I am finally done with my RIMS

It has been months since I started. I added a bunch of things, since the original wet test drive reared several design flaw monsters I went back and welded steel tops and reinforced burner cages/supports. I added a water filter that I had laying around. I am ready to brew. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks to all that have helped me with this project.
Front View
Lid additions to all keggles. MLT loc line for sparge arm through top for heat retention while mashing
New top plates with heat shield to protect heat exchanger wires. The wires are wrapped in silicone hose in the tube
new sparge arm I made to replace original design
Control panel. QD for temp sensor on left side
40 plate heat exchanger. O2 setup with SS QD for easy removal of unit from heat exchanger

New mash paddle I made out of maple
Top view of burner plates. Below the 10" I had to make some reinforcements out of 1/2" x 2 flat stock. On my first test runm the flame was lapping up the keg. I added the 1/8" steel plates with 10" circles plasma cut out of them and fired it up...the steel was melting and I about cried. I added the supports between the original burner cage and the 1/8" steel and welded them up...fired it up and no more melting.

Two 6' sections of silicone 1/2" hose eah with a female SS QD are all I require for fluid transfer. Everything is SS or copper...no brass anywhere except for the two flared end caps. It took me a few months of seperate purchases but I managed to get rid of all brass.

This thing should give me years of trouble free service.

Nicely done, however you are never really done. Upgrades and changes will be your life!

Awesome, where did you get your thermometers? I need a few for my build. RIMS is where I'm going. Changes that come to the "all I need is", yeh it will never be finished. Sure nice to get where you are though. Nice, very nice.

I bought the mash tun 6" probe thermometer from morebeer.com I had the other 2 from before..they are 2" probes...although morebeer has those also.

Thank you for the compliments

I misread the title. I thought you were throwing in the towel and going back to a regular mash. I got scared and was going to ask why. You have a system that I am going to build in the next two to three years. Looks good.

That looks like a very nice and well made setup. I wish I had the room for a rig like that.

Haha the funny thing is I have never brewed AG before EVER! I brew with a friend of mine who uses SABCO stuff. It is going to sound dumb...but Ihave read enough and watched enough videos and posted enough on blogs that I really think I can transition from extract to AG with minor glitches.

The wet test runs I have done (7) have allowed me to gain a little more confidence in the fluid transfers....knowing when the pump is primed....knowing what part of the frame get as hot as satan's a$$ to not touch.....use of the plate chiller etc.

I am brewing this week for certain. My MLT drains from the bottom, there is a 16g FB that covers the entire bottom of the keggle. Prior to allowing the fluid to feed into the heat exchanger I am going to vorlouf for a gallon or two until I have no particles and get clear wort. I dont want it to clog my sparge arm holes (very small). Does anyone do this with their RIMS setup?

Ilovebeer, I did almost the same thing as you but when I built my system I had never brewed anything before. Have fun Pat.

Funny stuff....damn brother yours is almost too beautiful to even use......I thought mine was nice....mine is junk compared to yours...strong work!

ILOVEBEER said:

I am brewing this week for certain. My MLT drains from the bottom, there is a 16g FB that covers the entire bottom of the keggle. Prior to allowing the fluid to feed into the heat exchanger I am going to vorlouf for a gallon or two until I have no particles and get clear wort. I dont want it to clog my sparge arm holes (very small). Does anyone do this with their RIMS setup?

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I'd make bigger holes in the sparge arm - you really don't want to aerate the wort just in case HSA exists. I like to get my RIMS hot ASAP instead of pumping hot wort into a cold tube. I do have one piece of grain floating around in the arm but usually the holes let everything pass.

Really? It makes sense but with to big of a hole wont it drill into the grain bed? I know to control the flow with my valve...how big of a hole is too big...... 1/8"?

ILOVEBEER said:

Really? It makes sense but with to big of a hole wont it drill into the grain bed? I know to control the flow with my valve...how big of a hole is too big...... 1/8"?

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I think I did 1/8" and I have been using enough water so that I have at least an inch of liquid above the grain bed (1.5qt/lb). Last brew was my first with the sparge ring (arm) and it worked very well. I used to just leave the hose dangling over the side but now I can close the lid and keep the bees and leaves from flavoring my beer.

btw - I have been running a gallon or so of water in the RIMS prior to mashing to heat it up and make sure it's clean. Then I pump that out just before starting to recirculate.

How did the sabco unit work with the hose laying on the grain bed ?

I brewed today for the first time on my newly built RIMS. I was nervous because I didn't know what to expect. I printed out my recipe beforehand, bought a digital timer at Walgreens, set up a table and my RIMS system in the garage and went for it.

It went pretty smooth for the most part. My build is a two tier with the HLT above the MLT and BK. The strike water is gravity fed into the MLT through a copper manifold and 3 piece valve. I found that filling my MLT with 3-4 inches of semi hot strike water (while the remainder heats up to temp) I can prime my pump, that is connected by a 6' section of silicone hose with SS QD's, and keep the prime so when I introduce strike water into the MLT as I dough in it is much easier to begin my mash.

Some guys were saying that my sparge manifold I built was going to clog with the initial recirculation.....it kinda did but I rectified it by shutting down the circulation valve to the element (not the pump), opening the HLT allowing strike water to fill the MLT a bit more....it really helped that I drilled four 5/16" holes in all four corners. Whatever big chunks got through were out of there as fast as they got in there and the sparge arm flowed perfect. I allowed the strike water to get up to temp and filled the MLT.

My plate chiller worked great. My 02 injector worked great and the keg I am fermenting in with the help of brewershardware.com worked out great.

Thanks to those that helped me throughout this project. I am hooked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!