Sample Step Mash
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2009 9:13 pm
I spent some time talking tonight with Bryan about how to set up a state machine, he has a fairly consistent step mash he does, and here is how I felt I would go about setting this all up. It's hard to do in words, so first I will try, and then the screen shots.
He and I both use HERMS based brewing so I just used my config to brew the way he does, and setup a process to do it.
Goes like this:
-strike water ~162
-Dough in and first step 30 minutes at 145
-rise to 158, hold 30 minutes
-rise to 168 for mash out
-sparge with 168 water.
I used a 7 state process(and it could really be 6 states) to get this goal.
1. Get strike water
2. Dough in and confirm temp is 145 before starting timer
3. hold 145 for 30 minutes
4. go to 158
5. hold 158
6. go to and hold 168
7. use herms exchanger to generate 168 sparge water(requires a switch of some valves in my brewery, but the config is really the same as step 6...not sure why I bother with the extra state, maybe I just want to be able to say i used all the states. Having a hard time doing it.
Ok, pictures. First you need to see all my configurations:
The associations are interesting cause they are how the bcs knows what temperature reading it is controlling with what power output if you are using PID or Differential. When I am changing temps I use differential, cause I would rather a minor over shoot(my brewery only goes a bit past) than waiting the longer time I believe a pid would take to asymptotically reach the target temp(YMMV).
Ok, next is the process and it's states:
And then all the states:
State 0:
State 1:
State 2:
State 3:
State 4:
State 5:
State 6:
EDIT: There are subtitles in how I would use this and how it might work, I might have issues with the "goto" steps, at least the first one as the mash will probably take 10 minutes or so to drop to it's temp so that state may not be quite right, perhaps an intervening step just recirculating for 10 minutes before checking for 145 might help, additionally during parts of the brew, again doughing in, I would probably "Pause Process" so more heat wasn't being added to the grain bed, if I didn't add that additional state of waiting for temp stabilization after dough in. All that being said I think you should be able to see how to do this with minor modifications to this relatively complicated example.
Hopefully this answers more questions, than it raises.
Cheers, and go make some beer already!
He and I both use HERMS based brewing so I just used my config to brew the way he does, and setup a process to do it.
Goes like this:
-strike water ~162
-Dough in and first step 30 minutes at 145
-rise to 158, hold 30 minutes
-rise to 168 for mash out
-sparge with 168 water.
I used a 7 state process(and it could really be 6 states) to get this goal.
1. Get strike water
2. Dough in and confirm temp is 145 before starting timer
3. hold 145 for 30 minutes
4. go to 158
5. hold 158
6. go to and hold 168
7. use herms exchanger to generate 168 sparge water(requires a switch of some valves in my brewery, but the config is really the same as step 6...not sure why I bother with the extra state, maybe I just want to be able to say i used all the states. Having a hard time doing it.
Ok, pictures. First you need to see all my configurations:
The associations are interesting cause they are how the bcs knows what temperature reading it is controlling with what power output if you are using PID or Differential. When I am changing temps I use differential, cause I would rather a minor over shoot(my brewery only goes a bit past) than waiting the longer time I believe a pid would take to asymptotically reach the target temp(YMMV).
Ok, next is the process and it's states:
And then all the states:
State 0:
State 1:
State 2:
State 3:
State 4:
State 5:
State 6:
EDIT: There are subtitles in how I would use this and how it might work, I might have issues with the "goto" steps, at least the first one as the mash will probably take 10 minutes or so to drop to it's temp so that state may not be quite right, perhaps an intervening step just recirculating for 10 minutes before checking for 145 might help, additionally during parts of the brew, again doughing in, I would probably "Pause Process" so more heat wasn't being added to the grain bed, if I didn't add that additional state of waiting for temp stabilization after dough in. All that being said I think you should be able to see how to do this with minor modifications to this relatively complicated example.
Hopefully this answers more questions, than it raises.
Cheers, and go make some beer already!