Mash in the Oven?

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Main man @MyQul mentioned doing a mash in the oven to me recently. Just wondering if I put the pot and oven in at 65 degrees until it hits temp and then add grains or add grains, stir etc then raise to temp?

Hoping to brew tomorrow and it sounds much easier to mash in the oven than stove top for a 5L brew!!
 
heat the strike liquor in a pan on top of the stove it will take a lot less time.. I would suggest a strike temp of 71c as you will bring the temp down a bit when you add the room temp grains. ( an off the boil kettle and jug of cold water can be used to fine tune the temp if needed post mash in but if 66-68C i would leave as is ;).

Then once mashed in pop it in the oven, but i would strongly urge you to temp test the oven way in advance to avoid cooking your brew ;)

Another alternative for smaller volume stove top brews is the Blue Peter Tortoise treatment, Bang you mash in a big box with packing beans to insulate it.. Good insulation will hold an optimum mash temp perfectly well, and is by far the easiest method to employ too.

regardless enjoy the brew and results,,
 
This is my Mash Tun. It's made from a 32 litre Cool Box, a few odds and ends of piping and a garden tap. It all comes to pieces for cleaning and it took me about two hours to knock it up.

Pre-warmed with Strike Water it only loses a couple of degrees during a one-hour Mash; and I can still use it to transport freezer stuff back from the supermarket! :thumb: :thumb:

Mash Tun.jpg
 
I mash in the oven.

I do BIAB and my 12L pot will just fit in the oven, so I heat things up on top (72C before doughing-in usually gives me a 66C mash temp) and at the same time put the oven on min. Then I turn the oven off and put the mash pot in there, taking it out halfway through for a stir. Works a treat keeping the mash temp up for smaller volumes brews.
 
I normally Dough in, then put the pot in oven and leave it their for an hour. Darrelm turns the oven of. I leave it on. Both would work.

As for hitting your mash temp Fils suggestion of a jug of both hot and cold water is great, but I usually use the strike temp calc from jims which I usually find fairly accurate. But having a jug of cold and hot too just in case is a good idea

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/calc.html
 
Seeing as I've posted an answer to your original question, I hope that gives me liscence to go off topic a bit (C'mon this is THBF, it never takes long for a thread to wander off topic, thne get lost in the woods :mrgreen: )

So you're making a 5L stove topper tommorow? You're making 5L so you want 5L of beer right? With small batches it always seems you end up losing loads of beer to trub and only end up with 3.5L of actual beer. Here's what I do;

Even though I'm aiming for 5L, calculate the recipe for 6L (although I normally make 10L matches so calculate the reciepe for 12L). But when I come to brew it I brew it to 5L. So I end up with 5L of slightly stronger wort in the FV.
I no-chill so normally put the stronger 5L of wort into 5L a 'no-chill FV' cover it with cling film and leave it to overnight to cool. The next day I get a second FV and decant/carefully pour the wort from the no chill FV into the actually FV, leaving behind all that break material and hop debris that robs me of beer.
I'll then have about 4L of stronger/concentrated wort in the FV. I then top up the FV to 5L with water and pitch the yeast.
In this way when it comes to packaging time I get almost the 5L of beer I'm aiming for and as a Brucey Bonus, very clean yeast to harvest as all the break material has been thrown down the bog.

If your not no-chilling and are cooling the pot in the sink, you'll need to do it this way: After the boil has finished. Sit the pot on the side for 30 - 40mins. The break materiel will then sink to the bottom of the pot. Decant the hot wort off the break material and into your FV. Then chill the wort in the FV, in the sink as normal.
I've tried cooling the wort down to pitching temp and then attempting to let the break material sink to the bottom, but it doesnt work. It takes hours for the break material to compact to the bottom at pitching temp. When the wort is very hot the break material can sink to the bottom easier because of the higher viscosity of the wort at higher temps
 
Is that F or C. If it's C it sounds like you could use your oven for roasting whole boar

It's the only one I could find that would fit the kitchen, have two ovens and a "Wok Ring"! :thumb: :thumb:

It's a Belling, in Celsius and both ovens start at the 120 mark ...

... unfortunately it's still not big enough for s whole boar! :lol:
 
Cheers guys. A most unwelcome hangover from hell prevented brewing yesterday but will try to do it tomorrow evening I think.:thumb:

Next question - Anyone used coffee filters to pour a brew? I have a load of trub caught up in my most recent batch due to my massive balls-up forgetting to top up the FV to hit gravity readings (and desired volume...)

The beer looks like it's clearing well but want to make sure I avoid getting hops and stuff in the glass when I finally give it a sample...
 
Next question - Anyone used coffee filters to pour a brew? I have a load of trub caught up in my most recent batch due to my massive balls-up forgetting to top up the FV to hit gravity readings (and desired volume...).
You won't filter out yeast cells very effectively, they are too small, although you should be able to filter hop bits and any break. But in the end yeast will probably block the pores of the filter paper. So as Dutto says gravity and time should sort it out without resorting to filters.
 
I mash in the oven.

I do BIAB and my 12L pot will just fit in the oven, so I heat things up on top (72C before doughing-in usually gives me a 66C mash temp) and at the same time put the oven on min. Then I turn the oven off and put the mash pot in there, taking it out halfway through for a stir. Works a treat keeping the mash temp up for smaller volumes brews.

This is the same sort of methodology I used for 12L brews on the stove top, except that I left the oven on at 50C, the lowest marked setting on a modern gas oven. Perhaps this has some correspondence to the ancient wisdom of "warming plates" before putting the food on them?

I found that this 50C would maintain temps very well and also allow easily for a mid-mash stir. Large volumes of water maintain temps so well that a small temperature difference with ambient is not very important over a short time scale, like an hour.

By some totally bizarre arithmetical coincidence it transpires that 50C equates to 122F. Won't have meant anything to oven manufacturers, of course.
 
This is the same sort of methodology I used for 12L brews on the stove top, except that I left the oven on at 50C, the lowest marked setting on a modern gas oven.

I must get an oven thermometer.

The only reason I turn it off is that I used to leave it on, on minimum like you, but my temp scale is rather vague and I mashed too hot as the temp of the mash went up during the hour.
 
Even gas mark 1 on my oven (the lowest setting) is above 100C as things simmer at that setting, so I wouldn't use my oven!
 
I tried this last week, mash temp seemed to be consistent but I have a feeling Brewers Friend might have led to me not having a great Efficiency (6.3L of mash water for 1.085kg of grain).

My OG was approx 1046 for what according to Geterbrewed is a 6% beer (it's one of their ingredient packs). That said everything else seemed to go ok and I had a lot more volume in the FV than I did from my last brew.

Might need to look at my thermometer though, it's telling me my water bath is 30 degrees when it's set to 18, and the FV is around 18. This was an issue with me cooling the wort with a CFC and pitching as I wasn't sure about the temperature, so I guess time will tell...

Also tried my first stove top brew last night (which was a complete disaster. no liquoring back, auto-syphon didn't work as expected so only got 3 bottles due to not liquoring back!) so beer a bit darker and 'intense' than was expected. 6.3% but no homebrew twang for a 12 days in the bottle job. Hoping this next one works out better!!
 
a trust worthy thermometer is a must, it needent be an expensive job either. while i have a sooper eti thermapen https://thermapen.co.uk/ThermapenGuidebook-2015.pdf if you check pages 17/18 in the linked to pdf iirc you should find very detailed instructions for a easy 2 point calibration test with circa 0c and circa 100c temp points using iced water and boiling water to confirm accuracy of your thermometer.

and a starch test with iodine before you elect to sparge (drop a few mash grains on a white plate and add a drop of iodine,, if it goes black there is still starch available for conversion carry on mashing ..)
may be worthwhile if your not hitting gravity targets..

things will all fall into place with your next brew or the next pretty soon imho. keep at it..
 

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