Insulating the mash tun

July 04, 2014

Insulating the mash tun

While we're waiting for our HERMS to be rebuilt we have had to employ other methods of controlling the temperature of our mash.

Many will say our mash tun should have been insulated from the start and they are right. I mean aside from making temperature control simpler it also saves energy which in return saves money. Truth be told it was also something we requested when we purchased our equipment but were convinced it was not required. Either way its required now and we have bush mechanic'd it...

Mash Tun

We have many plans to make our insulation more aesthetically pleasing and robust, but for the point of this exercise it'll do.

I'm sure many readers of our page are aware just how important temperature regulation is for the mashing stage and what an effect variation can have on your brew time and end product. What really threw us a curve ball was the variance between our probes readings (from the thermo well)  and the actual reading from various stages in the brew. In some cases it has been up to 5% variance. A trap for you players...

I guess the long and short of it is everyday our efficiency is going up and our brew times are going down and that can only be a good thing!