shoo
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2017
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Pretty happy with the way my mash tun project turned out. I already had a mash tun built like the classic cheap and easy post, but I wanted to add a few things.
1) Temp probe. The usual solution is to drill a hole in the side and use a bulkhead type addition with an o-ring. However, I wanted to be able to change where the temperature is reading from for recirculation, as temperature differences can be substantial between the top and bottom.
2) Sparge arm w/ electric auto-sparge. I wanted a relatively simple system where if the sparge water got below a certain level, it would trip a pump and refill from the HLT.
This is what I came up with:
Each of the holes in the lid have half of a cpvc repair coupling epoxied into them, which allows me to easily change the depth of any of the three stalks by loosening/tightening the repair coupling head. All of the stalks are made with CPVC, so they can handle the heat. CPVC joints are welded with CPVC cement. All holes where leakage is a concern or I am concerned with interaction with the wort, such as the epoxy, are sealed and covered with food grade silicone.
The temp probe and float switch are both sealed in CPCV pipe and connected on the other side soldered one end of an xlr cable. A full XLR cables will then go to the control box. The temp probe is a pt100 RTD, and connects to a PID in the usual way.
The sparge arm screws off for cleaning, and also adds the option of changing out the sparge set up if I want to.
For the auto-sparge, I have a small 12v DC current running in line with the float switch through the XLR cable. When the wort gets too low, the circuit is closed, triggering an SSR, which in turn allows current to the AC pump (chugger). Nice and simple, worked great in the batch I brewed last weekend. Completely automated the sparging process. All I had to do was set the depth of the float switch, adjust the flow rate out at the bottom to get a nice steady and slow sparge, and adjust the flow from the pump into the sparge arm to get a good trickle, and wait.
Next small project: add a small in-line filter to catch grains before they get into my sparge arm when recirculating. That will make it so that I will never have to open the MT lid for any reason once I toss in the mashing water, and will prevent grains from clogging the sparge arm. Not entirely sure how I'm going to do it yet. Maybe something like a bazooka tube insert or something, since I have an unused bazooka tube lying around. We'll see.
Next project: The RIMS/HERMS setup. The plan is to have the HLT (which is also my boil kettle) powered by a RIMS tube with a dedicated small pump and PID. I'll then pump the wort through an immersion chiller as a heat exchanger through my chugger pump.
1) Temp probe. The usual solution is to drill a hole in the side and use a bulkhead type addition with an o-ring. However, I wanted to be able to change where the temperature is reading from for recirculation, as temperature differences can be substantial between the top and bottom.
2) Sparge arm w/ electric auto-sparge. I wanted a relatively simple system where if the sparge water got below a certain level, it would trip a pump and refill from the HLT.
This is what I came up with:
Each of the holes in the lid have half of a cpvc repair coupling epoxied into them, which allows me to easily change the depth of any of the three stalks by loosening/tightening the repair coupling head. All of the stalks are made with CPVC, so they can handle the heat. CPVC joints are welded with CPVC cement. All holes where leakage is a concern or I am concerned with interaction with the wort, such as the epoxy, are sealed and covered with food grade silicone.
The temp probe and float switch are both sealed in CPCV pipe and connected on the other side soldered one end of an xlr cable. A full XLR cables will then go to the control box. The temp probe is a pt100 RTD, and connects to a PID in the usual way.
The sparge arm screws off for cleaning, and also adds the option of changing out the sparge set up if I want to.
For the auto-sparge, I have a small 12v DC current running in line with the float switch through the XLR cable. When the wort gets too low, the circuit is closed, triggering an SSR, which in turn allows current to the AC pump (chugger). Nice and simple, worked great in the batch I brewed last weekend. Completely automated the sparging process. All I had to do was set the depth of the float switch, adjust the flow rate out at the bottom to get a nice steady and slow sparge, and adjust the flow from the pump into the sparge arm to get a good trickle, and wait.
Next small project: add a small in-line filter to catch grains before they get into my sparge arm when recirculating. That will make it so that I will never have to open the MT lid for any reason once I toss in the mashing water, and will prevent grains from clogging the sparge arm. Not entirely sure how I'm going to do it yet. Maybe something like a bazooka tube insert or something, since I have an unused bazooka tube lying around. We'll see.
Next project: The RIMS/HERMS setup. The plan is to have the HLT (which is also my boil kettle) powered by a RIMS tube with a dedicated small pump and PID. I'll then pump the wort through an immersion chiller as a heat exchanger through my chugger pump.
