Mash tun question

[MrMikeWhite]

Hey! Happy turkey day. I cant seem to find this question. When heating my mash tun (cooler). Can I make a wort chiller that fits down the tun. And recerc hot water from my hlt to keep temps rather tha recerc the mash?

 

[ianw58]

Yes, you can. That's sort of the reverse of the principle behind a HERMS system. The ONLY draw back us that the heat coming in will be higher than the temperature of the mash.

If the heat in is too high, it can lead to leaching if tannins from the grain husks and, if high enough, scorching of the mash.

Brew on! And Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[MrMikeWhite]

So if I need a mash temp of 155 and I have my hlt staying at about 158 theoretically I should stay about 155 rights?

 

[wilserbrewer]

So if I need a mash temp of 155 and I have my hlt staying at about 158 theoretically I should stay about 155 rights?

Yes well sort of, the tricky part is you will lose heat in the tubing and pump. How much is the tough question.
You will also need to stir the mash to distribute the added heat.

 

[MrMikeWhite]

I guess I just dont understand pumping my mash. When I go from tun to boil keggle, its SLOW. does the same speed apply?

 

[pbuelow]

I tried doing this. Heating the MT using HLT and a recirc tubing setup. It didn't work as well as I had hoped. There were two problems I had First, heat transfer wasn't quite what I had hoped. I don't know where the problem was, but the temp inside the coil (in the middle) was much higher than outside. The second problem was that it was very hard to stir. So, basically, I never got it to be one steady temp. I had to switch to an electric element to steady my temps with a PID controller.

The third somewhat unrelated problem is that it was a bear to clean after. Sure, I didn't have to run water through it, but I had the worst time getting all of the bits out of the sides of the coils.

I bet you can make this work. I couldn't. If you do, let me know what you did.