reverse circulation?

i just had a thought and i may not of thought it through properly but every system i have looked at which recirculates the mash uses some type of false bottom and draws wort from the bottom of the kettle. what if you reversed this and pumped wort back in to the bottom of the kettle and with a pick up tube and mesh filter just below the surface of the wort drew off from the top and recirculated it backwards- no danger of grain compaction and surely it would eliminate channelling through the grain, you would have to reverse it again do draw the wort off i know but, well it's an idea, what do you think?

It would probably work if you mashed thin at about 2 quarts per pound. I think the delicate part is setting the runoff input height so it's just skimming the surface and that's going to change from batch to batch.

I tried that for awhile with the herms system I built. Used a peristaltic pump because it was easy to reverse the flow. It worked and helped reduce the temp variation in the mash. Eventually I abandoned the herms concept and went direct fired with a motorized paddle. I didn't like the ramp times and temp stratification with my herms design. With direct fire and a paddle spining around 30rpm I get a 1dgf differential top/bottom 5 minutes after striking and can do a mashout temp rise in about 10 minutes.

See, I think that drawing from the bottom and setting up a nice grain bed before the lauter is a good thing.

HERMS isnt really good at stepping, but there are ways to engineer that problem out.

Interesting concept, but if you are going to do that, steam may be a logical step too.