Single vessel rig with mash mixer

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matt211181

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So, recently I’ve left the covers on the 3V HERMS rig, and have ended up going back to good ol’BIAB in my Crown urn for my past 3 brews – mainly just because I felt like having a simpler/faster brew day set-up and clean-up due to time restraints on these particular brew days …..and also was curious to see if my most tricked-out rig (3V HERMS) produces any better beer than my simplest (full volume BIAB)……(I suspect it doesn’t…..maybe more repeatable due to more accurate temp control)

So, while I was manually pumping the mash with my trusty Bunnings paint stirrer while ramping to mash-out temp, I started thinking about an electric BIAB system with a motorized mash mixer used to evenly distribute heat throughout the mash (mixing as opposed to continuous recirculation rigs). So, I had a bit of a google, and found some good info on mash mixers, such as:

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/19195-my-new-motorised-mash-tun/
http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/17628-continuous-mechanical-stirring-of-mash-during-conversion-and-sparging/
https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/2852-mash-mixer-efficiency-mr-wizard
http://schmidling.com/mix.htm


However, from what I can see, all of these systems use mash mixers in a dedicated MLT, and require/use a separate HLT and kettle. So, I was wondering if/how the concept could be used in a single vessel stepped-mashing BIAB-ish rig – or even whether any of the avid AHB tinkerers out there had already had a crack at such a project!? I’ve sketched out my thoughts in the pic below.

Capture.PNG

The idea is to install a low power density element (switched on to control temperature by a programmable PID controller) into an outer pot (i.e. the boil kettle). Sitting inside the outer pot would be a regular BIAB bag, and inside the BIAB bag would be an inner pot. This inner pot would have lots of wide slots/holes to allow free flow of the mash liquor – and its only real purpose is to give some “shape” to the BIAB bag and avoid the possibility of the bag tangling in with the mash mixer blades – but could also be used to assist with lifting the grain out at the end of the mash. The mixer blades (fan blades maybe?) would be arranged to try to maximise downward flow of the mash inside the inner pot, which (hopefully) would cause an outward radial flow of mash liquor below the mixer blades towards the heating elements outside the inner pot, and then a resultant flow up the sides and back in to the middle of the inner pot at the top surface of the mash……hopefully evenly distributing heat as suggested in the links above (the difference here is that I’m trying to heat the mash which is ‘contained’ inside a slotted pot using a heat source outside the slotted pot)…..

So, any thoughts!? One concern would be getting enough flow using the mash mixer across/around the heating elements to be able to evenly distribute the heat throughout the mash…...I'm tempted to hack up a prototype in my urn, but I'm worried that the element's power density is too high and might scorch the mash....

Cheers!
Matt
 
Thanks for the link MB - an interesting mixer blade design there. I like the toroidal flow idea. Still haven't found a mash mixer incorporated into a single-vessel system yet....I might just have to give it a crack myself to see if it works.......pretty sure it will make beer of some description....
 
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