More newbie questions

Hello all,

By way of introduction I am new to all-grain brewing but have been extract brewing since 99.  I built the typical "Do it yourself" all-grain kit using converted coolers and such and made my first batch last weekend.  I have a couple of take-aways I wanted to circulate to the crowd and get some feedback on.

Trub - There was WAY more trub in this batch than I have ever seen with extract brewing.  Is this normal?  I began to wonder if I made a mistake somewhere.  It settled nicely within 30 mins of racking to primary but there was so much I waited to pitch and reracked.

Step Mashing - How do you step mash in a cooler when you can't direct heat?  I wound up treating them almost as a decoction but it made hitting temperatures a nightmare.  Any tips for step mashing in a cooler would be welcome.

Transfers - In my various transfers in and out of the coolers I was constantly losing wort to the MLT dead space.  As I was cleaning the gear after the brew the idea came to me of purchasing a large turkey baster.  It could easily suction the remaining amounts of liquor/wort from the bottom of the cooler and move it to the next stage for me.  Seems way easier than picking up the cooler and tipping it out each time.  Anyone here use a turkey baster?  Is the idea crazy?

Thanks in advance for the help.

It's normal to have more trub with all-grain compared to extract brewing.  It's been a long time since I heard the reason why, but I seem to remember something about the processing (vacuum processing) of the extract. 

At the present time, I don't use the step mashing process in my brewing process.  All of the malts that I use are fully modified.  I've read where "hot sticks" are used to raise the temperature of the mash when using a cooler for a mash tun.

I've never heard of anyone going to this extreme in order to compensate for volume lost to deadspace.  To me, it doesn't seem worth the effort.  If there is a significant amount of deadspace, I would try to reduce it somehow. 

Humble Brewer said:

Step Mashing - How do you step mash in a cooler when you can't direct heat?  I wound up treating them almost as a decoction but it made hitting temperatures a nightmare.  Any tips for step mashing in a cooler would be welcome.

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I think in BeerSmith there may be a calculator for doing this type of thing. I have a cooler MLT and have done step mashes before simply by adding a volume of boiling water to the mash to bring the temperature up.

"Transfers - In my various transfers in and out of the coolers I was constantly losing wort to the MLT dead space.  As I was cleaning the gear after the brew the idea came to me of purchasing a large turkey baster.  It could easily suction the remaining amounts of liquor/wort from the bottom of the cooler and move it to the next stage for me.  Seems way easier than picking up the cooler and tipping it out each time.  Anyone here use a turkey baster?  Is the idea crazy?"

I agree with zymurgist that it's likely more trouble than it's worth. I don't worry about losses to dead space, just increase your sparge volume to compensate.

Thanks for the replies.

I was worried about the leftovers at transfer because my water volume came out very low and I was looking for reasons why.  It was my first run on my gear though and I am still sorting it out.  I had a lot that needed calibrating in my thinking.    Temp loss on moves, dead space lost in the MLT, trub loss, wort chiller loss, etc.  I am sorting through all my places of loss and looking for efficiency gains.