MikeRussell
The Brew Shed!
Hey, brewers!
For the scope of this discussion, I would like to find a simple/clever/cheap way of automating the grain-in stage. I searched through about 6 pages of posts on the automation forum and didn't find anything that jumped out at me. Maybe I didn't get enough coffee - feel free to link me to other discussions if you feel like I might benefit or if there are cool ideas I should check out.
First, a little background:
I'm running a BrewTroller based electric brewing system which has a series of stages such as Fill, Preheat, Grain-In, Refill, Mash, Sparge, Boil, Chill. Some of these require user intervention and some don't.
Currently, I manually Fill the HLT with cold, filtered water the night before and set the Preheat step on delay. As soon as the delay has completed, the system will Preheat the strike water for me. When I wake up I transfer some of the hot water to the mash tun, add grain and start mashing. Wort is recirculated using a HERMS coil as necessary to maintain temperature during the mash. I then intervene again to set valves for fly sparging and I'm sure you're all familiar with the rest of the process.
I've made countless batches this way and I'm really happy with how the system works. The very minor amount of interaction when I wake up is awesome - I just have to add grain and go back to my coffee and breakfast. That said, the tinkerer in me wants to see what else I can do.
I've done a couple experiments where I filled the tun with cold water and crushed grain the night before. This mixture sat for about 8 hours before the Preheat stage kicked in and walked right through the mash. I didn't notice any off aromas or flavors when I came back to check on it and the brewday went really smooth. The idea of leaving crushed grain in ~50-60 degree water overnight sounds like I'm asking for trouble. It might be okay since no starch-to-sugar conversion has taken place but I would rather avoid the potential risk.
I've also toyed with the idea of having an overnight mash. From what I've read there shouldn't be any major problems if I mash while I sleep. After all, if I keep the temperatures around 150 no buggies should be able to grow, right? This sounds like quite a bit of wasted energy to maintain temperatures for that amount of time.
Okay, back to the topic at hand.
What I would like to achieve is the ability to prepare the system the night before so everything up through mashing is complete before user intervention is required. I'm currently happy with manually filling kettles with cold water and crushing grain - if the system could add the crushed grain to the preheated water I would be able to shave another hour off of the (already short) brew day and avoid the potential spoilage and energy waste mentioned above.
A simple solution: place the grain mill on top of the tun and set a drill (or other motor) to grind the grain directly when the time is right. I'm not in love with this option as it will likely expose the rollers (mine are aluminum I believe) to a steamy sauna session while the tun is heated and during the mash. What do you think?
Another alternative I've considered is building a crushed grain hopper and using a drill powered auger like this - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HD7OHOS/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 - Perhaps I could put the auger inside a PVC pipe so less is exposed to the steamy mash tun. I expect the flour created while grinding would get stuck to the auger since it'll be so steamy. I would expect a little bit of the grain would get stuck in the auger or hopper area but hopefully not much. Still this would be better than putting the mill directly on top.
A final idea I've toyed around with is setting up a hopper with a solenoid to trigger a trap door at the base. The trap door will really be the only thing directly exposed to steam which would probably be fine. IU could see a couple conditions where this goes awry. If the trap door part is too large, it could cause significant dough balls. I would be recirculating while this happens so it might not be the biggest problem, just something to think about. Also, if the trap door is too small, grain could easily get stuck in the hopper.
If you have managed to read this far, I applaud your perseverance. You deserve an award and a cookie. And a beer.
TLDR- if you have automated the grain-in stage, share your solution! How did you do it? Auger? Grind directly into the tun? Trap door? Show some pics!
For the scope of this discussion, I would like to find a simple/clever/cheap way of automating the grain-in stage. I searched through about 6 pages of posts on the automation forum and didn't find anything that jumped out at me. Maybe I didn't get enough coffee - feel free to link me to other discussions if you feel like I might benefit or if there are cool ideas I should check out.
First, a little background:
I'm running a BrewTroller based electric brewing system which has a series of stages such as Fill, Preheat, Grain-In, Refill, Mash, Sparge, Boil, Chill. Some of these require user intervention and some don't.
Currently, I manually Fill the HLT with cold, filtered water the night before and set the Preheat step on delay. As soon as the delay has completed, the system will Preheat the strike water for me. When I wake up I transfer some of the hot water to the mash tun, add grain and start mashing. Wort is recirculated using a HERMS coil as necessary to maintain temperature during the mash. I then intervene again to set valves for fly sparging and I'm sure you're all familiar with the rest of the process.
I've made countless batches this way and I'm really happy with how the system works. The very minor amount of interaction when I wake up is awesome - I just have to add grain and go back to my coffee and breakfast. That said, the tinkerer in me wants to see what else I can do.
I've done a couple experiments where I filled the tun with cold water and crushed grain the night before. This mixture sat for about 8 hours before the Preheat stage kicked in and walked right through the mash. I didn't notice any off aromas or flavors when I came back to check on it and the brewday went really smooth. The idea of leaving crushed grain in ~50-60 degree water overnight sounds like I'm asking for trouble. It might be okay since no starch-to-sugar conversion has taken place but I would rather avoid the potential risk.
I've also toyed with the idea of having an overnight mash. From what I've read there shouldn't be any major problems if I mash while I sleep. After all, if I keep the temperatures around 150 no buggies should be able to grow, right? This sounds like quite a bit of wasted energy to maintain temperatures for that amount of time.
Okay, back to the topic at hand.
What I would like to achieve is the ability to prepare the system the night before so everything up through mashing is complete before user intervention is required. I'm currently happy with manually filling kettles with cold water and crushing grain - if the system could add the crushed grain to the preheated water I would be able to shave another hour off of the (already short) brew day and avoid the potential spoilage and energy waste mentioned above.
A simple solution: place the grain mill on top of the tun and set a drill (or other motor) to grind the grain directly when the time is right. I'm not in love with this option as it will likely expose the rollers (mine are aluminum I believe) to a steamy sauna session while the tun is heated and during the mash. What do you think?
Another alternative I've considered is building a crushed grain hopper and using a drill powered auger like this - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HD7OHOS/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 - Perhaps I could put the auger inside a PVC pipe so less is exposed to the steamy mash tun. I expect the flour created while grinding would get stuck to the auger since it'll be so steamy. I would expect a little bit of the grain would get stuck in the auger or hopper area but hopefully not much. Still this would be better than putting the mill directly on top.
A final idea I've toyed around with is setting up a hopper with a solenoid to trigger a trap door at the base. The trap door will really be the only thing directly exposed to steam which would probably be fine. IU could see a couple conditions where this goes awry. If the trap door part is too large, it could cause significant dough balls. I would be recirculating while this happens so it might not be the biggest problem, just something to think about. Also, if the trap door is too small, grain could easily get stuck in the hopper.
If you have managed to read this far, I applaud your perseverance. You deserve an award and a cookie. And a beer.
TLDR- if you have automated the grain-in stage, share your solution! How did you do it? Auger? Grind directly into the tun? Trap door? Show some pics!
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