Interesting Thing In Lidl

[Graz]

Cheap temperature controlled mash tun?
https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/p/kitchen...ectric-fruit-preserver-jam-maker/p31314?ar=14
Saw it an immediately thought home brew...

 

[Leon103]

Looks ideal

 

[kelper]

As the set point only goes up to 100C you might not get a steady, rolling boil.

 

[PhilBrew]

MrsB came home from Lidl with one of those a few years ago (the brewing logs say 2012 ... Jeez ) ... I adapted it to get it to maintain a boil and did my one and only ever extract brew with it, and my first dozen or so BIAB brews in it ... MrsB even made some Jam using it ... on brewday, around a year after starting to use it, after sparging the grain bag for an old fashioned (English) IPA but well before it got up to boiling, the electronic controller fried itself and it was no more ... apparently it was (may still be) a common problem with them, but back then they offered a really good two year warranty, and I'd seen brewers on forums who'd got them to use as HLTs (unmodified) have them replaced during the warranty period without problem (some more than once) ... I didn't bother contacting them about the warranty because they'd have seen just how much "messing about with it" I'd done

It was great while it lasted though!
Cheers, PhilB

 

[Graz]

As the set point only goes up to 100C you might not get a steady, rolling boil.

I was thinking mashing rather than boiling, move to next pot to boil as you would do in a traditional 3 vessel set up, but if it could be adapted to do so it might be even more useful... But then given the above.

 

[PhilBrew]

Hi Graz

I was thinking mashing rather than boiling, move to next pot to boil as you would do in a traditional 3 vessel set up

... for that part of the job it'll work fine, the temperature probe was in the base of the unit, and the control was a simple on/off (not anything remotely PID-like) IIRC ... and for my first few AG brews I kept getting significantly lower FGs than I anticipated ... eventually I discovered from taking LOTS and LOTS of temperature measurements during a mash, that whatever I did the temperature of the grain in the bag would remain 2C cooler than the temperature of the wort outside the bag ... so if I wanted to mash at 66C, say, I'd need to set it to mash at 68C ... once I'd sorted that out, it was great. They even provide a "preserving rack" with the unit, it's meant to be used to sit jars of fruit on it when preserving (pasteurising) them, but it's great at keeping your grain bag off the heating element

but if it could be adapted to do so it might be even more useful... But then given the above

... yeah, if you have an alternative way of boiling your wort available to you, it may be a smarter move not to go adapting one of these ... with the electronic controller it's not so simple a mod as moving/removing a thermostat (like when adapting a tea urn, say) ... and they're now offering three year warranties, on these I see, so you may not want to gamble with that too much

Cheers, PhilB

 

[Satellitemark]

Please forgive me if this is a dumb question, I know next to nothing beyond kits.
Could I use this unmodified for a first step into all grain brewing , thinking along the lines of brew in the bag , remove bag , boil the wort then into a FV and so on ?
Also if that Idea works could I chill the wort with a copper coil in this machine ?

Many thanks for any input

Mark

 

[PhilBrew]

Hi Mark

"unmodified" no it won't maintain a boil ... like kelper says the highest you can set it is 100C, and when the sensor senses it's heated to that temp it'll turn the heater off, until it cools to 99C and turns the heater back on ... with luck that might get you a simmer but for boiling mashed wort, you really want a rolling boil

Cheers, PhilB

 

[Satellitemark]

Thanks Phil, I have a space problem so was looking for a compact and relatively cheap way into all grain.


Mark

 

[MyQul]

Thanks Phil, I have a space problem so was looking for a compact and relatively cheap way into all grain.


Mark

You could do 10L BIAB. A 15L pot wont be much bigger than that bit of kit. You'll have almost everything you need already from kit brewing. For BIAB you'll just need a pot and a mash bag

 

[kelper]

Please forgive me if this is a dumb question, I know next to nothing beyond kits.
Could I use this unmodified for a first step into all grain brewing , thinking along the lines of brew in the bag , remove bag , boil the wort then into a FV and so on ?
Also if that Idea works could I chill the wort with a copper coil in this machine ?

Many thanks for any input

Mark

It's a perfectly reasonable question! On this forum, there isn't such thing as a dumb question. There are some dumb answers, occasionally

So, please, fire away. The forum members are keen to help you.

 

[Satellitemark]

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

Mark

 

[PhilBrew]

Hi Mark

Like MyQul says a stockpot doesn't take up much room ... you could even go for a 19l pot, they're still available on ebay/amazon for £20-25 (search for "19l stainless steel stock pot") and they're not that much bigger than a basket ball when delivered in a box ... and if you full volume BIAB you might get 10-13 lts out ... if you maxi-BIAB following the approach that Ralph de Vries first developed over there (link) (they've updated that forum and the formatting of those old posts is a bit of a mess, but you should still be able to follow it) you could be getting a enough to fill a corny (or more) out of one of those little pots

As kelper says, the knowledge is out there, the dumbest thing to do is to not ask and not benefit from it all

Cheers, PhilB

 

[Fuzzy Growler]

Following on from this conversation as I've just seen the jam preserver in Lidl myself and thought brewing.... As this is not good enough for a rolling boil is the tea urn's good enough? I saw one on eBay that went to 110'c