Stove-top mashing

[jpsherman]

I'm looking for those who mash on the stove-top as opposed to sticking the pot in a preheated oven.

I have an induction stove-top that can maintain mashing/steeping temps with low to medium-low heat, with the pot only partially on the burner.

Do I need to worry about carmelization with low heat?

Do I need a trivet to keep the grain bag off the bottom of the pot?

I ask this because I could do one pot SMEIBB on the stove-top, or use two pots to do the mash in the oven.

[mashani]

How hot does the actual bottom of the pot (not the wort) get when the burner kicks on? And what about temperature stratification from bottom to top? (test it with water take temps both at bottom and top).

The reason I do it in the oven is that at least on my gas stove I get too much variation in temps top to bottom.

[jpsherman]

It doesn't really seem to "kick-on" but run steadily. What I started doing was just position 1/2 or less of the pot over the active burner. This was sufficient to keep temps in range even with me constantly opening the lid to check temps. So the grain bag should not be sitting directly over the middle of the active burner.

I am still figuring out my technique and new equipment so its a bit by the seat of my pants but taking notes right now.

[FrozenInTime]

I have a pressure cooker with canning screen that sits on the bottom to keep the jars off the bottom. It works great. My glasstop stove goes on - off - on - off so I don't trust it to not burn the bottom. That's why I went to turkey fryer type burners.

[joechianti]

I found a nice round cake cooling rack that fit in the bottom of my brew pot to keep the bag of grains from burning.

[jpsherman]

Thanks a lot FiT and Joe, those both sound like great ideas. I will use whichever is cheaper or fits better in my pot!

[swenocha]

I used to put this in the bottom of my pot, but I found that it caught on my grain bag at times...



Something like this would work better, me thinks...



Or, as Joe says, a cake cooling rack.

[The_Professor]

I have done a lot of step mashes just grains and water (no bag) in the pot. Whenever I apply heat I slowly stir the grains making sure they don't sit on the bottom of the pot. My understanding is that for BIAB it is best to have some way to keep the actual grain bag from sitting on the bottom of the pot. So long as nothing is really sitting on the bottom of the pot during heating I don't see any issue at mash temps.

[swenocha]

Not that this is really pertinent to your situation, in my electric turkey fryer, I use the fish basket, which works really great. I just drop the bag inside of the basket, and then when it's time to drain the grains and/or sparge, I hang the basket on the hook for the basket (unless my water levels are high for a 4-5 gallon... in that case I hang it above instead). Maybe a basket scenario would work in your brewpot?