My 6kW RIMS tube

I'm slowly getting all my parts together and finally dry fit up my rims tube. The element is a 6kw ss chromalox process heater. Watt density was around 40w/in2 iirc and was less the ulwd ripp elements. The tube is 2.5" and 28" long with triclovers on both ends. I had a 2" fpt welded to a tc ferrule and that's where the element threads in. The other end of the tube is just capped. The cap is made from a short ferrule with a piece of 20 ga ss welded to it. I had spare ferrules and it was cheaper to weld up a cap rather than buying one. The plan is to pump into the bottom of the tube, out the top, and recirc back through the pump whatever doesn't go to the mash tun. The cross has tow valves, the top goes to the tun, the left one is the recirc back to the pump. By doing this I'll be able to do a full speed flow through the tube and keep temps constant while getting just what I need going into the tun. The right leg of the cross is where the temp sensor will be going to the auber 2352 pid that runs the chromalox scr.


I used 1/2" polypropeleyne cam locks from proflow and they've been working great on my pump and chiller the past few brews and will have them on the whole rig once it's done.

Overall shot of the beast



Closeup of the cross and diverter valves and location on the right of the temp sensor.



npt to tc connections





Endcap



Broken down





Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Gorgeous. Nicely done.

NINJA EDIT: Any idea how much volume is inside the RIMS tube?

diatonic said:

Gorgeous. Nicely done.

NINJA EDIT: Any idea how much volume is inside the RIMS tube?

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Just shy of 1/2 a gallon for the tube itself, so with the element probably a 1/3 gallon.

What a beaut! Or Brute! Or both!

Just a few questions. Is the RIMS tube going to be used as a tankless water heater or going to be used simply to keep the mash at the proper temperature? What size batches do you brew?

Sawdustguy said:

Just a few questions. Is the RIMS tube going to be used as a tankless water heater or going to be used simply to keep the mash at the proper temperature? What size batches do you brew?

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I planned to be able to to on demand sparge & strike water plus be able to step mash. It should be able to do 0.325 gpm from 50-170 if I can keep a bit of insulation plus the larger volume of the tube was intended to be a buffer and smooth out my temps heading to the mash tun during recirc and sparge.

I do both 5 & 10 gallon batches now and once the rims is up will make the big 10 gallon batches easier when I'm using keggle mash tun instead of one of my coolers.

Unless it ends up being too much wort held up in the tube I'm stoked to see how it works.

I was curious because I do not do on demand sparge water but I do 10 gallon batches with a 1500 watt element. It is more than enough to keep the mash temperature stable. If you are doing on demand I understand the element size. I don't step mash because the malts I use are fully modified and one would be foolish to step mash with a fully modified malt.

I'm curious about the recirculate part. I am putting my rig together as we speak, and wonder about the ability of a larger (4500w) element to cycle on and off, and keep a steady temp back to the kettle

I'm fairly certain that rocks! :rockin:

I have seen those around but decided to go the traditional route. So what kinda circuit are you on? Will you be able to crank it to 6k? I'm really interested because I'm using a 5500w on a 30a circuit (actually 50a, but my system is designed for 30a).

Sawdustguy said:

I was curious because I do not do on demand sparge water but I do 10 gallon batches with a 1500 watt element. It is more than enough to keep the mash temperature stable. If you are doing on demand I understand the element size. I don't step mash because the malts I use are fully modified and one would be foolish to step mash with a fully modified malt.

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Electric hot water on demand is not very feasible.

With a 6kWh Heating element you could do about .8 gpm going from 120 * F to 170 * F

you could do about .35 gpm going from 50 *F to 170 *F.

For 5 gallon batches I guess it might be practical if you use your house hot water heater to start, but for 10 (or in my case 45 gallon batches), the flow rate starts to become less practical. Especially sine I dont have hot water where I brew.

Sawdustguy said:

I was curious because I do not do on demand sparge water but I do 10 gallon batches with a 1500 watt element. It is more than enough to keep the mash temperature stable. If you are doing on demand I understand the element size. I don't step mash because the malts I use are fully modified and one would be foolish to step mash with a fully modified malt.

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I agree on the 1500W being sufficient for just maintaining. At this point I've been doing fairly long sparges (45-90 minutes) and the 6kW will be more than enough to take care of even a qt/min if I speed up the precess. I've got a 4.5kW that I may run on 120V when I'm running outside during the summer just for maintaining the mash.

Layne said:

I'm curious about the recirculate part. I am putting my rig together as we speak, and wonder about the ability of a larger (4500w) element to cycle on and off, and keep a steady temp back to the kettle

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Like sawdust said, 1500W is good for maintaining mash temps easily. With a pid and ssr/scr you can easily cycle the element for temp control.

ScubaSteve said:

I'm fairly certain that rocks! :rockin:

I have seen those around but decided to go the traditional route. So what kinda circuit are you on? Will you be able to crank it to 6k? I'm really interested because I'm using a 5500w on a 30a circuit (actually 50a, but my system is designed for 30a).

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I'll be putting a dedicated 50-60A feed in the basement to handle this and eventually my electric calandria.
I picked up a 4.5kW after this just to run on 120, but was shooting for the easy install into a regular npt fitting without leak risk and at the time I got it there was still debate on the scorching effect. Plus for $40 I had this beauty!!

cruelkix said:

Electric hot water on demand is not very feasible.

With a 6kWh Heating element you could do about .8 gpm going from 120 * F to 170 * F

you could do about .35 gpm going from 50 *F to 170 *F.

For 5 gallon batches I guess it might be practical if you use your house hot water heater to start, but for 10 (or in my case 45 gallon batches), the flow rate starts to become less practical. Especially sine I dont have hot water where I brew.

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The on demand will be mainly for sparging and strike will be done with some recirc to get to temp. The biggest strike I'd be doing is around 10-12 gallons and that'll take ~35 minutes.


Ramp rate is the one unknown I have right now as I'm not sure how fast I'll be able to recirc through the mas without sticking it. What is everyone able to recirc at with their various systems?

I do about 1 GPM recirculation rate without sticking the mash with all barley mashes, and after a protein rest for wheat beers. I do not know if anyone else has flow meters in their systems to be able to actually observe the flow rate rather than just guess. The faster you want to flow the coarser the grist has to be to keep things flowing, and the yield goes lower as you do.

cruelkix said:

Electric hot water on demand is not very feasible.

With a 6kWh Heating element you could do about .8 gpm going from 120 * F to 170 * F

you could do about .35 gpm going from 50 *F to 170 *F.

For 5 gallon batches I guess it might be practical if you use your house hot water heater to start, but for 10 (or in my case 45 gallon batches), the flow rate starts to become less practical. Especially sine I dont have hot water where I brew.

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Wrong. The 6 KW element is more than sufficient for fly sparging. Read Sizz's RIMS thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/rims-build-129646/

klaude, do you condition your malt before you crush it or just open the gap up?

I have a motorized Valley mill (old), after a number of batches it has been opened up to give a medium-coarse crush with about 1/16" solid bits and some finer material with efficiencies in the low to mid 70's. If it is closed up to produce mostly fine particles then recirculation causes stuck mash, but if mash tun is gravity drained slowly (45 minutes) it yields 80% efficiency.
you should be flowing around .15 -.2 GPM on sparge for a 45 -30 minute sparge cycle, that should be well within the reach of a 6KW heater, doable with 4500 watts.

Sawdustguy said:

Wrong. The 6 KW element is more than sufficient for fly sparging. Read Sizz's RIMS thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/rims-build-129646/

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If you compare what you quote in the thread you linked me and what I wrote you will see that he (Sizz) was generating a flow rate of 1 quart or .25 gallons per minute using a 5500w element at 60% generating a raise in temperature from 80 to mid 160's. This falls very much in line with the numbers I posted. I still argue that this is not sufficient for on demand hot water (my original point), but may be possible for fly sparging. This will not, however, replace the HLT (weather the OP was going for that or not I am unsure). It also took him (Sizz) 51 minutes to fly sparge a 10 gallon batch. If that works for him and for this particular situation, great. As I said I don't find that particularly practical for larger batches and it will require more time than that. I think "wrong" is a short sighted response to a well thought out post.

cruelkix said:

If you compare what you quote in the thread you linked me and what I wrote you will see that he (Sizz) was generating a flow rate of 1 quart or .25 gallons per minute using a 5500w element at 60% generating a raise in temperature from 80 to mid 160's. This falls very much in line with the numbers I posted. I still argue that this is not sufficient for on demand hot water (my original point), but may be possible for fly sparging. This will not, however, replace the HLT (weather the OP was going for that or not I am unsure). It also took him (Sizz) 51 minutes to fly sparge a 10 gallon batch. If that works for him and for this particular situation, great. As I said I don't find that particularly practical for larger batches and it will require more time than that. I think "wrong" is a short sighted response to a well thought out post.

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I am not wrong. I think 51 minutes is very reasonable for a fly sparge. I usually take 45 minutes and I use a hot liquor tank. You don't want to fly sparge in 10 minutes. A normal fly sparge can take from 30 minutes to an hour so Sizz is right on target. You are right, he can not use it as a tankless hot water heater in the traditional sense but it is more than sufficient for a 10 gallon batch fly sparge. I don't think the OP cares about larger batches than 10 gallons. That is what I asked him what batch size we was doing in post #5.

WPStrassburg said:

I do both 5 & 10 gallon batches now and once the rims is up will make the big 10 gallon batches easier when I'm using keggle mash tun instead of one of my coolers.

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Not to pour gas on the fire, but once you go past 10 gallon batches, all bets are off. Your vessels, elements, grainbills, power sources, etc. become very different by necessity. Likewise, certain techniques go out the window.....stuff we do on the small scale (like immersion chilling) would just never be practical @ > 1/2 BBL.....

ScubaSteve said:

Not to pour gas on the fire, but once you go past 10 gallon batches, all bets are off. Your vessels, elements, grainbills, power sources, etc. become very different by necessity. Likewise, certain techniques go out the window.....stuff we do on the small scale (like immersion chilling) would just never be practical @ > 1/2 BBL.....

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I agree with that Steve. I know I will never brew more than 10 gallons at a time. I just can't drink that much beer.

While that thing rocks, I'm wondering what the advantage of on demand sparge water is. I mean, I'm recirculating thru the RIMS tube during the mash. It's generally a 60 minute mash which leaves plenty of time to heat the sparge water. I have a brutus 20 so I just recirculate the sparge water thru the rims tube and dial it in at my proper sparge temp.

Again, that is very nice piece of equipment. But what are the advantages over heating your sparge and strike water in a kettle rather than a tube?

Klaude, I've got a valley mill as well and will have to play with the crush if I get into higher flow rates if I need to ramp faster.

10 gallons is probably the largest I'd do with this system. Longer sparges are no problem and I see them as beneficial at this point by getting all the sugars out I can.

The on demand sparge is just a nice side benefit of having the large element available and I do plan on having a 120/240v hlt for when I'm running on propane.

Strike water will be single passed through the rims at 100% power and then recirced till I get to my strike temp

Dgonza9 said:

While that thing rocks, I'm wondering what the advantage of on demand sparge water is. I mean, I'm recirculating thru the RIMS tube during the mash. It's generally a 60 minute mash which leaves plenty of time to heat the sparge water. I have a brutus 20 so I just recirculate the sparge water thru the rims tube and dial it in at my proper sparge temp.

Again, that is very nice piece of equipment. But what are the advantages over heating your sparge and strike water in a kettle rather than a tube?

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The main reason why I used it in my build for on-demand strike/sparging (in addition to the traditonal RIMS mash recirc/temp control) is that you can eliminate a vessel. That's a pretty big deal! All things being equal, if it takes the same amount of time to heat a HLT full of water....it would SEEM like a moot point.....but space management is a pretty big deal when designing a sculpture....at least it is for me; I'm trying to build a single vessel brewery that can accomplish the same thing as a traditional 3 vessel system.

<Tiptoes back out of thread....>

I contemplated going down to a 2 vessel rig when I seen some other threads and figured out I could sparge on demand, but figured I'd still be running it on propane or natural gas, so I kept it 5' wide and have room for 3 tanks.

I also picked up a nice rectangular aluminum HLT tank that'll be mounted in the lower portion of the rig and be the 120V HLT, so on those extra adventurous days I can be running two batches at once and cover myself when I'm on gas.

Some days I wonder if it's a good thing that I'm dragging my arse, as it seems the longer I go the more cool ideas I see and come up with?

Here's how the base frame and vessels stand now.

What's to keep you from modding the frame and having that HLT fit nicely under the 2 vessels? I used to use that configuration, and it was great. B3 even does something similar with their 1550 BrewSculpture

My HLT sits under also.

Wow, that's an AWESOME build (how did I miss it?)....I really dig that compact style....I just get tired of the standard single tier look, ya know?

I really like that SS countertop too!

Yeah, can't wait to get this rig finished and start brewing again. Maybe this weekend (fingers crossed).

Layne, Nice rig.

Steve, I could narrow it up, but I've got the space for it and like the extra space is nice to work with.

Plus after the zombie apocalypse I will have a spot for the mash tun on the right and be able to slide the keggle hlt to the middle over the little burner....

How do you drain the RIMS tube when you are done sparging? Is half a gallon left in the tube?

WPStrassburg said:

Ramp rate is the one unknown I have right now as I'm not sure how fast I'll be able to recirc through the mas without sticking it. What is everyone able to recirc at with their various systems?

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Stuck mashes are a non-issue in my system because I am using a basket. That being said, you don't need to recirc quickly, just consistently. The grain bed will settle eventually, then you'll get the fine filtering kicking in and the wort will significantly clear up.

BUT, if you're trying to ramp up the temp as you recirc, you need to REALLY watch it because the element (especially a monster one like you have) will cause a boil in the tube whenever it comes on. So you kind of need to find a balance between recircing too fast and potentially going so slow that you have an issue with steam/sputtering/etc. As long as the outlet of the RIMS is not blocked and the tubing is secured, it should be okay. If not, you've got a potential explosion or steam burns waiting to happen!

mysteryberto said:

How do you drain the RIMS tube when you are done sparging? Is half a gallon left in the tube?

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What's left in the tube after the sparge can be drained by just popping one of the quick connects of and draining it out. It will only be water at this point so no big loss.

ScubaSteve said:

BUT, if you're trying to ramp up the temp as you recirc, you need to REALLY watch it because the element (especially a monster one like you have) will cause a boil in the tube whenever it comes on. So you kind of need to find a balance between recircing too fast and potentially going so slow that you have an issue with steam/sputtering/etc. As long as the outlet of the RIMS is not blocked and the tubing is secured, it should be okay. If not, you've got a potential explosion or steam burns waiting to happen!

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Ramp rate is the unknown right now, but I will have more or less full flow from a March 2 or 3 series going through the tube at all times. The two valves on the outlet will allow me to send just enough to the mash tun (1-2qt./min???)
while the rest of the flow just recircs back to the pump and through the tube again. Boiling 1/2 gallon of water from 170 will take ~31 seconds with 6Kw element, so I will have to keep my cycle time less than that.

That thing is badass, I ended up buying a smaller one, 18" 5000w in new condition for $65. Since i suck at anything to do with metal, I am not quite understanding how you got the 1 1/4" element to fit in the triclamp. Did you use a triclamp plate and attach a piece of tube to it and tap through it? Wouldnt you still have to have it rebored for the threads? Should i use a 2" triclamp, 2.5" or 3" clamp? Was it expensive to have this Adapter made, and if you made it yourself, do you happen to be in the business of selling an extra one? I have been hunting online and its looking like 150 to have one made.. YIKES!

Im definately curious how this turns out. Maybe I will upgrade someday to biab rims! YEe haw!

I had a 2" fpt half coupling welded to the 2.5" triclover for a few six packs.

For 1 1/4 npt the od of the threads is around 1.66" so it should fit a 2" cap depending on how the hex on the element fits with the clamp, but I'm thinking it would easily clear.



For this one we bored and threaded the 1.5" cap with a 1" tap, which was a royal pain in the a$$. The next one we do will be machined out of aluminum and will cut a lot easier. If we had a 1 1/4" tap I could try one for you, but they are a small fortune for decent taps.

How does the temp controlelr on the rims tube work?
Does it just turn off and on as it gets close to the temp? does it have an offset?
If i set it at 212 F for instance, would it reduce the power and create a reasonable boil? or just turn off and on when it became to hot or cooled down?

Would I be able to control a boil using it? my 5k element is a bit strong to use at max to boil water, I am hoping the control will help me trim the power down a bit.