Recommendations for ceramic heating element?

[rigatron]

Hello,

Through the years of brewing, I've always found that hitting and maintaining mash temps is one of the most difficult aspects of brewing. I almost always find myself out of my desired range, whether it be at the beginning or end of the mash.

I want to create a simple contraption which helps maintain mash temps via a ceramic heating element, raspberry pi, arduino, and an electronic relay switch. However, I'm having some problems finding a suitable ceramic heating element, and don't really know what considerations I should take into account.

Does anyone here have any experience with this sort of contraption? I would appreciate a recommendation on a good heating element. Just as a side note, I know there are probably commercial products out there that do this better than I will make this, but I'm a Computer Engineering student and am interested in doing this as a side project, and possibly as a hackathon contest entry.

Thanks!

 

[kal]

Why ceramic?

Most who want to add heat to the mash will do so via HERMS or RIMS which are indirect ways of heating the sweet wort through recirculation.

Kal

 

[rigatron]

Why ceramic?

Most who want to add heat to the mash will do so via HERMS or RIMS which are indirect ways of heating the sweet wort through recirculation.

Kal

Thank you for your reply, this is a good idea, and has set me in the right direction. However, in order to really turn this into a project that would be interesting to me, there has to be some level of automation involved.

From brewersfriend:

"As previously stated this system is used to maintain and change the temperature of your mash, so the need for some level of automation is almost a necessity. Whether the HLT is heated with a gas burner, or with an electrical heating element, you have to control the temperature of the HLT water (heating medium) precisely in order to take full advantage of the systems ability. This control is accomplished easier when heating with electricity, where the switching (on/off) of a heating element is done via a simple temperature controller which is wired to the heating element. During operation the controller is reading the HLT water temperature via a temperature probe in the HLT water (heating medium)."

So there is still room to create this project for me. I still need to do more research in the process, but any further insight (especially in regards to supplies) would be appreciated.

 

[iijakii]

There are hundreds of examples of semi to fully automated HERMS/RIMS builds on this forum, just spend some time reading through build threads.

But back to Kal's question, why ceramic? Is there a reason you aren't wanting to go submersible water heater element? Method of heat is not relevant to level of automation.

 

[kal]

Depends what you mean by automated too. When brewers talk about an automated setup they usually mean something that's close to "press a button and wort comes out". Not automated temperature holding to hit and maintain mash temps as that's something you get with any simple HERMS or RIMS build. Depends what you're after. If HERMS is something you're interested in, you can read one approach to building from my build - see the link in my signature.

Kal

 

[rigatron]

Is there a reason you aren't wanting to go submersible water heater element? Method of heat is not relevant to level of automation.

No there isn't, I'm just not familiar with how many people do this. Before posting this I had never heard of HERMS or RIMS, so I'm glad that I posted this question, but I realize I have a lot of independent research to do.

Depends what you mean by automated too. When brewers talk about an automated setup they usually mean something that's close to "press a button and wort comes out". Not automated temperature holding to hit and maintain mash temps as that's something you get with any simple HERMS or RIMS build. Depends what you're after. If HERMS is something you're interested in, you can read one approach to building from my build - see the link in my signature.

Kal

When I say automated, I'm just referring to turning the heating element on/off to hold the temperature. Thanks for the link.