Where to take temp reading in RIMS setup

[thekraken]

I thought some of you may be interested in this plot. It's from some test data a recently collected, some of it may not make a lot of since because parts were in manual mode and parts were in auto mode but I think it does well to illustrate the possible temperature differences you could have between your MLT and RIMS tube. This was at 1gpm flow rate, the first half of the data was with a lid off the MLT, the second half of the data was with the lid on.

By the way, those of you that measure your flow what flow rates are you able to achieve in your mashes without sticking?

(edit: marked up the graph for clarity)

 

[brewman !]

Very interesting.

Are you sure the step to 155F didn't start at 6,000 seconds ?

How did the beer turn out ?

 

[brewman !]

Tonight my local home brew club had a guest speaker speaking on mash chemistry. He was familiar with RIMS. He stated that the do not exceed temp for liquid out of the RIMS chamber was 75C or 167F.

 

[thekraken]

Are you sure the step to 155F didn't start at 6,000 seconds ?

Yep. Where ever the green line steps up indicates where the control was flipped to automatic control mode and the setpoint was stepped up.

How did the beer turn out ?

This wasn't a brew, this was data collected while testing out tuning parameters for my controller.

Tonight my local home brew club had a guest speaker speaking on mash chemistry. He was familiar with RIMS. He stated that the do not exceed temp for liquid out of the RIMS chamber was 75C or 167F.

167-170 is the generally stated temperature for mashout for any method because of an increased risk of tannin extraction as the temp goes beyond 170. Was the guest speaker just referring to this or did they have other reasons not to exceed 167?

 

[brewman !]

167-170 is the generally stated temperature for mashout for any method because of an increased risk of tannin extraction as the temp goes beyond 170. Was the guest speaker just referring to this or did they have other reasons not to exceed 167?

He was a grad student studying brewing enzymes. His supervisor was at the back of the room watching his presentation. His reasoning was that 75C was the temperature at which significant irreversible damage to alpha and beta amylase enzymes occurs.

 

[thekraken]

He was a grad student studying brewing enzymes. His supervisor was at the back of the room watching his presentation. His reasoning was that 75C was the temperature at which significant irreversible damage to alpha and beta amylase enzymes occurs.

Maybe the speaker wasn't referring to mashout at that point, he was talking about during the normal mash period? If that's the case it threw me off a little bit because my little 120v RIMS tube is never going to exceed 167 during a ~150 mash. That's definitely something to consider if your controlling by the RIMS input with out a way to monitor the output and have slow flow rates or a high wattage element.

That's one of the reasons to mashout in the first place. You want to stop the enzymatic activity for "preserving your fermentable sugar profile".

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter17.html

 

[Shred]

I think I'm going to start with something like this setup by Angry Monk:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=436322

There's a lot to learn here for someone not experienced in eletronics, so I'll start simple and add on as I get comfortable.

 

[Clankenbrew]

I did some tasting over the last 4 days with 2 - 10gallon batches and found that when running my MYPIN TA4 @ 143 it will keep the mash right at 151 inside the cooler.

I'm not sure why the controller is not maintaining better temp at the temp it is set to.

The first batch I set and walked away, @ the 15 minutes remaining I stopped everything to add the 5.2Ph and took readings inside the tun and the mash was at 165 with the MYPIN set at 152. This may be a dumper!

I've got another test planned to swap the RTD to the wort inlet and take readings before it hits the element.

So far, taking readings @ exit is not recommended by me as it resulted in way too high of a mash temp inside the cooler.

 

[BigBlock]

Sounds like you Pid isn't maintaining setpoint or you're not getting a true exit temp. If the temps are reading correctly you prob want to re-tune. Fundamentally your mash temp should always be less than your rims discharge while heating/maintaining temp.

Couple of things to try if you haven't already....

back check your discharge temps
Check calibration on all sensors/thermometers
make sure you have good conduction in your thermowell (thermal paste)if you have one.

 

[augiedoggy]

I did some tasting over the last 4 days with 2 - 10gallon batches and found that when running my MYPIN TA4 @ 143 it will keep the mash right at 151 inside the cooler.

I'm not sure why the controller is not maintaining better temp at the temp it is set to.

The first batch I set and walked away, @ the 15 minutes remaining I stopped everything to add the 5.2Ph and took readings inside the tun and the mash was at 165 with the MYPIN set at 152. This may be a dumper!

I've got another test planned to swap the RTD to the wort inlet and take readings before it hits the element.

So far, taking readings @ exit is not recommended by me as it resulted in way too high of a mash temp inside the cooler.

change the "I" setting in your mypin pid to "1" so it stops overshooting... I had to do the same thing to all my mypins....

 

[stlbeer]

I did some tasting over the last 4 days with 2 - 10gallon batches and found that when running my MYPIN TA4 @ 143 it will keep the mash right at 151 inside the cooler.

I'm not sure why the controller is not maintaining better temp at the temp it is set to.

The first batch I set and walked away, @ the 15 minutes remaining I stopped everything to add the 5.2Ph and took readings inside the tun and the mash was at 165 with the MYPIN set at 152. This may be a dumper!

I've got another test planned to swap the RTD to the wort inlet and take readings before it hits the element.

So far, taking readings @ exit is not recommended by me as it resulted in way too high of a mash temp inside the cooler.

Are you measuring your temp at the exit of the mash tun or at the RIMS tube exit? I believe the general consensus is to measure temps at the exit of the RIMS tube.

 

[augiedoggy]

Are you measuring your temp at the exit of the mash tun or at the RIMS tube exit? I believe the general consensus is to measure temps at the exit of the RIMS tube.

I somehow missed his comment indicating what hes doing... Hes likely adjusting at the "wort outlet" of his mashtun which would account for the major overshooting too since the whole time the mash is climbing in temp from the top down the rims sensor below is still reading low and telling the rims to stay on and heat so more..
Hence the whole point of this discussion and the fact that the rims outlet is the BEST and most accurate place to get a real time temp flow reading. So if he read the thread he would see what his problem is...

 

[Clankenbrew]

I measure at the wort exit from the RIMS tube. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1430230501.163610.jpg

 

[Clankenbrew]

Rtd probe shown at top of RIMS.

 

[stlbeer]

Rtd probe shown at top of RIMS.

Is your probe reaching the wort?

Did you calibrate the temperature on your controller?

My RIMS tube is horizontal instead of vertical. I don't know that that makes a difference, except that there won't be air bubble accumulation in the tube if you have it horizontal with the outlet pointed up.

 

[Clankenbrew]

The reason its vertical is because when I ran it horizontal It dry fired an element and burnt out. With the element at the bottom its always in wort.
I never calibrated the RTD to the PID.. Can this be done with a MYPIN TA4?

 

[augiedoggy]

The reason its vertical is because when I ran it horizontal It dry fired an element and burnt out. With the element at the bottom its always in wort.
I never calibrated the RTD to the PID.. Can this be done with a MYPIN TA4?

did you shange the "i" setting to 1? calibrating and autotuning wont help if you havent done this... the default setting cause overshooting on the mypins when used for this for some reason.
Also as mentioned the way your setup is the probe is likely sitting in a trapped air pocket... the lliquid should exit at the highest point and the rims shoul be positioned so as the liquid comes in all the air is pushed out without being trapped.

 

[stlbeer]

The RIMS tube in my setup is midway to the lowest point. Top to bottom is mash tun, pump (lowest point), RIMS tube, then back to mash tun. With the RIMS tube lower than the top level of the mash tun it should never be empty.

To prevent a dry fire (and it may have already been stated in this thread) you should have the pump and PID control circuit on the same switch (different sides of the same DPST switch). This way the element can't fire unless the pump is running. Or if the SSR has failed closed - but you'll notice this pretty quickly.

 

[augiedoggy]

I dont think it matters much myself how high or low your rims is positioned since as mentioned it should only be on when the pump is pumping wort through it... It does however matter how the inlets and outlets are orientated since this can cause air pockets to get trapped inside the rims tube and cause devastating effects.