Manual controlled direct fired RIMS?

I'm looking for opinions and suggestions here. I have a 5 gallon cooler mash tun, 6 gallon and 10 gallon pots with valves, and a March pump. My plan is to mash in either the cooler or 10 gallon pot and gravity drain to the 6 gallon pot over a Bayou SP10 gas burner and pump back up completing the loop. My total mash volume will be around 7-8 gallons. That has me leaning to the 10 gallon pot just in case I pump back too quickly I can't run it over. The real question though is, will I be able to find a setting on the burner that will maintain a 155F-ish mash temp?

I know, I know, I posted way too late last night for anybody to see this. Bump.

Assuming you are running your pump constantly, to maintain that temperature, it's going to involve a lot of turning the burner on and off. I recently automated my system, and I was very surprised how, once target temperature is reached, the burner turns on for such a short period of time. When I mashed in a cooler, I never needed anything to maintain mash temps. If you want to do multistep mashes, I could see doing something like this. But adding boiling water might be a lot easier.

I considered doing something like this with a grant once (basically what you're doing). But to avoid the hassle of constant manual adjustments, I thought about getting an electric hotplate and plugging it into an inexpensive temperature controller. Fiddle with the settings to see what gives you the least likelihood of overshoot, and see how it goes. It won't be as accurate as a PID controller, but it would be inexpensive and easy.

jeepinjeepin said:

The real question though is, will I be able to find a setting on the burner that will maintain a 155F-ish mash temp?

Click to expand...

Prior to upgrading, my first venture into direct fired rims was connecting a pump to my direct fired keggle.

It worked. But it took having a much better regulator than what came stock with my burner.

I recirculate my mash water through a coil in my HLT, I also have a 'bypass' ball-valve that allows me to bypass my coil. I find maintaining my mash temps quite simple -the HLT is kept at about 160, and I crack open the bypass AND coil-flow valves so that some of the flow goes through the coil in the HLT, some bypasses it and goes directly back into the 'tun -once I find the 'sweet spot', I leave it alone, kick back and keep an eyeball on the temps. Using the coil in the HLT as a heat-exchanger makes it a bit simpler than what you have in mind -for one, there is a lot of thermal mass in the HLT (I keep about 7 gallons of water 'at temp' in it, so the burner is turned down to the absolute lowest setting, or even cut off for a while). This has the effect of 'cushioning' the temperature variations. Whereas applying flame directly to your recirculation is going to be kind of tricky since the temp would change almost immediately.
One piece of advice, though: INSULATE! MY recirculation plumbing is wrapped with non-meltable insulation -you would be amazed at how much heat is lost in the copper pipes exposed to air. If you use a metal mash tun, insulate that as well (of course, if you are applying heat to the tun directly, that changes things). My 'tun is insulated on the sides and bottom, the lid fits well but isn't insulated.

My fears confirmed. What if the grant had upwards of 3-4 gallons in it over the burner? How long of a recirc coil are y'all using?

It will work, with some "dry runs" to dial it in. I did the exact same thing initially, but used a no-sparge set-up with only two vessels. The BK serving as the grant. I kept about 4 gallons in the grant at any one time. It was a pretty steep learning curve on firing the burner. I tended to overshoot quite a bit. That said, the SSR fired RIMS tube is the best investment I have made to date for precise mash temperture control.

What's up Reel? No time for "dry runs." It goes tonight. With pumpkin nonetheless.