My usual brew days are 6 hours. My usual brewhouse efficiency is 75% (83% to kettle).
Today I tried out a new setup with my new pump. RIMS, no sparge, no chill.
Dumped all 8.25 gal of water into the kettle, added my salts per the water adjustment spreadsheet assuming 8.25 gal of mash volume, and loaded up 11# of grain into my mash tun. Goal is to have 7 gal pre-boil, assuming .125 gal per # of absorption. BeerSmith says with that much water to heat to 162*F so I heated to 161*F while setting up, measuring, and crushing grain. Once I hit my strike temp I pumped all the water into the cooler and then started recirculating.
After stirring the mash in in the MLT and letting temp settle it ended up 1*F over my desired strike temp of 150*F at 151*F. Not bad for a RIMS n00b. It took a few adjustments to equalize the flow between the pump and the MLT but I found it tends to equalize on its own if you are patient and don't mess with it (a few inch rise or drop in the kettle will tend to offset the potential flow from the pump valve and the level will stay constant, as long as the valve setting between pump and MLT aren't off too far from each other).
Recirculated for 40 minutes for a total of 45 minutes to mash, then I started slowly heating until I hit 165*F for mashout. I had to run the burner for about 1 min every 10 min to keep the mash temp constant. After hitting mashout I turned off the pump and let the MLT drain into the kettle while heating for the boil, now at full throttle.
Here are a few more pics of the recirculating system between the BK and the MLT.
I have created a spreadsheet I use to determine my expected gravity, efficiency to boiler and brewhouse efficiency (.xls format). View attachment NoSparge.zip
Today I tried out a new setup with my new pump. RIMS, no sparge, no chill.
Dumped all 8.25 gal of water into the kettle, added my salts per the water adjustment spreadsheet assuming 8.25 gal of mash volume, and loaded up 11# of grain into my mash tun. Goal is to have 7 gal pre-boil, assuming .125 gal per # of absorption. BeerSmith says with that much water to heat to 162*F so I heated to 161*F while setting up, measuring, and crushing grain. Once I hit my strike temp I pumped all the water into the cooler and then started recirculating.
After stirring the mash in in the MLT and letting temp settle it ended up 1*F over my desired strike temp of 150*F at 151*F. Not bad for a RIMS n00b. It took a few adjustments to equalize the flow between the pump and the MLT but I found it tends to equalize on its own if you are patient and don't mess with it (a few inch rise or drop in the kettle will tend to offset the potential flow from the pump valve and the level will stay constant, as long as the valve setting between pump and MLT aren't off too far from each other).
Recirculated for 40 minutes for a total of 45 minutes to mash, then I started slowly heating until I hit 165*F for mashout. I had to run the burner for about 1 min every 10 min to keep the mash temp constant. After hitting mashout I turned off the pump and let the MLT drain into the kettle while heating for the boil, now at full throttle.
Here are a few more pics of the recirculating system between the BK and the MLT.
I have created a spreadsheet I use to determine my expected gravity, efficiency to boiler and brewhouse efficiency (.xls format). View attachment NoSparge.zip