Sight Glass on a Mash Tun ? Do i reall yneed one ?

Hey Guys

I am looking for input/opinions from the peanut gallery about that

I have an Igloo 10 Gall Orange Cooler I am using as a Mash Tun

I have a SS ball value as an out, and a March Pump to move water to and from my Brew Kettle.

Is it valuable to have a Sight Glass on your Mash Tun ?

I ask, as I have been having a hard time keeping my temps during mash
I tend to peak inside & stir, thus letting out heat !

Thanks for your opinions
Steve

No it's valueless IMHO. The volume measured will be confounded by the grain volume. Put one on your HLT and you don't need one anywhere else. I know a few (including Bobby, who sells em and is a great dude with great products) who have them on their boil kettles, but I find that to be overkill and one more thing to clean. Carefully measured HLT volumes will land you right where you want to be when you hit the fermenter.

PS, stop peaking if it's becoming a problem? Patience is a huge part of becoming a good brewer!

No, you can calculate your water/wort volume by subtracting the grain absorbtion from the total amount. Grain amounts are variable by recipe so you wouldn't be hitting a consistent level anyway.

I wouldn't be without a sightglass, or some other easily viewed and reliable method of measuring boil volumes, on your kettle. I recently upgraded me kettle to one with a sightglass and my beers have been subtantially more predictable and tastier because I can precisely track my volumes and adjust as necessary.

No it would be pretty redundant since you are most likely already using a formula to figure out those volumes, sight glasses are for HLT and boil kettles

Let me tell you. An "easy" way to determine volume in your kettle is called a tape measure.

Use your spoon, or your tape measure (just make sure to rinse and dry it before retracting) preboil, and if you know your boil off rate (you should, knowing your equipment is key) you'll land exactly where you need to land in your fermenter.

Commercial brewers often mark their mash paddles with volume markings and basically use the same process. Their kettles don't have sight glasses.

Ultimately, things like hop absorption and boil off rate will screw your fermenter volumes up far more then not having a sight glass will.

I have a wooden dowel rod. I calibrated it by cutting notches for every gal. Works great.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

DonRikkles said:

I recently upgraded me kettle to one with a sightglass and my beers have been subtantially more predictable and tastier because I can precisely track my volumes and adjust as necessary.

Click to expand...

You can't be serious.

I am quite serious. Being able to see my volumes and hit them consistently has produced a more consistent beer. My old HLT was only 5 gal so I consistently maxed out making a 3 gal batch. There were some cases, e.g. brews needing longer boil times, where I had to collect less wort than needed because of space considerations. My bigger, 10 gal HLT with a sight glass allows me to accurately collect the right amount of wort, track boil loss (adjusting for thermal expansion), and see how much I'm putting into my fermenter.

Thanks for all the input... all valid points for me not to spend that money.

The reason I ask is several reasons.

1. I am recirculating the mash - working toward a HERMS
* to monitor the mash without opening the lid - I can see how my level is

2. With a Plastic Mash tun, I find it best to Pre Heat the Igloo
- pumping a significant portion of water over my target temp
- let it sit in the Tun for a period, pump back out, add grain then add strike water.
* this again would allow me to see how much water is in the Tun with out removing the lid, thus letting heat out.

I find the most frustration thing for me is missing my Mash temps so often
So, I am a 'peaker'. I peak in, take a temp reading, stir,..... repaeat

DonRikkles said:

My bigger, 10 gal HLT with a sight glass allows me to accurately collect the right amount of wort, track boil loss (adjusting for thermal expansion), and see how much I'm putting into my fermenter.

Click to expand...

All that from a sight glass on your HLT?

HLT = sight glass
MLT = no value (you know what went in from your HLT)
Kettle = sight glass would be nice bling


edit:
I stand corrected. If you're fly sparging a sight glass in your MLT will be useful.

AnOldUR said:

All that from a sight glass on your HLT?

Click to expand...

Amazing, isn't it?

No most of it is from the increased capacity on my boil kettle. Sight glass makes it super easy.

steveoatley said:

I find the most frustration thing for me is missing my Mash temps so often
So, I am a 'peaker'. I peak in, take a temp reading, stir,..... repaeat

Click to expand...

Do you use a brewing software to calculate your strike water temp?

bja said:

Do you use a brewing software to calculate your strike water temp?

Click to expand...

Yes, I use Sparge Pal - on the iPhone
And Beer Tools Pro for recipe building & water volumes etc.....

I always seem to come in under, then have to heat up...

That's is why I want to finish my HERMS build
I have a RIMS system right now

steveoatley said:

Yes, I use Sparge Pal - on the iPhone
And Beer Tools Pro for recipe building & water volumes etc.....

I always seem to come in under, then have to heat up...

That's is why I want to finish my HERMS build
I have a RIMS system right now

Click to expand...

I use Beersmith and hit mash temps perfectly every time in a 10 gallon Gott cooler. No preheating anything and the most my temp has dropped during the mash is 1 degree. Are you sure you have all the parameters set up correctly?

steveoatley said:

Is it valuable to have a Sight Glass on your Mash Tun ?

I ask, as I have been having a hard time keeping my temps during mash
I tend to peak inside & stir, thus letting out heat!

Click to expand...

steveoatley said:

I always seem to come in under, then have to heat up...

That's is why I want to finish my HERMS build
I have a RIMS system right now

Click to expand...

The way I see it, a sight glass will have no impact mash temperature. If you have a RIMS system that should manage your temperature. Coming in a little low and heating to your sacc temperature is one of the big advantages of RIMS. Also, you shouldn't be stirring with a RIMS.

"The way I see it, a sight glass will have no impact mash temperature."

well the idea behind the Sight Glass, was to keep me from peaking inside the MT all the time.

If I can see that there is water/wort in the MT, via the Sight glass
then I know I have not compacted the grain bed.

I can also judge my 'level' of water on top of the grain, again with out looking inside the MT

The sight glass was not intended to increase my Mash Efficiency or Temperature control, I wanted it, just to keep me from looking inside the MT

SO, I asked if anyone else uses Sight Glasses on their MT

steveoatley said:

If I can see that there is water/wort in the MT, via the Sight glass then I know I have not compacted the grain bed.

Click to expand...

So, the real question (at least in my mind) here is, "Will a sight glass on my MLT tell me if my grain bed is compacted?"

I would think not. A compacted bed would not change the amount or level of fluid in the tun. Maybe someone using a pump and who has a sight glass on their MLT can answer better.

A sight glass on the MLT can have some value for those who fly sparge. It allows you to make sure your water level has not changed with a quick glance indicating water input equals wort output. With that said i do not have a sight glass on mine. For me the detriments outweigh the advantages.

When I mashed in a cooler I had a sight glass, and I miss it. Made fly sparging easy. Now that I'm in a big stainless MLT, I leave the lid on while fly sparging or the temp starts dropping, regardless of how hot the sparge water coming in is. So I try to 'peak' to see if I need to adjust the pump valves to maintain a constant water level on top. Not a deal breaker, but sort of a PITA, when the flysparge for a large batch takes a good amount of time.

For smaller beers, I've just started batch or no sparging, just to not have to deal with monitoring the water level.

I have a sight glass on the MLT and have found some problems with using it during fly sparging. The sight glass inlet falls somewhere within the height of the grain bed close to the false bottom. When the grain bed has been properly set and is doing a good filtering job there is a pressure reduction at the sight glass inlet. This causes the liquid level in the glass to drop below the actual height of the wort and provides false readings. I still have to look in the MLT to see the actual level above the grain bed. If I get a stuck mash I can actually start sucking air through the sight glass and see bubbles in the line going to the pump, sometimes loosing prime. It does give me some good indication that I need to reduce flow rate or work to avoid a stuck mash.

The benefit to me for the sight glass in the MLT is before mash in. I heat my strike water in the MLT with my RIMS tube at the same time I am starting to heat the sparge water in the HLT. I fill the MLT with the strike water to the right level and let the RIMS heat it. No worries about pre-heated MLT or having to calculate an overshoot to compensate for a cold MLT.

ChuckO said:

I heat my strike water in the MLT with my RIMS tube at the same time I am starting to heat the sparge water in the HLT.

Click to expand...

Hadn't thought about this or someone doing no sparge without the need for an HLT. Both cases that justify having a sight glass on an MLT. For my system, my HLT has much more heating capacity than my MLT. It's faster to heat strike water there and transfer measured amounts.

(Although nothing so far has addressed the OP's stated reasons for wanting a sight glass on his MLT.)

AnOldUR said:

So, the real question (at least in my mind) here is, "Will a sight glass on my MLT tell me if my grain bed is compacted?"

I would think not. A compacted bed would not change the amount or level of fluid in the tun. Maybe someone using a pump and who has a sight glass on their MLT can answer better.

Click to expand...

In my experience, that is exactly what happened. I used to have a sightglass on my first MLT that I had on my HERMS. The liquid in it would disappear- and that's when I knew the grainbed was compacted. I hated that thing, by the way! It was only handy when filling it, but even as dumb as I am, I could see from the HLT's sightglass when 7 gallons is gone from it and so into the MLT.

Brad2287 said:

A sight glass on the MLT can have some value for those who fly sparge. It allows you to make sure your water level has not changed with a quick glance indicating water input equals wort output. With that said i do not have a sight glass on mine. For me the detriments outweigh the advantages.

Click to expand...

That to me is the only advantage- if I"m filling my BK, and water is coming out of the HLT into the MLT, if the water level is the same, then I know it's set up ok.

When I went with my current MLT, I skipped the sightglass because it really wasn't very useful and was one more thing to avoid when trying to clean it out.

Yooper said:

The liquid in it would disappear- and that's when I knew the grainbed was compacted.

Click to expand...

Makes sense. If the bottom of your sight glass is below your false bottom and the bed compacted, it would draw the liquid out of the sight glass. Now that I think about it. The grain bed is always causing some restriction to the flow. By comparing the level at rest to what is measured with the pump on, you get an indication of the load on the pump. Should help when adjusting the flow rate?

(All this will only work if you use a false bottom and mount the base of the sight glass below it.)

AnOldUR said:

Makes sense. If the bottom of your sight glass is below your false bottom and the bed compacted, it would draw the liquid out of the sight glass. Now that I think about it. The grain bed is always causing some restriction to the flow. By comparing the level at rest to what is measured with the pump on, you get an indication of the load on the pump. Should help when adjusting the flow rate?

(All this will only work if you use a false bottom and mount the base of the sight glass below it.)

Click to expand...

Spoken like en engineer.

Since it drove me crazy (I KNOW when my grainbed is compacting, thank you very much!), when I went with a bigger MLT, I set it up without a sight glass and went with a tippy dump instead. The only place I have a sight glass now is my HLT, and that's the only place I have a thermometer as well now. (The HERMS has a three degree differential between the HLT temperature and the mash temp).

steveoatley said:

Yes, I use Sparge Pal - on the iPhone
And Beer Tools Pro for recipe building & water volumes etc.....

I always seem to come in under, then have to heat up...

That's is why I want to finish my HERMS build
I have a RIMS system right now

Click to expand...

If you "always" come in under. Why not just use hotter water?

If you have a rims or herms a sight glass is a needed tool. It will show you if you are recirculating too fast, and you can slow down the flow before you get a stuck mash. the port for the sight glass does not have to be below the false bottom to suck down the fluid level.
Just be cause the fluid in the tube is gone it most certainly does not mean there is not wort above the grain bed. It sucks the wort out of the glass because it can't get it through the grain bed.

Tom

AnOldUR said:

If you're fly sparging a sight glass in your MLT will be useful.

Click to expand...

+1 to that. Very handy:



A handy trick to match pump rates into and out of the MLT: I use a black binder clip as shown above to mark the water level and watch it for the first few minutes of sparging. If the water level moves up or down over these few minutes, I adjust the water pump flow rate slightly to compensate. It takes about 5 minutes to match rates at the beginning of the sparge. You can use an automatically regulated sparging system (such as the Blichmann 'Auto Sparge') but I prefer the simplicity and no chance of clogs / less parts to clean.

Also makes it easier to get the right amount of strike water (no calculating required).

Kal