Recirculating mash? how to do it?

Can anyone give me some info on how to recirculate your mash to even out the temps? I have a march pump and a bazooka tube.. i'm sure the equipment doesnt matter much..

Do you just drain and pump it back in? should it be spread out on the grain bed when it comes back? Any info would help.. thanks!

So your mash tun is directly heated? You are just wanting to reciculate from the bottom the top? not a RIMS or HERMS setup?

yep.. its direct fire.. simple system.. no herms or rims or anything..

If you haven't noticed, I don't give that much advice on here as there are so many ways to do the same task... but, I'm guessing you have a false bottom? If so, the grain bed itself will act as a filter and clear the wort. Fashion some sort of sparge arm to distribute the wort evenly over the grain bed and you should be good to go.

In case you haven't seen it, here is my HERMS setup for a few ideas: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=39422

I'm working out this very detail myself. I orginally fashioned a stainless braid in mine as the separation medium because hey, I'm batch sparging and it's always worked fine in the cooler. The problem I'm figuring though is that the grainbed is now sitting directly on the bottom of the keg and the direct heat MIGHT scorch the stuff. I'm putting a false bottom in for this reason. Now you'll have wort being heated and immediately drained out.

so would i just run it out and run it back in? spread it out somehow? confused...

Yeah, the idea is to take the mash liquid out from the bottom and put it back on top. Think of it as an extended vorlauf. I only plan on running the pump while I'm heating though. It seems like a waste of energy to circulate for 60 minutes. The wort was running incredibly clear after only running the pump for 5 minutes.

I'm going to deliver the wort back on top by dropping a 12" diameter circle of 3/8" copper on top of the mash that has a bunch of holes drilled in the bottom and sides. It's about the same as if you were trying to fly sparge.

Incidentally, I was running the sparge water into the MLT via the drain which seemed to work well because it help decompact the grainbed for easy stirring (batch sparging).

Yeah, the best way is to have a false bottom to prevent scorching and some sort of sparge ring/arm to disperse the hot wort evenly back into the mash. Ideally you want this to happen just under the surface of the mash. That will prevent any chance of HSA and allow for more even heating of the grain bed. Or you could just return it by a hose and stand and stir the mash as it happens. You probably won't notice the HSA anyway if it does happen.

if i had a sparge arm.. could you just run the mash through that? edit-thanks john.. that makes sense

Bobby_M said:

Incidentally, I was running the sparge water into the MLT via the drain which seemed to work well because it help decompact the grainbed for easy stirring (batch sparging).

Click to expand...

Oooo, I hadn't thought of doing that. That sounds like a great idea.

aekdbbop said:

if i had a sparge arm.. could you just run the mash through that?

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Sure. That would be perfect. I've just got a little return line in the top that I hook the pump outlet to. It's not quite as gentle as a sparge arm/ring, but it seems to work just fine. Honestly, I don't know that it really makes that much difference, as long as you're not disturbing the grain bed below a few inches. Here's a pic of what I'm talking about.

cool.. do you use a false bottom or a braid sparky?

False bottom. Right now I've got a 9-10" FB, but I'll soon upgrade to a 15" FB that will raise the entire grain bed off the bottom of the keg.

Hi.

I brew in a 60 l kettle with a 6 KW propane burner mounted underneath. In side the kettle is a stainless steel mash tun.
I have build a spargering, that fits through a hole in a lid, to spred out the hot worth.
To raise the mashtun out from the kettle my brother in law build me a crane.

My page is still in Danish, but you can watch pictures and/or use the google translator to translate into english (this will provide you a good laugh too, as the translation often gets quite funny or odd).



Anyway, here goes the links that mostly are descriptions of how I build the setup:
The spargering (I call it the Swan): http://www.larchris.dk/Spargering.htm
The Crane: http://www.larchris.dk/hejs.htm
The Mash tun: http://www.larchris.dk/indsatssi.htm & the bottom of this page: http://www.larchris.dk/fotogalleri3_Udstyr.htm

Regards
Lars Christensen
LaC-Brew: www.larchris.dk

Heck. I'm so proud of this system, I'll throw in another picture of how the spargering looks.



And this is the raisable mashtun:





Regards
Lars
www.larchris.dk

Your English is pretty good!

Impressive set-up.

Before I realized that you were translating, I was thinking.."how did this mentally handicapped guy build such an awesome rig?"

No offense meant! I couldn't even begin to type something in your language.

Very impressive!

cheezydemon said:

Your English is pretty good!

Impressive set-up.

Before I realized that you were translating, I was thinking.."how did this mentally handicapped guy build such an awesome rig?"

No offense meant! I couldn't even begin to type something in your language.

Very impressive!

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Thank you very much. No offence taken. I know my english isn't perfect.
But still - this won't make me stop communicating

AS of now I just do it manually and move the hose to a different spot on top of the grain bed until I feel Im equalizing everything.

Ill probably make some sort of copper manifold for future use though.