Mash temperature monitoring. My Xmas pressy to me

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shuggie159

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Joined
Sep 5, 2011
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Sanderstead, S Croydon
I recently had a very perculiar brew which came out with sweeter malty undertones than previous incarnations of the same receipe. I put this down to a possibly too hot a mash; but my brew records show that, at the time, I had no incling of a problem in this regard.

So to cut to the quick.... I have purchaced a new bit of kit.

It's a Elitech data logger, currently on ebay for £14.10, all the way from sunny China.

At first sight it looks to be a usful bit of kit.

It has....
a resolution of 0.1 degC,
caliberatable to your reference thermometer
can monitor up to 80degC with an external probe,
can take incremental records every 10 sec (16000 in total)
could be used with fermentation monitoring etc too.

This I hope will help me understand my mashing process in greater detail.

I have a (Vossy type) RIMS set up with PID which I'm still practicing with.
Starting it up at exactly 66-67degC is the issue, due to the extra heat capacity of the system, but once settled down it is faultless.
I still haven't decided how quickly the enzymes work on the starch, and how quickly the de-nurture if you accidently go over or under your target.

I will now be able to have a hard copy of mash performance for each individual brew, to help appraisal at tasting notes time.

For what its worth... My current thoughts are, accurately hitting the mash temperature for the first 15 mins is much more important than slipping a degree or two after 90mins.....

To my mind at £14 quid it's a no brainer. OK it doesn't do any thing to enhance your beer, but it may help you improve your technique...and I do like gizmos, especially at Xmas.

If my father had known knowledge and understanding could be bought so cheaply, my life would have taken a very different course.
 
Hi , you should aim for a cooler start and bring the temp up 1c per min if poss , so aim for 63/4c . Once your grain reaches a certain temp such as 71c for example lowering it down to 64c won't convert starch at that temp ( dry, thin) it will still be converting at the higher end (sweeter, fuller)
Is that what happened to your latest batch ? Started high then dropped it and it is fuller , did it finish higher (gravity) than other batches .
 
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