Recirculation question

I have not done an AG brew yet but I have been getting everything ready. I have read that aeration during the extration is not good but I was thinking about recirculating the initial runoff through my sparging setup. The setup sits on the bottom side of the lid of my cooler and drips the water over the grain bed.

Do you think that this would aeriate it any more than just pouring it in would? There is going to be splashing either way so do you think it would matter? It would have the benefit of not disrupting the grain bed upon pouring it back it.

What do you think?

You can absolutely recirc via a pump in this way with no ill effects at all..it will improve your clarity and it will improve your grainbed compaction for better filtration...the only drawback is a slight temp loss..I usually recirc this way after mashout temp is reached - about 168 170 F and then again for second runnings.

I just set my brewery up to recirculate the mash with a pump and have done 1 batch on it. It worked great and I had very clear runnings, I did lose some heat but found that turning the burner on gave me a constant temp and would not even get close enough to scorching the grain. I set mine up so that no part of the recirculating wort was in the air. If your sparge arm moves, I say put it in the grain bed so it doesn't drip at all.
It took me awhile to figure out how to use the same arm for sparging as for the recirculation but i finally settled on a piece of copper tube poking through my lid that I could put a hose clamp on in order to raise and lower the arm. I have about 12 inches of adjustability.

or you can skip recirc pretty much alltogether with the exception of vourlauf by using a mash pad.

i am assuming you want to recirc to get all the bits n pieces out of the runnings?

The way I have it setup is not automated, but I can take the wort and recirculate it at the same time I am sparging. It will drip, but the cooler lid will not need to be opened so I think that the combination of warm sparge water and a closed cooler lid will keep the temperature from dropping. That is the plan at least.

I would try to avoid the dripping if possible. (I built the adjustable sparge arm just for this) The dripping could possibly contribute to HSA, which is bad for the long term stability of the beer.