Heated Grant

In the spirit of a RIMS system, has anybody ever placed an element in a grant? I have a 3L stainless pot I was going to turn into a grant out of the MLT, I've been compacting grain with the pump, I seem to be ball valve challenged. I noticed the grant was just running into the RIMS tube. How about just placing elements in the grant directly?

Doesn't the wort level typically fluctuate in a grant? As long as the element is completely submerged, it may work. It seems like someone here has done that already - have you searched the threads?

For some reason my HBT searching skills were weak the other day.

Perhaps Windows helps me search better....

I did find a lot of discussion on grants, trombones, and other sorts of craziness. I think I'm just going to use my system as is and go a little slower on the re-circulation on the current RIMS setup.

I'll keep the parts around and see if I can't fix the mash compaction issue some other way. (like not being so crazy with the ball valve)

if your recirculation is slow enough (allowing that element to transfer the heat into the wort) then sure..

there would be no difference between that an a RIMS tube, just that instead of it being sealed, its open to atmospheric pressure

Are you worried at all about Hot Side Aeration? Grants have generally fallen out of practice due to the oxygen pickup most places although some are still used...In theory it should work although you are going to increase the total heat loss in your system and the element will have to work harder.

Junkster said:

Doesn't the wort level typically fluctuate in a grant?

Click to expand...

You can control the level in the grant during recirculation by changing the input and output flows via a ball valve on the inlet or a VFD for the pump. Technically you can also use a ball valve to control flow into the pump but you risk cavitation which could damage the impeller if there is not enough flow. Once it is controlled and at equilibrium, the level should remain fairly constant.

Yeah, you would think that I could figure out how to work a ball valve.....

I'm may not have an equipment problem, I'm going to try and just keep dialing my system in.

I have actually thought of using an Induction Heater plate with a Grant. There would be no chance of a burnt Wort and I think you could control the Wort Temp very well. Maybe I will name it OWHERMS i.e. Open Wort HERMS. I personally do not think the is a problem with oxygenation at this stage. seems to me Fly Sparging would be adding much more O2 into the Wort.

I'm in the process of building the heated grant as a replacement for my RIMS tube. The RIMS tube worked alright, but I did apply too much heat from time to time and generated some pressure in the system I wasn't happy with. I could have mounted it differently, but I like the idea of using gravity only to drain from the MLT. I kept finding creative ways to stick my mash, so after a dozen brews, I’ve decided to switch over to the heated grant. I’m not sure I’m going to need another acronym. I’ll include my build notes on this thread.

scinerd3000 said:

You can control the level in the grant during recirculation by changing the input and output flows via a ball valve on the inlet or a VFD for the pump. Technically you can also use a ball valve to control flow into the pump but you risk cavitation which could damage the impeller if there is not enough flow. Once it is controlled and at equilibrium, the level should remain fairly constant.

Click to expand...

You can control the flow on the output of the pump and therefore on the inlet without lack of supply. You should not try to control the inlet side.

oakbarn said:

You can control the flow on the output of the pump and therefore on the inlet without lack of supply. You should not try to control the inlet side.

Click to expand...

Absolutely right. +1

I haven't used it yet, but it does test leak free overnight. I went ahead and built out the heated grant. Here it is ready to collect wort from the MLT.


Here are the guts, a couple of float switches, temp probe and 5500W 240V spa heater.


In the back, it's a 240V in with RCA cables for float switches and a networking cable connector for the thermometer. I'm trying to avoid long dangling cables hanging off of my components. The extra cords make it harder to move things around and clean.


I silver soldered welding spuds onto a stainless steel restaurant pan for the outlet. I used the same technique on the temp probe because I had the parts to make it happen.

I placed the entire setup in a cedar box, mainly because I'm trying to stick with stainless and cedar for the esthetics.

I also silver soldered a copper lug to the pan for a ground. I used copper lugs to mount to the spa element and then coated them in Plasti-Dip.

I mounted a pump to the bottom of the grant box.

I also programmed the grant to operate in 3 modes with my BCS-462. Filling, heating and draining.

Filling is triggered when both float switches are down, nothing is gong on.
Heating is triggered when the lower float switch is up and the program then heats to the predetermined temperature.
Draining triggers when both floats are up, and turns on the pump, which returns back to filling.

That element is a beast...I'd consider going smaller. Also, a grant can work as a filter to some extent....you can have a coarse screen in there and see if it gets clogged...not the case with inline enclosed type filters

ScubaSteve - From the last few brew sessions I would say that the 5500W is probably overkill, but it does allow me to quickly heat water. I'd say you might have the equivalent performance with a 3000W element.

I'm going to look into the screen idea.

I found that insulating the hoses and mash tun to be a substantial energy savings and kept mash temps more consistent. I'm mostly concerned about mash temps being the same for summer vs. winter brewing. Insulation seems to make a difference when some days are 90F and others are 10F.

Heating water is definitely where you want the big guns. Of course, maintaining temps requires something less.

Yep...insulation is awesome....the trick is getting something that looks classy.