Hello All - I have a SS brew tech 10 gallon tun. It is built to not be used with a burner. It has a small heating pad in the bottom but doesn’t really help keep the temperature stable and definitely can’t change the temperature of a tun that size.
Does anyone know of a electric heating pad that is able to keep the kettle of this size 150f-154f? It would also need to be able to tolerate 20lb weight of the tun and have a controller to set temperature.
Thanks!
I’m not familiar with that mash tun. But, is it insulated? If not, perhaps you can devise a means to insulate it with a wrap of some sort. That should help, providing the tuns heating element is large enough to maintain that temperature AND the heater is working properly.
Thanks for the response! The tun has 1" thick insulation within the walls of the tun. However if the weather is either cold or hot the temperature varies (either low or high) too much for me. Most common scenario is after adding the grains into the tun with the water that was 10 degrees higher than my target goes below my target temperature by several degrees. I was thinking if I had a strong enough heat pad sitting under the tun I could correct the drop in temperature quickly during the most important part of the mash (15-20 minutes)
I think you should simply preheat the tun with strike water and drain back into the boil kettle to heat back up and shoot a few degrees higher to normalize the mash at the desired temperature or just heat up the strike water even higher to get the mash to the desired mashing temperature. I have this mash tun in the 20 gallon size and that usually represents a large enough mass to hold temp within a couple degrees for the mash. Alternatively, you could rig up a HERMS system or a RIMS system to dial in the temp precisely.
Cheers.
I agree with ynotbrusum- I made a homemade insulated tun and find that pre-heating it is a good idea. I check the temp about 10-15 into the mash and let it ride or adjust with more hot water if necessary. You could also cover the tun in some blankets for sleeping bags a la Don Osborne.
I purchased a 1500w single burner hot plate for re the same purpose. I supported the mash tun on a homemade stand to support the mash tun. I spring loaded the hot plate up against the bottom of the mash tun. with no amount of PID tuning could I get a consistent temperature in the mash tun. I experienced severe temperature swings due to the slow response and temperature. I am switching to a recirculating electric mass tun
thanks for the response!
Could you use an induction burner with that tun? Some have temperature control which you could use.
I run into the same issue with my induction burner — if there’s nothing agitating the wort, you just get temperature gradients and uneven heating.
Edit to clarify: not with that specific tun, but I’d expect to get the same results with any mash vessel.
I have the same mash tun you are asking about and used the heating pad - what a waste of money.
That pad is useless, it can’t even hold a temperature!
What I ended up doing (after I removed the heating pad since the cable was constantly in the way) was to heat up the mash tun with 4 gal of boiling water for 10 minutes, then mash in and use my cooling coil and my old boil kettle to maintain the temperature while circulating the mash.
If you would like to discuss further, let me know!
Tx
Harry