Howdy boys and girls,
I am scaling up my operation and looking into automation. I've got some good idea from this forum and from the Australian equivilant, but I have one key issue that I would like to discuss here.
I have read about people setting up a MLT that has a re-circulation pump that pumps wort from the bottom of the MLT through a small tank, that contains an element, and then back to the top of the MLT. The idea is that you fill your MLT with the crushed grains, then you can set a timer for it to start. When it starts, it heats up a kettle full of water to the temp you will need for your first rest, then dumps the right amount into the MLT. Then the pump re-cirulates wort around and around, heating if necessary to maintain temp or increase temp. The temp sensor is just after the tank with the element, so you will not get the wort being over heated, and damage being done to the enzymes, but it will also take some time to reach your next rest temp.
This all sounds great, but I have one fairly serious problem. Unless someone is there to dough in the grain at the beginning, the water can circulate around and around, but I think that there will remain some dry spots in the grain which will result in bad efficiency. And I'm not even convinced that with doughed in grain that it will wet the grains evenly...I think the lack of stirring/agitating is potentially a serious problem.
So here is an alternative plan...
I am not sure if you guys have seen these things, but you can buy what looks like a big auger, it fits into a drill and you can use it to mix up paint, render, or small quantites of cement. These things are about 20cm (8in) in diameter amd about 20cm long. So when they rotate in fluid they will push it all up or down depending on which way it goes (I wish I had a pic). Anyway so I was thinking of installing on of them in the centre of my MLT, which incidently is about 100-110L or just under 1bbl. So when the water goes in, it will mix it all up. When its running I am invisaging the auger pulling all the grains up through the middle then they will all get pulled down the sides by motion of the grains at the bottom being dragged upwards, so it will be all homogenous fairly quickly. This way I could program it to do step mashing with mutliple infusions, and there is no need for a recirculating pump to be used before lautering.
I am a little concerned about the well being of the grain husks as I dont want to destroy them by excessive mixing.
I am hoping to start an open discussion here about how people get the temperature distribution in their mash even using automatic processes. I am particularly interested in anyones info that comes from large scale or commercial breweries, as what I am doing here is a bit of a prototype to my future brewery....which hopefully should one day take of the world because it will be so BIG.
Thanks
Pip
I am scaling up my operation and looking into automation. I've got some good idea from this forum and from the Australian equivilant, but I have one key issue that I would like to discuss here.
I have read about people setting up a MLT that has a re-circulation pump that pumps wort from the bottom of the MLT through a small tank, that contains an element, and then back to the top of the MLT. The idea is that you fill your MLT with the crushed grains, then you can set a timer for it to start. When it starts, it heats up a kettle full of water to the temp you will need for your first rest, then dumps the right amount into the MLT. Then the pump re-cirulates wort around and around, heating if necessary to maintain temp or increase temp. The temp sensor is just after the tank with the element, so you will not get the wort being over heated, and damage being done to the enzymes, but it will also take some time to reach your next rest temp.
This all sounds great, but I have one fairly serious problem. Unless someone is there to dough in the grain at the beginning, the water can circulate around and around, but I think that there will remain some dry spots in the grain which will result in bad efficiency. And I'm not even convinced that with doughed in grain that it will wet the grains evenly...I think the lack of stirring/agitating is potentially a serious problem.
So here is an alternative plan...
I am not sure if you guys have seen these things, but you can buy what looks like a big auger, it fits into a drill and you can use it to mix up paint, render, or small quantites of cement. These things are about 20cm (8in) in diameter amd about 20cm long. So when they rotate in fluid they will push it all up or down depending on which way it goes (I wish I had a pic). Anyway so I was thinking of installing on of them in the centre of my MLT, which incidently is about 100-110L or just under 1bbl. So when the water goes in, it will mix it all up. When its running I am invisaging the auger pulling all the grains up through the middle then they will all get pulled down the sides by motion of the grains at the bottom being dragged upwards, so it will be all homogenous fairly quickly. This way I could program it to do step mashing with mutliple infusions, and there is no need for a recirculating pump to be used before lautering.
I am a little concerned about the well being of the grain husks as I dont want to destroy them by excessive mixing.
I am hoping to start an open discussion here about how people get the temperature distribution in their mash even using automatic processes. I am particularly interested in anyones info that comes from large scale or commercial breweries, as what I am doing here is a bit of a prototype to my future brewery....which hopefully should one day take of the world because it will be so BIG.
Thanks
Pip