Yes, I know, we have the iStill Masher. And you should all buy one! They are versatile, they are good, and - compared to the competition - the iStill Masher is even quite affordable. But can't we do more? Isn't there an even easier solution? Maybe. I want to share my thoughts with you. Please feel free to give me your feedback! Mashing is all about strike temperatures and about adding enzymes (or malted barley with enzymes) at those strike temperatures. In a liquid environment, please. What if, instead of starting our thinking from the starting point of a masher, we would just think about this: grains (flaked, grinded), strike temperatures, enzymes, and water? "Does it get that easy?", one might ask. "Does it need to be more complex?", I might answer. What if you have an iStill Fermenter and you want to mash? What if you have grains that give up their starches at around at below boiling points? What if no actual boiling is needed? Why not add boiling water to the fermenter, then add flaked or grinded grains? You can now use the fermenter's agitator to stir in the grain flakes or particles. The almost boiling water will dissolve the starch. You can add some high BP enzymes if you want to. Next step? Use the iStill Fermenter's water jacket to cool the mash down to conversion strike temperature. Let's say 65 to 61 degrees C. Now stir in your malted barley or starch-to-sugar-conversion enzymes. If you keep on stirring, if you keep the temperature of the mash in the right range, you will easily get compleat conversion. All we have to do from our side is to beef-up the firmware, so the iStill Fermenter can keep the wash at temperatures up to 72 degrees C. Now use the iStill Fermenter's water jacket to cool the mash down to 30 degrees C. The strike temperature to add the yeast. Dial in your preferred fermentation temperature and proceed with the fermentation process. In short? If you don't need to boil your grains in order to free the starch, just the iStill Fermenter will serve you right. Together with a hot water management system, it is all you need for mashing. A hot water system where you can store and re-use spent cooling water. And that you can use to speed-up mashing and fermenting. A hot water management system and an update on iStill Fermenter Firmware? More on that soon!

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