Questions about building an electric system for all-grain

[raketemensch]

I'm looking into building a system for making an all-grain mash, and automating the temperature changes/timing/control.

HERMS and RIMS systems are crazy popular with the brewing crowd, but they seem like overkill for distilling.

I'm looking at a 16-gallon stock pot, as I'd like to get a full keg charge out of a mash. I was originally thinking that I could just use a 5500 watt element in it, but as I read I find some people going that route while other people complain about it.

Any advice on this, links or pointers to threads here (I've been searching and reading here all day) would be greatly appreciated. I like the bain marie idea, but welding isn't in the cards for me.

We have many ways to find info about mash and wash recipes, but there doesn't seem to be a section for equipment, like we have for boilers.

[yakattack]

Steam cook man. Electric keg is a steam geerator. Direct said steam into a mash barrel and cook. 55g batch at a time. Put that fancy new flute through her paces.

Hell you could run it.off an adrino or pid controller.

My 2 cents anyways

[bitter]

For beer steam is not as common but things like corn... sure makes it easier.

You could use 2 Kegs, 1 with the top cut out, the other could be a HLT/ steam generator for team control and sparging or reuse your keg for stilling.

If you do the burner method, the setup I liked the best required the stainless screen/false bottom over the burner. The trick with this setup is you could control the element easily with a temp controller, but you also need a pump to recirculate to keep the temp consistent throughout the mash tun. Good stainless pump cost $$$ .. great setup for doing beer and would work for any enzyme stuff also.

To go on the cheap you could use a cooler and use your existing keg as a steam generator (Thats my plan) I have a 200l cooler I am making a copper Mandrel... I figure could use that to pump in steam if needed to heat things up. What I can get another Keg will make a boil pot also with a 5500W ulwd burner in it as I make beer also. wiht a keg to boil water could do boomers pretty easily in the cooler just boiling the water for a corn mash.

B

[raketemensch]

Yeah, the pumps seem to start at like $75, which is crazy. I'm building out a new keg now (my current one doesn't have fill/drain ports), so I'll have one to modify that already has an element mount, but steam pressure makes me nervous for some reason.

Maybe I'll cut the top off the current keg and mount a stirring motor... It'd be a hack, but still cheaper than a pump.

If the paddle blades are just above the false bottom I should still be able to get some decent circulation, no?

[bitter]

What type of mashes are you wanting to do. This will make a big difference if how you setup things. Even though things and technics are similar there is significant difference in a beer mash and a Whiskey all grain mash. Depending what your doing? might make you go a different way.

If doing all enzyme mashs might be different then if you want to do all grian single malts like a scotch type whiskey.... What are your goals and types of mashes? I've been doing the same research but thankfully done beer before so can draw on that. I did the easy way though used 2 coolers one for HLT and one for mash tun. Also handy to have a counter-flow cooler (I like it better than an immersion chiller) for beer.. but for whisky type mashes we don't necessarily want to mash out as we like to keep the enzymes working to get as lot a fg as possible.

If you look at boomers all corn with enzymes.. might be worth a try. One thing on my to buy list is a ph meter... Will help a lot and worth it! for any all grain brewing. Handy too check fermets ph also...

B

[raketemensch]

I'm still using strips for ph, I have been spending too much on other stuff to spring for a meter, and now I'm saving up for a huge-ass stock pot.

At this point I'm looking at a simple bourbon bill, nothing too exotic. No peats, so I may be overthinking this. Booner's all-corn looks good, and the corn would be a good test of time/temp protocol. But I think I'm leaning more toward something like nchooch's carolina bourbon.

[shadylane]

There's a new section on using steam http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=92

[yammit]

With a HERMS/RIMS system a pump is going to be required. If you are using flaked corn (food grade) with will be difficult without adding some barley in to act as a filter bed whitout cloggin you system. I think a single step infusion at 148 degrees will give you a nice dry wash with lots of short chain sugars to be extracted. The only reason for a HERMS/RIMS system would be to do stepped mashes which would mostly be used for things like wheat and rye for a protein rest to help get the conversion going, but not necessary for making whiskey. I have a HERMS system and rarely do I use it for doing stepped mashes for this purpose. Also a 5500w element is a little overkill unless you want to get up to temps extremely fast and run the chances of scorthing your wort. I would look into 2500w elemnts. there is a ton of info @ http://www.thelectricbrewery.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow on building electrical system for brewing.

[raketemensch]

Thanks, yammit, that's kinda what I was hoping for. I appreciate you chiming in, that's all great info.

I'm thinking I might be able to get away with a single stockpot with an element and a temp controller, to mainly do enzyme mashes. Because of the way my raspberry pi is set up, I'll probably be using a 5500 watt bent ULWD element at 120, so it'll only be 1750 watts.

I'm seriously considering picking up the electric brewery's book, I just wish it was available electronically. Kinda ironic that it isn't... But it seems like most of their stuff is multi-pot, and very beer-oriented.

[yammit]

Their site is all beer oriented but it all transfers over well to the distilling world, after all aren't we just making a base beer for whiskey? Also putting a heating element directly in the mash tun isn't the best idea because you run the chances of scorching whatever you are mashing. You could have a big dead space above the heater with a screen to prevent too much solid matter getting through but then you would again need a pump to vorlauf(recirculate the mash over itself to act as a filter and capture small particles that get through the screen back to the top) and then turn the heater on. I am a brewer first and a fairly novice distiller but I got a lot of wort production experience.