Hi everyone,
I've recently converted to all-grain, and I'm using these first batches to learn how my system behaves.
From the first sessions, I've learned some important lessons which I'm trying to get configured into Beersmith, so that the tool and I can work better together.
My setup is like this
* 15 gal keggle for heating water and boil
* 2 60qt Igloo cube coolers converted to mash tun (with sparge sprinkler + drain manifold) and hot liquid tank, both with valves
* A three-tier system for fly sparging, connecting HLT to MLT with CPVC and about 3 feet of clear tubing
The main lesson I learned was this: The 60qt Coleman cube coolers I use will almost immediately absorb a lot of the water's heat - 10F or more, it seems. Because of this, my mashing temperatures ended up much lower than expected, and with less than desired extraction of sugars.
I understand that I need to heat the strike water to X degrees above the target mash temperature and that only trial and error will really tell me what X is - but so far it seems it's somewhere around 12F. I've been trying to set up my equipment profile in Beersmith to help me with this.
To play around with this, I created to almost identical equipment profiles in Beersmith, one with a Mash Tun specific heat of 0.000 and one with a specific heat of 2.000. The problem is that no matter which equipment I choose in the recipe, and I do have the "Adjust temp for Equipment" checked, when I select a Mash Profile, the strike temperature in the brew sheet does not change.
I'm confused as to why the mashing steps temperature doesn't change even when I select widely different equipment?
Also, is there a (different) way to have Beersmith calculate the temperature to which I need to heat the sparge water before I move it from the keggle to the HLT? The only way I've found so far is to set the Sparge Water Temp to 180F in the Mash Profile, but that seems a bit wrong to me - I don't want to sparge at 180, but I want to have the water at 168 when I begin the fly sparging.
Finally, between the HLT and the MLT there is about 3 feet of 1/2" clear plastic tubing that connects the HLT drain valve to the top of the sparge sprinker. The length makes is easy to open the lids and move things around as I'm working, but I'm a bit worried that with a slow sparge the heat loss from this tube also significantly impacts the temperature of the water that hits the grains. Any thoughts on heat loss? Should I use a shorter tube? Is there a better, insulated tube I can use?
Thanks in advance for any ideas and tips
Eivind
---------------------
Update: Reading some old forum articles, I realized that I hadn't set the weight of the cooler (mashtun) in the software. Once I changed that, the seemingly right(ish) temperatures showed up in the mashing profile steps of the recipe. I will also not place the strike water into the HLT and going forward, this just adds another step that robs heat from the water. From now on, for mashing, I will first add a few gallons to the cooler to pre-heat it, add the grains, and then add the remaining strike water on top of that.
However, I'm still wondering how to determine to what temperature I should heat my sparge water in order to be at 168F as the water sprinkles out over the grains.
Again, any ideas and thoughts will be greatly appreciated!
I've recently converted to all-grain, and I'm using these first batches to learn how my system behaves.
From the first sessions, I've learned some important lessons which I'm trying to get configured into Beersmith, so that the tool and I can work better together.
My setup is like this
* 15 gal keggle for heating water and boil
* 2 60qt Igloo cube coolers converted to mash tun (with sparge sprinkler + drain manifold) and hot liquid tank, both with valves
* A three-tier system for fly sparging, connecting HLT to MLT with CPVC and about 3 feet of clear tubing
The main lesson I learned was this: The 60qt Coleman cube coolers I use will almost immediately absorb a lot of the water's heat - 10F or more, it seems. Because of this, my mashing temperatures ended up much lower than expected, and with less than desired extraction of sugars.
I understand that I need to heat the strike water to X degrees above the target mash temperature and that only trial and error will really tell me what X is - but so far it seems it's somewhere around 12F. I've been trying to set up my equipment profile in Beersmith to help me with this.
To play around with this, I created to almost identical equipment profiles in Beersmith, one with a Mash Tun specific heat of 0.000 and one with a specific heat of 2.000. The problem is that no matter which equipment I choose in the recipe, and I do have the "Adjust temp for Equipment" checked, when I select a Mash Profile, the strike temperature in the brew sheet does not change.
I'm confused as to why the mashing steps temperature doesn't change even when I select widely different equipment?
Also, is there a (different) way to have Beersmith calculate the temperature to which I need to heat the sparge water before I move it from the keggle to the HLT? The only way I've found so far is to set the Sparge Water Temp to 180F in the Mash Profile, but that seems a bit wrong to me - I don't want to sparge at 180, but I want to have the water at 168 when I begin the fly sparging.
Finally, between the HLT and the MLT there is about 3 feet of 1/2" clear plastic tubing that connects the HLT drain valve to the top of the sparge sprinker. The length makes is easy to open the lids and move things around as I'm working, but I'm a bit worried that with a slow sparge the heat loss from this tube also significantly impacts the temperature of the water that hits the grains. Any thoughts on heat loss? Should I use a shorter tube? Is there a better, insulated tube I can use?
Thanks in advance for any ideas and tips
Eivind
---------------------
Update: Reading some old forum articles, I realized that I hadn't set the weight of the cooler (mashtun) in the software. Once I changed that, the seemingly right(ish) temperatures showed up in the mashing profile steps of the recipe. I will also not place the strike water into the HLT and going forward, this just adds another step that robs heat from the water. From now on, for mashing, I will first add a few gallons to the cooler to pre-heat it, add the grains, and then add the remaining strike water on top of that.
However, I'm still wondering how to determine to what temperature I should heat my sparge water in order to be at 168F as the water sprinkles out over the grains.
Again, any ideas and thoughts will be greatly appreciated!