Mash Monitor - Page 9

**Yuri_Rage** · 04-29-2007, 02:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kladue

With most of the liquid tied up in the mash was the steam injection very noisy aside from the warmup snaps and pops. I suppose if one wanted to do the math you could figure out the water/steam necessary to move the heat into the mash. Do you have any plans to reduce the steam flow to maintain boiler pressure.

Actually, it was very smooth, even with the valve wide open. Recovery time was very minimal (~2 minutes), so I don't think I'm going to worry about reducing the flow.

BTW...80% Efficiency!!!

**kladue** · 04-29-2007, 02:44 AM

I wonder if the higher efficiency is related to the localized overheated mash liberating more of the starches from the grains while the bulk of the enzymes are preserved away from the hot spots, kind of like a localized decoction mash.

MadWeezel · 04-29-2007, 04:28 AM

Nice.. So what sensors did you use and where?
Now some got Code for the A to peek at?

**Yuri_Rage** · 04-29-2007, 04:32 AM

Most of the code I used today is actually already posted above. The sensors were an LM34 temp sensor in the mash and a pressure sensor from eBay. I'm going to modify the code to rely more on the microcontroller for automation (i.e., if the computer connection was lost, everything would be maintained). As it is now, the computer does most of the automation.

MadWeezel · 04-29-2007, 04:58 AM

Ahh I started code a while back for an antonymous A but got sidelined due to vacations and such..

I stared running into trouble with byte size then started working on just client side software to control the A then just forgot about it.

Ihmo i do think the A should be antonymous though, and send sensor data to the client side every other loop or so.

When i started planning mine i planned on 2 temp sensors in the mash tun( upper and lower, or one lower and one that i could turn on and off for spot temp checking.) 1 in hwt, 1 in boiling tank, then a outside abient temp and humidity sensor, to guesstimate water loss from boil etc.. I also thought about hacking a ph probe for the system

I may need to start taking a look at it agian...

brewman ! · 04-29-2007, 05:01 AM

Another successful steam masher. That's 3 of us now, right ?

What did you mean by mash volume ? Provided your boiler isn't pushing water out, the volume of water in the steam you injector is just about nothing compared to the mash volume.

FlyGuy · 04-29-2007, 05:17 AM

Wow -- nice job Yuri. Very humbling to see *REAL* DIY projects in action!

I may have missed it, but was that a 5 gallon batch you brewed with the steam system? If so, that's incredible performance with the steam system (more than 2 - 3 times what I got out of my simple stove-top steam setup). Very nice setup.

Got a total parts list? Ha ha, just kidding.

Thanks for posting that -- great thread!!