Recirculation Brewing (RIMS/HERMS) vs. traditional

[Lambo3]

Traditional I suppose being single infusion, decoction, etc.... "not recirculating", I guess.

I apologize if this topic has been beatin' to death already, but all I can seem to find are RIMS vs. HERMS threads.

Now, there is no denying that systems which are based on constant recirculation are making a lot of great beer, so there are obvious benefits. This seems to be the solution of choice for most homebrewers desiring to be a bit more advanced and consistent.

So, the question is, are there drawbacks in RIMS/HERMS vs. a single infusion mash? It doesn't seem like many pro brewers are doing this. One of my favorite local breweries still uses a plain'ol insulated mash tun in their 10 bbl system. They take care to calculate the strike water properly, and with that much volume they don't loose a single degree over the course of the mash - so, perhaps the reason is that it simply isn't needed for a consistent mash.

Possible Cons:

• I've heard reports that while RIMS/HERMS beer is exceptionally clear, but they also might produce thinner beers? Less body?
• The mash ratio can't be as thick (1.5+, vs. 1.25, or even 1 in single infusion). Does this matter? What is the effect on the beer? Is it even true?

I know there are cons related to cost and complication, but I'm more interested in any cons or limitations as it relates to beer quality, flavor, style, etc.

 

[Rev2010]

Take this with a grain of salt as my recirculating system is just a Robobrew v3. Nothing as sweet as the setups some of the people on here have. But prior I used a Rubbermaid mash tun, got excellent efficiency and brewed on that system for 5 years. I personally do not at all believe that recirculating makes for a significantly clearer beer, not at all. Yes the wort itself looks clearer but I think cloudier wort gets clearer anyhow as it settles in the fermenter. Below is what I consider to be the positives:

1. Better temp control. I mean, you have an element that kicks in when the temp lowers and raises the temp. The recirculation ensures the mash temp remains more even across the grain bed.

2. Easier to correct for striking in a bit low. With the Rubbermaid tun I had to use boiling water infusions to raise the temp and you really have to calculate it on the fly (ie. current amount of water & grains, degrees of temp off, and how much boiling water to add). Add to that you have to pre-prep and have boiling water on standby. I always used a tea kettle.

3. No real need to preheat the mash tun. With recirculating mash tuns you can heat the water in place which also preheats the tun walls. It helps avoid the differential which can lead to strike in temp variances.

4. Recirculating removes the time it takes to vorlauf. With the recirculation the grainbed is set and there's no need to vorlauf before draining the first runnings.

5. Recirculating can signify ahead of time if you're going to have a stuck runoff/sparge. If the recirculating is running at a tiny trickle you know the grainbed is compacted ahead of time. You can then remix up the mash and restart recirculation to see if you've free'd up the stuck grainbed flow. This also helps if you fly sparge so you know if you have serious narrow channeling ahead of time.

6. Much easier to step mash as you can raise temps without having to resort to boiling water infusions (which requires adjusting strike water ratios & sparge water amounts).

Hmm... I've sure there's more and I'm just drawing a blank. Will edit the post if I come up with more. But honestly, I've decided to use my Robobrew as a mash tun only and use an electric/gas assisted stovetop setup now to best improve my setup in each area that needed improvement.

Cons of recirculating:

1. Pump clugging. It's rare though and if you have a decent setup and a fail safe you can prevent clogging. My Robobrew has two screens in the malt pipe *plus* the false bottom which is sweet. Only ever had a clog thanks to the stupid middle overflow tube which I now seal up to prevent grains from going into it.

2. Cost. Obviously cost more.

3. Takes longer to clean. It's not *harder* to clean, just takes longer than a standard tun.

4. Have to set temps and monitor. You can't just trust every controller and sometimes temp control can go past where you wanted even though you set the temp to a specific number. With a standard tun if you strike in and the numbers are good you really don't have to worry about the temp increasing.

5. More parts to fail or cause issue. Your pump can fail, you can get a leak at a worm clamp or tubing connection point, etc.

Anyhow, that's what I can think of for now.


Rev.

 

[Lambo3]

Thanks for the response.... I think it is safe to say there are definitely benefits vs. a non-controlled system.

I'm actually looking to do PID control on my mash tun temperature in a different manner by heating the tun directly and using mash agitation/mixing. Given enough tuning I think I'd have just as good temp control as HERMS/RIMS, but it my be a hassle to build. So I'm searching for benefits to "not" recirculate.

No need to vorlauf is a good point as far as time savings... I didn't factor that in.

What about mash thickness? Beer style, and flavor?

 

[Rev2010]

What about mash thickness? Beer style, and flavor?

To be honest, I haven't needed to change my mash thickness at all as I still use my usual 1.33 quarts per pound of grain. Actually, I've found it smoother and easier especially when step mashing (gotta add that to my first post). With step mashing in a regular tun I would often have to mash in thicker than usual since I would need to ramp up to the next step using a boiling water infusion. Didn't want to take much water away from my sparge water (gotta rinse them grains well) so I would just mash in thicker and use a calc to determine how much boiling water would be needed to reach the next temp rest.

I don't find that a thinner mash really makes the flow of recirculation any better and here's my reasoning (if this is flawed someone please correct me... I love to learn). Grain has weight and it's not all going to float in a thinner mash, it will still reach just about the same resting place as in a thicker mash. This is why you have more wort resting on top of a mash with more water in it. The grain will only absorb so much then the rest sits on top the grain bed. As a result I can't see how flow would be improved at all. I have done thicker mashes at 1.25 quarts per pound of grain and 1.5 quarts and haven't seen any difference personally in grainbed flow. Now, I haven't really ever gone much thinner than 1.5 quarts so my experience might be too limited to really have validity <shrug>. Flavor, nope I haven't detected any difference. For me it's for the benefits of less time, less steps, easier to make a correction, step mashing, and helpful to know what my runoff and sparge situation is likely to be so I can try to correct ahead of time.

*EDIT - thinking on this more I'm inclined to think a thinner mash would lead to a more compacted grainbed due to the extra water weight sitting on top of the grains.


Rev.

 

[day_trippr]

- I routinely mash at 1.25 quarts per pound even for my biggest beer (1.107 OG). Pumps never seem to mind.
- My beers that want body are never lacking, so I don't buy that hypothesis at all.
- While one can get amazing clarity going into the boil kettle I suspect what ends up in the glass doesn't care herms-rims/no-herms-rims.
- At the typical range of homebrew batch sizes I suspect equipment thermal dissipation is much larger than that of a commercial size insulated tun. Plus all of the breweries I've ever visited use heated jacketed vessels anyway and many of them have rakes running the whole time.

It is what it is. Works great for my needs, but one could probably produce as good a brew using a BiaB system.

Cheers!

 

[Lambo3]

Rev, I think your explanation on mash thickness makes perfect sense. The grain bed would be the determining factor - more or less water shouldn't make any difference. The only thing that might affect it is really big beers, making the wort more syrupy by the end of the mash, but it sounds like day_tripper has no issues there.

I might have just been talked out of my plan. I wanted to add a motorized mash mixer geared to about 5rpm, then heat the kettle with a band heater at about 3000 watts. The band heater was going to run me about $150, but it would heat my tun from the outside and would be fairly gentle me-thinks, like 20 watts per sq in. One of the benefits would have been the ability to heat the tun individually of my HLT, but I'm not sure that is going to be a huge benefit (I hope to double batch one day). It would have been different though... I'll have to think on this some more.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Traditional or as I like to call it “simple”.

Hitting and holding mash temp to
reasonable accuracy isn’t that difficult in my opinion, especially so with larger batches.

 

[Lambo3]

Traditional or as I like to call it “simple”.

Hitting and holding mash temp to
reasonable accuracy isn’t that difficult in my opinion, especially so with larger batches.

I agree... with my 10g rubbermaid cooler MLT, it was usually filled to the brim for most brews, and as long as I nailed the strike temp it holds quite solid. That said, I'm stepping up to a keggle for my mash tun for more capacity and I have a feeling that will lose more heat and require some control and monitoring.

 

[RyanH89]

After much research I decided to go with brewhardware.com RIMS. For my BIAB setup. Made a quick video for my HBC so see the setup

 

[bleme]

I don't have any pumps on my system but I often brew on a friends system that uses a RIMS during the mash. When it works, it works GREAT but when it fails...

The worst was when his temp controller froze in the ON position, so his mash was up to 190F before he noticed. The next brew, I was his temp controller - plugging and unplugging the heating element as I watched the temperature. He has had his pump go out a couple times in the middle of a brew also. He always has a spare pump ready, but it is still a pain.

 

[Rev2010]

I don't have any pumps on my system but I often brew on a friends system that uses a RIMS during the mash. When it works, it works GREAT but when it fails...

The worst was when his temp controller froze in the ON position, so his mash was up to 190F before he noticed. The next brew, I was his temp controller

Never gone full on RIMS but my experience with the Robobrew v3 is what put me off of a recirculating mash. As you said, when it works it's great, but when things don't work it's a nightmare. I've looked back and the worst I ever had to deal with using a standard tun is raising the temp with some boiling water from a tea kettle or throwing in some ice cubes to lower the temp. I've never had anywhere near the stress of a failed recirculating system where I then have to dump all the mash into another vessel - and what if I didn't have my Rubbermaid mash tun as a backup? That is why I'm going back to a regular mash tun, upgrading though to the SS tun.


Rev.

 

[ryanj]

3 years ago I started on a single aluminum pot and a propane burner. I added a mash tun and added a dedicated HLT, and then finally after 2 years year of brewing, I went full E-HERMS. I don't think my HERMS system makes my beer that much better. If anything, it makes the brewing process easier and more consistent.