Immersion coil in mash

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benbradford

benbradford

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I don't believe that I have ever seen the setup where someone puts an immersion coil into the mash after the mash has been well stirred and pumped hot water through the coil to help regulate mash temp. I already have a herms coil that circulates wort through the hlt and back on top of the mash. This helps, but it is kind of a knee jerk reaction to a low temp, and the swings are bigger than I like. I have an extra immersion coil and was thinking that i could drop it into the mash and pump hot water from the hlt through it to regulate temp. It would be a nice even large centered surface that would warm the mash.

What do you think?
 
A static coil immersed in a viscous mash won't distribute the heat gain throughout the tun very well if at all, so you'd end up with a big hot spot surrounding the coil and cooling mash beyond. Unless you add something to stir the wort, I don't think the results would be positive...

Cheers!
 
It might work if you recirculate the wort at the same time but that would require 2 pumps and you still might end up with hot spots. A HERMS would be more efficient.
 
I was thinking the coil would be at mash temp or just a little higher to stabilize mash
 
I think you would be better off trouble shooting your herms setup. You shouldnt be getting be swings if you are constantly recirculating through a herms
 
heat loss from your mash tun will only be through the outside walls, bottom, and top of your tun.

Insulate better, or alternatively you could wrap a low wattage heater around the outside of your tun (like "Flexwatt Heat Tape" used for reptile tanks) under the insulation.

Personally unless I was going HERMS, I would concentrate on insulation. I have insulated my 30L keggle (pony keg) mash tun with 1.5" thick ceramic wool ducting insulation on the sides and bottom, with an insulated lid on top and I lose about 2 deg. F in 90 minutes.
 
If your HERMS were set up or used properly you wouldnt be having any temp swing issues at all...

you dont see coils in the mash for this exact reason:
A static coil immersed in a viscous mash won't distribute the heat gain throughout the tun very well if at all, so you'd end up with a big hot spot surrounding the coil and cooling mash beyond.
Click to expand...
 
benbradford said:
I don't believe that I have ever seen the setup where someone puts an immersion coil into the mash after the mash has been well stirred and pumped hot water through the coil to help regulate mash temp. I already have a herms coil that circulates wort through the hlt and back on top of the mash. This helps, but it is kind of a knee jerk reaction to a low temp, and the swings are bigger than I like. I have an extra immersion coil and was thinking that i could drop it into the mash and pump hot water from the hlt through it to regulate temp. It would be a nice even large centered surface that would warm the mash.

What do you think?
Click to expand...

FYI: Just came out in Jan-Feb issue of BYO magazine. "Internally Heated Mash Tun Build" page 65.
 

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