PID choice: Auberins 2352 vs. 2352P

[CidahMastah]

I am in the midst of my control panel upgrade and wondered if people out there ever thought that it would be worth it to get a ramp PID like the auberins 2352P for your eherms. I am debating whether I should go with all three of the same PID or get one that does ramping.

On the one hand it sounds useful, on the other it might complicate things. I like the idea of all the same for back up purposes.

Please let me know what you are using and if you would have done it differently if given a second chance.

Have read a lot about how herms aren't good for step mash, so it might be a forgone conclusion anyhow. My usual intent will be to use the herms to regulate a single infusion mash


Thanks!

 

[kal]

CidahMastah PM'ed about this and I suggested he start a thread about it. Here are my thoughts:

I considered the ramp PID when I designed my setup that has 3 PIDs in it. I thought it may be useful to program in the steps for step mashes.

To quote the manufacturer:

This controller is for applications where it is desirable to have the set point automatically adjust over time. Up to 30 steps can be programmed to A) ramp the temperature up or down at controlled rate, B) maintain the temperature for a specific period time, C) turn on/off the relays (alarm relay) after process reaches a specific step, D) have high flexibility in program commands such as jump (for loops), run, hold and stop after process reaches a specific step.

Instruction manual part 2 has the ramp/soak programming instructions: http://auberins.com/images/Manual/SYLXXXP instruction manual 1.5.pdf

IMHO, it's not overly user friendly to program and with mashing you'd want to program it differently each time. A PID like this is more meant for someone to program in the ramp/soak times ONCE and then use those same settings forever. Like in some factory making the same glass vases over and over again non-stop.

Any beer you're going to step mash is going to be different every time, unless you're making the exact same beer every time.

Most of us also go with single infusion mashes most of the time so the programming would have to be 'undone' for those beers.

After looking through how you'd actually go about programming 2-3 step mashes on this thing, I figured it was simply easier to use a separate timer to set the first step mash time and and have the timer alarm sound when I needed to step up the temp. Alarm sounds, I walk over and hit the "temp up" button a few times on the PID to set the new target temp and then reset the timer to start counting down again. Much more intuitive for me and would probably take just as much of my time to do as to pre-program the steps in the PID correctly. Also much less chance of me getting it right too if I just set the temp on it using the up/down buttons and then set the timer for the number of minutes I need to mash for.

YMMV of course.

IMHO, a PID like this would be more useful for fermentation where you want to raise or lower the temp slowly by only a few degrees over 24-72 hours. You don't want to have to go and hit the "temp up/down" button by 1 degree every 3-4 hours so a PID like this makes sense. It'll do that work for you.

In step mashes when we want to step up to the next temp you want it to rise as FAST as possible, not slowly, so you don't need a slow linear rise to the next time. You don't need the PID to control the rise.

That's my 2 cents!

Kal

 

[CidahMastah]

Thanks a lot for all that info Kal - REALLY appreciate it!

I had read the manual supplement too (know the manual for the 2352 by heart ). I began thinking that while intuitively it sounds great it just didn't seem to be a step in the right direction. However I wasn't too sure about the effectiveness of ramp mashing and had read about people doing it. Wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing anything.