Mash temp controller

[brew]

Cool I may take you up on that... maybe lemme know next meeting you'll be at?

[fakr]

probably not this upcoming meeting, but most likely the next.  I'll try to remember to bring it up next time I'm through if it's not a meeting weekend.

[sdixon]

fakr - Your HERMS system works like mine. The EBC III has one PID monitoring the temp probe in the MT and turns the pump on to recirculate through wort through SS could in HLT to maintain temp. The HLT has another PID to cycle on and off the element in that tank. I set the HLT temp the whatever I want to sparge at.Works great.

[fakr]

Hey Steve,

I finally tried out the new brewery over the weekend and was very impressed with the mash recirculation temps.

I mashed in and overshot my target of 150F by about 8F.  I set the PID temp to 150F, and started recirculating the mash through the herms.  The HLT temp was up around 160F so I added cold water until the mash return temp was 150F....the HLT came on and off throughout the hour mash and the mash return temp didn't deviate from 150F at all...very nice!

at 45 minutes, I cranked the pid up to 168F, and within 15 minutes the return mash temp was readin 168F.  I let it continue for another 10 minutes to bring the entire mash up to 168F, then sparged.

That was a very slick brew day I must say.  Very impressed with the new setup.  Most impressive is I didn't lift more than 5 pounds at once.  That was when I was weighing grain.

[fakr]

by the way, I prefer to recirculate the entire 60 minutes as I find it helps with efficiency.

Speaking of efficiency....2 months ago my efficiency was 73% and below.  With the new system, my calculations show high 80's.  I'm sure I could get low 90's if I sparged slower...but I think high 80's is good enough.

The recipe I made was one that I made last year.  I was expecting an OG of 1.046, and end up this time around with 1.054.

Unfortunately with the new higher efficiency, I'll need to go over all my recipes and adjust accordingly.

[brew]

So based on your run, what would be the ideal temp of your hlt during the 60 min mash?

[fakr]

Hoestly Brew, I didn't check the HLT temp the whole time.  The only temp I was reading was the temp of the wort returning back into the mash.  I can't really guess at the hlt temp either.  I'm sure it was close to the mash temp as I'm running wort through 50' of 1/2" SS tubing.