Preheating the mash tun

[guypettigrew]

Thanks everyone.

First AG brew for many years tomorrow.

Fingers crossed!!

Guy

[Piscator]

Why not just put liquor at 80+C into the tun and, once it's dropped to the chosen strike heat, start stirring in the grain? What am I missing, please?

That is exactly what I do and you are not missing anything. The only problem is choosing the right temperature.
Too low and it will not pre-heat the MT enough. Too high and you face a delay whilst it cools a bit (but you can leave the lid off to speed it up).

As it turns out, 80C is perfect for me and I also sparge at that temp so my HLT is permanently fixed at 80C.

Another vote here for 80°C straight into the tun - it takes a few minutes to drop to 75°C which gives me 65°C in the mash pretty reliably.

I used to pre heat with kettles of water but found it made do difference at all to heat loss during the mash.

I also start my sparge at 80°C and at the end of sparging get a grain bed temperature of about 73°C