Jacketed Mash Tun

I am thinking about doing a jacketed mash tun to control temperature. As far as I can guess and surmise from brewery tours and limited proffessional experience this is how breweries would control temperature. It seems a lot simpler than a herms or rims system. Possibly even easier to build. Perhaps an agitator would be in line to keep things consistant. Anyone pulled this off before? The only thing holding me back is funds.

It would work like this:

There is a jacket filled with hot water surrounding the mash tun. A pump circulates hot water through the jacket back to a heated vessel full of hot water. A vfd would control the pump speed to control temperature. Manual adjustment of the pump would work, you could probably find a sweet spot with practice and not really need a controller. Although a controller would give superior control.

It seems simple. However I feel making the jacket would be the expensive part, more than a herms or rims. How big are you thinking?

Wouldn't professional jacketed vessels be steam?

Also... if you can, just go for a cooler mash tun, they are great for holding temp, love mine.

I work in an industrial lab and all the stainless vessels that are jacketed use steam. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but building the jacket would definitely be a challenge

I've thought a lot about this option. I figure a smaller SS Cozy Dayz pot welded within another with the bottom cut out would work--like a 15 gal welded into a 20 gal for 10 gallon batches. My system would have the jacket and pump like you describe, but also an auto stirring mechanism, and direct fire. The jacket would only maintain rest temperatures. Direct fire and auto stir for quick ramps.

As for the plastic suggestion, well, that's another topic.

It's been done. There was a thread recently where somebody had produced a jacket for a keggle. It took a LOT of sheet metal work.

Insulation, HERMS, RIMS or direct fire would be easier.

Check this thread out
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/my-new-mash-tun-268370/
I have brewed 5 batches with mine and don't even lose 1 degree over 60 min. Before the conversion the regular cooler was fine, I'd only loose 1 degree during the mash, but I liked the idea of using ss plus I got an extra gal of volume. You can check out photos of mine in my gallery.

Pro-system mashes that are jacketed for the most part use steam, and this is to raise the temp of the mash for step mashing or a mash out step. One thing to consider is that 2bbl+ systems will have a lot of thermal mass, so they retain their temperature really well during the mash. Also many pro-brewers mash for a very short time, less than 10-20min in some cases, so heat loss is not an issue. if you are using a Keg or a kettle to mash, you might be better served to just wrap some insulation around it, especially if you are doing single infusion mashes.

Though if you want to make a jacketed vessel, a jacked fermenter would be much more useful.

Did you ever try to build this? I was thinking along the same lines.

My dream mashtun right now is a stainless "induction-ready" kettle with a custom induction coil that goes around the bottom AND SIDES of the kettle and that can be controlled via a BrewPi, Brew Troller or BCS system. -Super low watt heat density -VERY easy to clean and no steam generator required.

I'd also like the same for a boil kettle as the lack of internal restrictions make whirlpooling super easy and therefore hop removal super easy. -No need to clean immersion elements == the electric dream!


Adam

I have a jacketed mash tun:

Water Jacket Mashing:
In the last year I started with a 20 Quart pot as the outside jacket and put a 15 Quart in the 20Quart as my mashing vessel. What I found was that the temps I needed I could hold exact for the whole mashing time. But (and there is always a method to this) you have to figure your heat lose for your system. Mine was 30F differential to heat soak between the outside wall thru the water jacket to the inside and then the mash. I had a thermocoupler in the outside water and one in the mash. So if I needed 150F I would stop heating the outside pot to 180F. The mash would equalize to the outside and hold for 90mins without dropping temp more then 2f. This has worked very well that my results are repeatable. I used what I had a LP burner but any heat source can work.

At the brewery I work at our mash tun is steam jacketed only to raise the mash temp, at 15bbls the mash doesn't lose heat due to thermal mass even over 90mins. Our 3 bbl is a rims system and surprisingly loses quite a bit of temp if the rims is not turned on. Honestly it would be a lot easier just to make a herms, just installing a coil in the HLT instead of fabricating a jacket and then pumping hot water through it from the HLT essentially performing the same task IMHO. But that's the best thing about home brewing do as you wish!


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wrap 1/4, 3/8, or 1/2" copper tube around a stainless pot or something and circulate water. if you wanted, you could use some high tempt insulation in all the gaps and then form a sheet metal outter skin..

Heating and cooling insulated duct wrap will also work with your copper tubing between the mash tun and the wrap will also prevent heat loss as well.