Big beer mash issues with a Brutus 10 rig.

[figmoto]

Hi,
This is my 3rd brew with my system I based on Brutus 10 and I am a little new to AG. My first 2 brews were 69% and 64% efficiency. This one was a 33 pound mash that took up 14.5 of a 15 gallon sanke keg mash tun and ended up at 48%. I had the temp at the thermowell at 154 but when I moved it to the top of the mash I hit 175! I cooled it down somewhat then just my luck the power went out. (Don't brew during electrical storms with pumps) When the power came back on I increased the flow rate a good bit and it eventually evened out a little better but still looking at 5 or 6 degrees difference. I know Lonnie has a slow trickle flow rate normally and I was scared of a stuck mash. Anyway does anyone have advice for big mashes with a recirculation mash system like Brutus? Is it OK to increase the flow rate? I guess I should take temps from the top of the mash or rig up something in the outflow like Lonnie? Any Brutus 10 brewers out there using insulation on their mash tun with good results? I was really looking froward to doing 10 gallon batches with 9% + Beers. Any help getting me dialed in would be much appreciated.
Jon

 

[missing link]

The only way your mash could hit 175 is if your thermowell and temp probe are either not in the flow, broken or way out of calibration.

If you truly made your system like Lonnie did, your max temp coming out of the heated mash tun should be your set temp and if that is the case, your mash will never exceed the set temp.

I would review your set up and try to determine how you were able to get a mash 20 degrees over your set temp.

I am sure that at a certain temp, conversion stopped and that is why your efficiency suffered.

Linc

 

[figmoto]

Well as i stated above I didn't put the temp gauge in the out flow. I also have not added the love controllers yet. However, when this happened i did grab a mash paddle and push a digital thermometer down to the bottom of the mash and watched it drop until it matched the reading I had at the bottom of the keg. Going forward I guess I will monitor out flow temp that way I know I'm safe. Like I should have done that in the first place. I'm still just a little curious about flow rate and how long it should take to equal out the temp at the bottom.





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