I am in the process of assembling an auxiliary control box that will plug into the box containing my BCS460 and automate my single teir-propane fired- herms brew rig[cooler mash tun, single solenoid under HLT]. I am trying to plan out just where to place my temp probes and how to program the burner solenoid to achieve steady mash temp and a nice quick ramp-up for mash out.
I am thinking I will locate the probes in Tee's at the output of the HLT and at the output of the MLT. 2 pumps will recirculate HLT water and MLT mash. The mash will pump through a long(~50') copper coil in the HLT and return to the top of the MLT. I realized that the best way to get a good average temperature of the recirculating mash throughout the entire mash (and step up at the end of the mash) would be to assume my average mash temp is the average of the HLT output and the MLT output. This will save me from having to somehow insert a probe into the mash tun cooler body, and I believe that it will be the best possible representative mash average temp. This is because the hottest the mash will be is the outlet of the HLT temp and the coolest the mash will be is the outlet of the MLT temp.
I can program the system (using a check box in system settings) to take the average of these two temps and assign it to one temp (temp2).
Has anyone heard of/though of this before? What are the disadvantages? Any thoughts/comments/programming tips would be appreciated.
Cheers
HERMS: Averaging temps for Mash
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clearwaterbrewer
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Re: HERMS: Averaging temps for Mash
I agree, get the RIMS heat sensor as close as you can to the RIMS element. Just *monitor* the mash temp... you will be pleasantly surprised... OK, maybe not so close it is touching, but less than 1-2" from downstream portion of element will give you very accurate results and also keep a stuck mash from making a charcoal briquet out of anything in the RIMS tube...