc.html

[OldSpeckledBadger]

I heat the strike water up to about 85C, drop into the MT and leave it until strike temperature is reached (usually around 15 minutes). I find I then lose less that 1 degree over the 90 minute mash.

[chris_reboot]

likewise. 85C for me too.
I fill from the HLT via a syphon tube stuffed into the end of the brass tap, so no splashes and minimal heat loss.

I try and plan ahead, fill the HLT the night before, drop half a crushed campden tablet in, and leave overnight.
some room temp gain will be acheived hopefully to reduce time and leccy bill the next day

[Kev75]

I do something similar to Old Speckled Badger and Chris Reboot.
Heat strike water to a temp of 80-85C, disconnect power supply and pour straight from boiler to mash tun, put the lid on and monitor until it gets to about 73C (10 - 15 mins) and then add my grain.
Lucky enough that SWMBO lets me take over the kitchen on a brewday so grain is at room temp before it goes in. Kitchen is quite a consistant and warm room most of the time so that helps as well.

[mysterio]

I let it feed in via gravity and control the flow with a ball valve

Really, don't worry about the sparge water temp, it's such a minor concern IMO... although it's better too cool than too hot.

[crookedeyeboy]

Thanks guys, lots of good advice ( as usual!) I am going to go for the 85C method and let it cool slightly before adding the grains. Seems to me its a lot easier to get it to cool than to heat the mash up again.

Cheers!