Page 20 - Demo

15Owens experimented with different homemade setups for mashing, or using hot water to extract sugars from malted grain to create wort. Mashing takes place in a mash tun, a vessel that keeps malt and hot water at a consistent temperature and allows the resultant wort to be separated from the spent grain.58 One of Owens%u2019 innovations was the igloo mash tun with a false bottom or way of filtering the wort from the grain. Bill Owens said, [I]n those days most guys would mash in the oven overnight. You put the mash in the water in the oven and close the door, and then you heat up to 152 [degrees], and you%u2019d hold it overnight to get starch conversion. So I was very interested in how starch conversion was taking place. And you couldn%u2019t go to a big [brewery] on a tour and figure out what the hell was going on in a mash tun because they didn%u2019t show that. Nobody in the public%u2019s interested in that.59From Dr. Lewis%u2019s workshop and thorough research, Owens found that 152 degrees was the optimal temperature for starch conversion, where the heat activates enzymes in the malted barley to change starches into sugars. Fortunately, camping coolers used by work trucks, and readily available at hardware stores, could hold water and grain at that temperature for a few hours. Owens initially used a coiled tube with holes cut in it as the false bottom, allowing the hot wort to drain and leave the grain behind (see figure 1). He found that the holes quickly got blocked, so he took a hacksaw and cut small slots in copper pipes fitted to the drain hole. Because the igloo mash tun was safer than leaving the oven on overnight, easier to use with readily-available materials, easier to clean up, and more efficient, it was quickly adopted throughout the homebrew community. When Owens was writing the first edition of the book, he documented his homebrewing process.