Adding a pump to my setup, need advice.

[Galactik]

Need some advice if anyone can chime in.

My friend and I brew 10 gallon batches currently, using a fly sparge method. We use the following:

Gas burner (Blichman burner)
10G HLT (Blichman kettle)
10G Mash Tun (SS Infussion)
20G Boil Kettle (SS Brew Pot)
Immersion copper chiller

I used to brew 5G batches, but wanted to brew with a friend so to keep costs down we have been slowly upgrading. Moving and lifting has been a large issue with our current brew day.

I would like to purchase a chugger pump and a counterflow chiller.

I would like to brew using a 2 Tier setup, adding a pump and moving from fly sparge to a RIMS style setup. Mash tun would be elevated and we would pump water/wort from the HLT (sitting on a blichman burner) to the mash tun, then gravity feed it back to the HLT. Then use the pump and counterflow chiller to get wort down to proper temps.

Right now we max out the mash tun with 7 gallons of water and 10 gallons of sparge. Will moving to a RIMS setup and no sparge mash be an issue? We do want to move to a 20G mash tun soon, but the purchase of a pump and chiller to avoid the lifting seems like a good next step.

Any thoughts or comments would be greatly appreciated. And sorry if I made this sound more confusing than it should be.

 

[day_trippr]

Clarification please: will you have a heat exchange coil in the HLT - are you thinking of submerging the copper IC and pumping wort through it?

Cheers!

 

[Galactik]

No I am removing the immersion chiller and replacing with the counter flow chiller.

I am wanting to move from the fly-sparge and instead go more towards a recirculating no sparge mash setup, using the HLT to hold the excess water/wort to heat up as it recirculates through the mash tun.