Mash Tun issues

[RobinW]

Yeah, been there done that, it did nothing. I've been working with electronics and electrical stuff all my life. I prefer the controller to be honest.
Was only $25 off fleabay, it's digital and I got 2 other thermometers here that agree with the sensor. The thermowell will clean up that wiring.
My nephew is going to replace the AC cable with one with thicker wires so it won't get so hot. Beats me paying for it
I was hoping the next batch in the fermenter would be one of mine. But it don't look like it.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Temperature-Controller-16A-Heating-Cooling-Home-Brew-Aussie-Plug-240V-16-A/272871990757?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

 

[Hermies]

If you spend the time now tinkering just think how easier it is going to be down the track to control the temps and do step mashes in fact just brew a great beer .

 

[Matplat]

I don't run HERMS so I'm not an expert, but everything I've read about it suggests that having a large herms vessel (i.e. 40l urn) is not good for stable mash temps as you always end up overshooting your set point due to the large thermal mass controlling the coil temp.
If you're going to the effort of building a herms rig, would it be better to use a cheap big w 11l pot for the herms vessel? Or does a PID controller mitigate this issue?

 

[malt junkie]

I don't run HERMS so I'm not an expert, but everything I've read about it suggests that having a large herms vessel (i.e. 40l urn) is not good for stable mash temps as you always end up overshooting your set point due to the large thermal mass controlling the coil temp.
If you're going to the effort of building a herms rig, would it be better to use a cheap big w 11l pot for the herms vessel? Or does a PID controller mitigate this issue?

What's been said above is true, and a PID will to some extent try to prevent the over shoot, but in essence your trying to fry an egg with an industrial bast furnace, even if you shut down the furnace before put in your egg.... well it's charcoal. Stored energy is good, doling it out finitely is the challenge.

 

[RobinW]

I don't think the size of the pot matters. There's a 50 gallon herms pot on utube. Controlling the heat looks like the key. Quite a few I looked at used the return mash temp to control the element and some halved the supply volts to the element while doing this so that would also limit overshoot.

I hung the coil in the Urn with a pair of SS turnbuckles I had here. Opened one hook on each a little so it could cup the tubing and hung the other end on the Urn rim then unwound them to get it as low as I could without sitting on the element or other bits. Had to clean off the sight tube and re-calibrate, the coil takes up about 5 litres of space. This was a 48L Urn.

Yesterday, I painted the MDF shelves on the stand before they turned into pulp. I was spilling water everywhere. Today I put 40L in the Urn, dropped 12L @ 75C into the cooler and after that only the very top of the coil was exposed. I added about 5L to cover the coil and set the Urn temp to 71C. I then started to recirculate from the cooler ball valve, through the coil and back to the cooler through the sparge frame. The cooler tap was wide open but the new pump valve was just open. I found a 1.7C difference between Urn temp and cooler temp so setting the Urn to 70.7C and the pid to turn on at 70.3C gave me 69C at the cooler. Cooler temp drifted back and forth between 68.9 and 69.2 over a 1 hour period while the Urn often overshot up to 72.5C without any effect on the cooler temp. In fact when playing with Urn temp it took ages for Urn temp changes to show up in the cooler temp. I'm pretty sure I can use this.

The original cooler lid won't fit with the sparge frame in there so I used a piece of that foamboard to keep the steam in. I painted it with epoxy paint to hold it together. Tomorrow the Urn comes down to a lower shelf and the cooler goes up. Not the prettiest solution but it looks fixed to me.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

There are way more important things in life than loosing a few degrees with your mash

Honestly, at the end of the day it makes **** all difference, especially when you consider that most of the conversion is done in the first 30-40mins

No need to get all hung up about it

 

[RobinW]

I think your missing the point. I have a cooler that looses almost 5 degrees an hour even after an hour of pre-heating.
I've fixed it in a big way and the only outlay was a new ball valve for the leaky one on the pump.
All the other bits where on hand.

 

[Matplat]

Nice work Robin, looks like you're winning!

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

I think your missing the point. I have a cooler that looses almost 5 degrees an hour even after an hour of pre-heating.
I've fixed it in a big way and the only outlay was a new ball valve for the leaky one on the pump.
All the other bits where on hand.

Nope

 

[Dave70]

There are way more important things in life than loosing a few degrees with your mash

Honestly, at the end of the day it makes **** all difference, especially when you consider that most of the conversion is done in the first 30-40mins

No need to get all hung up about it

Pretty much this.
On the back of some article I read, somewhere, likely here, I decided a full volume mash, no sparge, 2V system best suited my needs best.
I enjoy my brew days and dont need some leaky hoses or some malfunctioning March pump interfering with my enjoyment. Which is to say, my drinking.

 

[RobinW]

My plan is to eventually do concentrated double batches. I have a pile of 15L cubes here.
I should have the boil space to do a 30L batch. 15L in the fermenter, then add 5L of water to temp plus yeast.
Then the other 15L in a cube for ron. Only got room in the fridge for one bucket.

Still need a couple more test runs including a clean up run to make sure I got all the connectors right.
That plate chiller is amazing. Pumped boiling water through it the other day, it came out cold to the touch.
Good ole Gumtree...

 

[RobinW]

Pumped 4 brews though so far and temp stability is no longer an issue.
Beer smith tells me 79% mash efficiency on the last brew but I still had volume issues.
I forgot to count losses in the chiller, almost 2 litres in that thing and it's so small.
Thanks to all for the help and prompting, I'm cooking now