I'm planning on upgrading my RIMS tube sometime after the first of the year along with a few other brewery upgrades. I noticed on Bobby's RIMS tube that there is a location at the end of the tube for the PID Temp probe.
When I built my RIMS ten years ago, I welded a bung in the side of my MLT about midway up (It's a Sankey Keg), and installed the probe there. My reasoning is that if I want the mash to be a certain temperature, I probably ought to measure it at the mash, not at the outlet of the MLT nor the end of the RIMS tube.
Fast forward ten years. I've noticed that without stirring the mash, I get stratification, the probe will be at mash temperatures but the thermometer in the outlet of the MLT will read lower by up to five degrees. It equalizes but the enzymes dont wait and the wort can be somewhat different than I intended. When I brew smaller beers, the probe level is constant, so the probe is closer to the top of the grain bed, another problem. I've often thought about putting a stirrer in, a stainless paint stirrer on a 1/2" drill motor and running that but I'm not sure if it's worth it in the long run. When I upgraded to the Auber PID (SYL-2362 iirc), I did an autotune but on the last batch, it overshot quite a bit which tells me I need to change the system somehow.
My question is, how was it determined to put the temp probe in the outlet of the RIMS tube? How long does it take to equalize temps (The grain bed is at ~ equal temps throughout and the outlet of the RIMS is approximately the temp of the outlet of the MLT). Is it better to have the probe in the end of the RIMS? or elsewhere? In the plating shops I've worked at, we measured tank temps in the tank but those tanks were 10,000 gallons + and we're talking about 10 gallons here.
I'd like to have better control of my mash temps and could fiddle with the PID parameters but I dont want to reinvent the wheel either.
When I built my RIMS ten years ago, I welded a bung in the side of my MLT about midway up (It's a Sankey Keg), and installed the probe there. My reasoning is that if I want the mash to be a certain temperature, I probably ought to measure it at the mash, not at the outlet of the MLT nor the end of the RIMS tube.
Fast forward ten years. I've noticed that without stirring the mash, I get stratification, the probe will be at mash temperatures but the thermometer in the outlet of the MLT will read lower by up to five degrees. It equalizes but the enzymes dont wait and the wort can be somewhat different than I intended. When I brew smaller beers, the probe level is constant, so the probe is closer to the top of the grain bed, another problem. I've often thought about putting a stirrer in, a stainless paint stirrer on a 1/2" drill motor and running that but I'm not sure if it's worth it in the long run. When I upgraded to the Auber PID (SYL-2362 iirc), I did an autotune but on the last batch, it overshot quite a bit which tells me I need to change the system somehow.
My question is, how was it determined to put the temp probe in the outlet of the RIMS tube? How long does it take to equalize temps (The grain bed is at ~ equal temps throughout and the outlet of the RIMS is approximately the temp of the outlet of the MLT). Is it better to have the probe in the end of the RIMS? or elsewhere? In the plating shops I've worked at, we measured tank temps in the tank but those tanks were 10,000 gallons + and we're talking about 10 gallons here.
I'd like to have better control of my mash temps and could fiddle with the PID parameters but I dont want to reinvent the wheel either.