Well that's the problem for them to figure out. Maybe multiple sensors and average them together, I don't know. Do all all-in-ones have this same issue?I’m not sure what you expect them to do. It takes time for everything in there to heat soak. If they were to move the sensor to the top or whatever, I guess you would see the lower temperature there, but the temperature down by the element is going to be way higher. Then you’d be whining that it’s way too hot at the bottom
Yeah, the mash temp I took manually was exactly what I wanted based on my calculations. It was the temp on the Foundry screen being 15 over that I wish was closer to reality. But it is what it is, there's that pool of water below the grain basket that will be hotter than the water in the mash basket.
I plan to switch to a brew bag. I have one of these in my Amazon cart: https://a.co/d/dqZ5Rai
@RyPA Sorry to hear of your issues on the foundry. First, what was your actual strike temp prior to doughing in? Ive never had this extreme of a temp difference between what the foundry shows versus the mash at the top with my thermapen. You will have some difference regardless if using a malt pipe or bag on a false bottom though. But the difference should definitely be closer than you experienced. I am using a bag with brewzila false bottom and not the malt pipe currently. My last brewday, I set the strike water to 160F and my target mash temp was 152F. After reaching strike temp, I doughed in. Immediately after doughing in, my top measurement was 151F and the foundry read 156F. After 8 minutes (not recirculating) the top was 150 and bottom was 154F and then I started recirculating. This is common for me to have a 5-8degree difference between the top of the mash (which reasonably would be cooler after doughing in) compared to the bottom temp which is NOT in the actual mash. I typically start recirculating at 8minutes and it evens out pretty quick. Of course, inputting good data into your software about grain temp (which I measure), mash tun temp, etc also helps.
It was mentioned, but to be clear, back this off or you'll get a lot of temperature overshoot.
Yup, since your strike was only 163 which seems much more reasonable given your target mash temp, leaving the temp at that temp and power at 100% is what caused the big overshoot while you were doughing in. My normal process is to hit strike temp, then set the temp to mash temp and turn power off completely prior to doughing in. After doughing in the foundry will still likely read a few degrees above mash temp but the top should be good with what you want. Then I adjust power to 50-60%, once you start recirulating you will see the foundry temp drop to right where you want it. You'll keep dialing in your process over a couple brews and you'll be fine.
Love the mod to show your wort level on the outside. Do you have any instructions anywhere on how you did that?
It may be cheaper to buy a preassembled one, I just have a bunch of parts and threw it together, the only thing to worry about is it's double wall, you fasten to the inner wall and cut the outer wall the size of your elbow, I just used a street elbow a nipple with an oring lock nut, then on the plastic tube the cap and oring from the end of the anvil ball valve against a 1/4" site glass
Thanks. Probably will have to. When I say I can't use it, I mean I won't even be able to put hands on until then
^ That! Definitely taking that into serious consideration
I think you have created a vacuum-like scenario here where suction from the pump is too much (too high flow rate). I have a 10.5gal foundry. After a coupe of years of using the anvil little pump, I switched to a MARKII amazon knock off. This happened to me when brewing an imperial stout with ~25lbs of grain. I use a wilser bag and a brewzilla false bottom where I have to bend the legs to a "V" position so the false bottom would clear to dip tube. With my process, I sparge with the bag in place. When I sparge, I start running the wort to a second vessel and then manually add sparge water over the top of the mash one quart at a time. On that particular brew, after adding sparge water was complete, but continuing to send wort to second vessel so that eventual lifting the bag with hoist is easy, I noticed a high-pitched screeching sound like nails on a chalkboard. Once I stopped the pump, the sound immediately stopped. After lifting the bag and pumping the wort back to the foundry kettle from the second vessel, when I removed the false bottom, I noticed it was now concave lol. When brewday was over, and I was cleaning the foundry I noticed three indents on the bottom of the foundry precisely where the legs were sitting. At first I thought it was due to the weight of the mash, but again, once I stopped the pump, the high pitched sound immediately stopped. So I came to the conclusion that I was draining to the second vessel too fast and created a vacuum-situation. SO ever since, I've reduced the flow when sparging and sending wort to the second vessel. I've never noticed it during the actual mash but then again, I do not run the pump with a high flow rate when recirculating during the mash. I average ~1qt/minute or less: yes I've measured it and now I know what that rate "looks" like visually lol. Nonetheless, regardless of when in your process this occured, I think if you slow down your pump flow, this will certainly help because I think the vacuum is what caused this. So even though you modified the feet of your false bottom to help distribute the pressure over a wider area, this will still happen if flow is too high. Hope this helps! I've attached pics to show mine. My feet of the false bottom actually are narrower than yours and hit on the raised portion of the foundry's bottom. I imagine that if I increased the flow rate when I heard that high-pitched screeching sound ie metal bending, I would have probably collapsed my false bottom completely lol
I got mine in April, it's the latest with the included 240 to 120 plug adapter. There is a cheesy rubber gasket between the unit and black housing, but it should be better and sealed in both places (unit to housing and housing to Foundry body)
