Buckeye_Phil
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2015
- Messages
- 41
- Reaction score
- 5
Thanks in advance for the help. Finally getting around to designing a pseudo automated system (currently just doing BIAB) and figured there's a lot of knowledge here that could assist...
My goals are certainly not top of the line automation, but something that gets me 80-90% of the way there. I've considered a lot of the standard ideas - don't trust myself to build the right safety systems into an electric system, and wanted to stay away from automated gas systems with pilots, etc (also didn't want to deal with a frame build).
So here's my current idea... Igloo cooler MT and HLT. Preheat strike water in boil kettle and pump to MT, dough in. Preheat sparge water and pump to HLT. Continuously pump wort through countercurrent chiller back to MT (temp measured inline). Pump sparge water through countercurrent chiller using Ranco controller based on inline temp reading from MT. Then use pumps to sparge per a normal single tier system.
The questions I have...
1) I know I'm going to lose a lot of the heat retention benefits of the cooler by circulating through a pump / coils. Is it even worth it?
2) if I preheat sparge water to 175 and use that to maintain mash temp via my heat exchanger, will that be too hot and cause scorching issues (or leech tannins?)
3) not that I do any stepped mashed now... But any idea if hot water in HLT (without additional heat input) would have enough energy to do a stepped mash? May be limited to decoctions, or adding more hot water from my kettle, huh?
Anyway. Appreciate the input. Looking for something simple that lets me use prebuilt components without just buying a prebuilt system. But don't want to get halfway through it and realize I neglected some basic science that keeps it from working.
My goals are certainly not top of the line automation, but something that gets me 80-90% of the way there. I've considered a lot of the standard ideas - don't trust myself to build the right safety systems into an electric system, and wanted to stay away from automated gas systems with pilots, etc (also didn't want to deal with a frame build).
So here's my current idea... Igloo cooler MT and HLT. Preheat strike water in boil kettle and pump to MT, dough in. Preheat sparge water and pump to HLT. Continuously pump wort through countercurrent chiller back to MT (temp measured inline). Pump sparge water through countercurrent chiller using Ranco controller based on inline temp reading from MT. Then use pumps to sparge per a normal single tier system.
The questions I have...
1) I know I'm going to lose a lot of the heat retention benefits of the cooler by circulating through a pump / coils. Is it even worth it?
2) if I preheat sparge water to 175 and use that to maintain mash temp via my heat exchanger, will that be too hot and cause scorching issues (or leech tannins?)
3) not that I do any stepped mashed now... But any idea if hot water in HLT (without additional heat input) would have enough energy to do a stepped mash? May be limited to decoctions, or adding more hot water from my kettle, huh?
Anyway. Appreciate the input. Looking for something simple that lets me use prebuilt components without just buying a prebuilt system. But don't want to get halfway through it and realize I neglected some basic science that keeps it from working.