Comments on my Planned Electric Setup

[Nosnum08]

I have been wanting to add electricity to my brew day for quite some time and am hopefully close to pulling the trigger. I have two primary goals:

1) Consistency throughout the mashing process. I started with a cooler and stainless braid setup and just haven't been happy with the consistency of my OG. I know others have great results but I couldn't seem to get consistency.
2) Ability to make 10 gallon batches.

With that said here is my proposed brew day:

1) Heat the mash water with a propane burner
2) Mash with the RIMS element and PID control panel
3) Heat Sparge water with propane burner
4) Transfer sparge water to cooler when temp is reached
5) Gravity feed mash water into brew kettle while pumping sparge water from the cooler to the mash tun

I already purchased my RIMS tube from brewhardware with all necessary hardware. I also have 3 converted kegs, 1 pump & a PICO false bottom to mash in my keggle mashtun with. I am seriously considering buying this pre-built 30 Amp BIAB control panel from Ebrewsupply which would make my setup complete:

http://www.ebrewsupply.com/shop/ebrew-control-panels/30-control-panels/aspbiab0311.html

Can any of you identify any issues with my brew day plan?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Mark

 

[bknifefight]

Are you losing a lot of temperature in your cooler mash tun? Or are you wanting to do step mashes easier?

You say you are not getting consistency with your OG. I assume you mean efficiency. Are you crushing your own grain?

I only ask because I doubt that investing a lot into a RIMS setup will be your answer. I think there is an underlying issue that you are not addressing.

 

[Nosnum08]

Are you losing a lot of temperature in your cooler mash tun? Or are you wanting to do step mashes easier?

You say you are not getting consistency with your OG. I assume you mean efficiency. Are you crushing your own grain?

I only ask because I doubt that investing a lot into a RIMS setup will be your answer. I think there is an underlying issue that you are not addressing.

Yes, you are correct. When I said I am not getting a consistent OG I was referring to efficiency. Some brew days I am right on and others I am wildly off. I crush my grain at my local homebrew store so the crush is consistent from batch to batch. I also use Beer Smith.

Upon thinking about your question my overall goal is consistency from batch to batch. I want to be able to dial my system in so that the end product of a given recipe is always the same. I know there are multiple factors to efficiency and repeatability but I figured a good place to start was reliable mash temperature control. Does this make sense?

 

[thekraken]

So your "crush is inconsistent from batch to batch" ? I have a feeling people are going to jump on you here and say you really need to crush your own grains for consistent crush. In my (limited) experience my RIMS tube hasn't helped with my extract efficiency.

How are you planing on transfering from the kettle to MLT and HLT? Heavy lifting or a second pump?

What you'r describing is pretty much what I do, except now I'm trying out no-sparge batches. I don't see any issues with your brew day plan.

 

[bknifefight]

Using someone else's mill and having varied results in efficiency leads me to believe that your crush is the issue. Are you losing any significant (5 degrees) temperature in your mash? You say you want reliable mash temperature. Do you not have that now?

I'm not trying to hijack and discourage you from pursuing a RIMS system, but I dont think it will solve your issues.

 

[Hello]

I believe that moving to an automated system helps with consistency, but it may not resolve an issue of efficiency. You wrote that you crush at the LHBS so crush is consistent, but have you considered that the consistent crush is just a bad crush? Consistently bad is not good, even if it is still consistent.

If there are heat loss issues then that too can be addressed and possibly better with RIMS or even HERMs. I know that I halfway intend to continue to use my cooler at my MLT with a HERMs system but the automated controller will continue to heat my HLT to maintain the correct temp and the temp probe capturing the temp of my wort as it circulates will tell the controller to turn up the heat or leave it off. But if I have issues with my grain itself, then that isn't going to be fixed with automation.

My LHBS invested in an amazing mill and the crush looks better than it ever has. They were using higher end mills that home brewers would use at home but the amount of grain passed through was killing the rollers. I was noticing some issues with my crush towards the end and bought a mill, then they bought their beast. Either way, I sort of rolled my eyes about crush for a while until I experienced it first and was open to understanding it.

Between crush and heat, I think if you can dial those two in then you'll see more consistent numbers. Once you get a consistent number, automation will assist you in hitting that each time. Unless you address that, you're just allowing yourself to be consistently off in your numbers through automation. At least that's my theory.

 

[joutlaw]

I imagine it's the difficulty of maintaining temps in 10 gallon batch. I'm looking to go with a similar setup, but I use a keg as my MLT. Keeping it consistent temp while direct firing is difficult.

 

[augiedoggy]

I have been wanting to add electricity to my brew day for quite some time and am hopefully close to pulling the trigger. I have two primary goals:

1) Consistency throughout the mashing process. I started with a cooler and stainless braid setup and just haven't been happy with the consistency of my OG. I know others have great results but I couldn't seem to get consistency.
2) Ability to make 10 gallon batches.

With that said here is my proposed brew day:

1) Heat the mash water with a propane burner
2) Mash with the RIMS element and PID control panel
3) Heat Sparge water with propane burner
4) Transfer sparge water to cooler when temp is reached
5) Gravity feed mash water into brew kettle while pumping sparge water from the cooler to the mash tun

I already purchased my RIMS tube from brewhardware with all necessary hardware. I also have 3 converted kegs, 1 pump & a PICO false bottom to mash in my keggle mashtun with. I am seriously considering buying this pre-built 30 Amp BIAB control panel from Ebrewsupply which would make my setup complete:

http://www.ebrewsupply.com/shop/ebrew-control-panels/30-control-panels/aspbiab0311.html

Can any of you identify any issues with my brew day plan?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Mark

I recommend something like this if you dont want to build it yourself... hes a member here and his prices are very reasonable. plus hes been around a while.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beer-brewin...b&pid=100005&rk=2&rkt=6&sd=221402670805&rt=nc

 

[bknifefight]

I imagine it's the difficulty of maintaining temps in 10 gallon batch. I'm looking to go with a similar setup, but I use a keg as my MLT. Keeping it consistent temp while direct firing is difficult.

Once properly pre-heated, stainless steel will hold heat surprisingly well. It will hold heat BETTER when filled almost to capacity for a 10 gallon mash.

 

[Nosnum08]

So your "crush is inconsistent from batch to batch" ? I have a feeling people are going to jump on you here and say you really need to crush your own grains for consistent crush. In my (limited) experience my RIMS tube hasn't helped with my extract efficiency.

How are you planing on transfering from the kettle to MLT and HLT? Heavy lifting or a second pump?

What you'r describing is pretty much what I do, except now I'm trying out no-sparge batches. I don't see any issues with your brew day plan.

I figured I would heat my sparge water with my propane burner and transfer it to my cooler using the same pump I would be using for recirculating the mash in my RIMS setup. Once the water was ready to be transferred I would stop the reciurculation on the mash for 5 minutes or so and hook the pump up from my brew kettle to the cooler. Sound right?

 

[thekraken]

Yeah, that'd work. Remember your lines will be full of wort when you go to moving hoses around, keep a pail on hand so that you don't lose any of that sticky goodness. You'll end up pumping a little bit of wort up into the HLT too, if that matters to you.