RIMS set up!

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slnies

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2007
Messages
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Location
Maple Lake MN
So this is the set up I am going to build. I think I will do both a steam and an electric version of the manifold. How does it look?


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i like it, i started to build a rims setup and im alltile over my head now.lol
 
i will definitly need to come ask you i just finished my keggle mash tun today and my manifold... alot of work but the only part im remotly having is figuring out how to wire this damn thing i dont have any electrical components but im thinking about running a ranco or pid to controll my heating element and a float to controll at the end of the manifold for the recurculating wort to keep the grain bed at the same level... hard to explain sometimes
 
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Sorry it took so long, but here is the new brew rig. Only a few more days and she will be complete.
 
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This is the over all view. I have built it so I can trade out the HLT and the MLT for bigger sanke kegs latter.
 
kickflip_mj said:
i will definitly need to come ask you i just finished my keggle mash tun today and my manifold... alot of work but the only part im remotly having is figuring out how to wire this damn thing i dont have any electrical components but im thinking about running a ranco or pid to controll my heating element and a float to controll at the end of the manifold for the recurculating wort to keep the grain bed at the same level... hard to explain sometimes

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. For equipment on my rig, I am using a Watco PID and a 40 amp SSR with a heat sink, paired with a 4500W ULD water heater element. I am running it on 115-120v or whatever i have where ever I go. I am building this thing to be mobile. Every thing breaks down and fits in the Mercury mystic, my gas sipper. This I suppose will only last until I have bigger vessels, then i will have to use the truck. If you have anymore questions Kickflip, feel free to send me a PM. S.
 
slnies, where did you get the copper arround the heating element at? Been looking for some large diameter tube with little luck
 
Virtuous said:
slnies, where did you get the copper arround the heating element at? Been looking for some large diameter tube with little luck
Local Hardware store. They sell it by the foot. This is good though, because a full stick will cost you 60-80$ depending on where you go.
 
kickflip_mj said:
oh i love it, the exchanger looks awsome, can i ask you what pump are you using??
The pump is a March pump, it is not the standard 805, this one has more power, but it was a deal I could not refuse. I will put more info out on it tonight. S.
 
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So, these are pic's of the system in operation, One is the element connection and the protector that I made for it, so as I don't electrocute myself when I am not paying attention, and the last is of the grounding of the heating manifold. I will later change the wire out to green, but I wanted to test so, what ever was lying around. Other things that will happen are a twist lock male and female cap for fast element removal, another PID and SSR for an electric HLT, and maybe the new PID I order with ramp and soak control and I will switch it out with the one that is operating the MLT now and that one will operate the HLT. I don't know, we will see what the SWMBO lets me get away with.
 
Sorry, I should explain the middle picture. This is the PID in operation. The red is the mash liquid temperature, and the green is the temperature set point. So reading the directions was a pain, but the actual set up was easy. This said, anyone could operate this thing. It really is as easy as pushing the up and down arrows. S.
 
Seabee John said:
I can't wait to see her in operation on Sat! Looking good.
Me too, I am thinking about a Mild, as a first for the new rig. I have some WLP 005 to burn up so...:off:
 
slnies said:
Me too, I am thinking about a Mild, as a first for the new rig. I have some WLP 005 to burn up so...:off:

you will have to show me the in's and out's on this... Not saying I want to go that route, but you have my attention.
 
were did you put your thermo?? is yor pid wired to the heating element and the thermo is wired to the outgoing or ingoing wort?? bc im trying to figure this out for my set up:)
 
oh and how did you put the thermo in did you have to by a thermowell wo install the sensor??
 
kickflip_mj said:
were did you put your thermo?? is yor pid wired to the heating element and the thermo is wired to the outgoing or ingoing wort?? bc im trying to figure this out for my set up:)
The sensor is in the return manifold. I drilled a hole into the top of a CPVC cap and friction fit the sensor through it. It works great.
 
Can you give some more info on the pump? I've been trying to find a good one...

Great lookin' set-up!!
 
Pump info for kickflip and bewilder. The pump is a March AC-3C-MD, It is rated at 180 degrees F. From experience though, I have seen this pump operate for years with liquids in excess of 212F. This of course voids warranty, but for my purpose the pump will not see temperatures over its rating. My mash out temp is 168F. That is still 12 degrees under the factory limit. For 20 bucks though, I can't complain one I'ota. S.
 
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First Pic is my first running out of the mash tun, corrected it is 1.091. The second Pic is me posing and being proud of my machine. And the third it the conclusion of the brew day.
 
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These are more pictures of this weekends brew day. This is Seabeejohn with his HERMS system. This weekend we were humbled by Murphy's Law. If it could go wrong, it did. One system worked great and the other had issues. His system worked tops the last brew together. I think we were just trying to many new things at once. It still went well though. That said, John did brew 20 gallons of brew on that machine this weekend. An accomplishment in any book.
 
slnies said:
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These are more pictures of this weekends brew day. This is Seabeejohn with his HERMS system. This weekend we were humbled by Murphy's Law. If it could go wrong, it did. One system worked great and the other had issues. His system worked tops the last brew together. I think we were just trying to many new things at once. It still went well though. That said, John did brew 20 gallons of brew on that machine this weekend. An accomplishment in any book.

After thinking about all that went wrong, and reflecting on the fact that because of this website, I had the knowledge to rectify the situations, I'm pretty happy that I'm surrounded by 20 Gal blurping away... Funny part is, it's destined to be the best beer ever made, cause there is no earthly way to replicate any part of that brewday. It was a good experience to go through, and now be able to re-engineer my system to be as fail safe as possible.

Oh, and about that RiMS system, Sean... Not to shabby. I was impressed... I would have shown it more if I wasn't dealing with BS on my rig. 85% eff... that's damn good. Sean was brewing a cream ale... I kept accusing him of brewing bud light, because the wort was the same color as water. But that OG reading in his first pic is correct, and beer smith did adjust for temp and declare 1.091 for his first runnings. I saw it while mopping my hot wort off the floor.
 
Some more commentary. There are a few things that I will change on my system. The first is to add more slots to my manifold in the MLT. The reason is, better flow rate. I was able to compact the grain bed once in the beginning of the mash. it was easily rectified with some blow back, and I will note that it did not happen again. I just want to open the envelope a little. The second is really an experiment. The observation that I will make is that the PID set at the correct mash temp would give me an actual mash temp two degrees higher. In the water test this issue did not occur, but I think because of the density in the grain bed, that heat in the grain bed was being retained better. I am open to suggestions as to where I should be placing my thermocouple. It now resides in the return manifold. I think the next place I will try is in the side of the mash tun. Any suggestions are welcome. S

One more thing, A special thanks to Kladue, and Wihophead for their input and suggestions that made this system possible. And another thanks to all of those who took the time to post their systems and answer random questions that I had about RIMS. Sean
 
I like the exchanger. I hadn't seen anyone use a heating element in such a confined area before but it certainly takes away the stratafication you'd get in a larger vessel. Interestingly enough, I just went digging through the stainless dumpster at the local scrap yard and found a similar piece of kit. It was a 4" stainless pipe with end cap flanges. I pulled one end out and it had seven 3000 watt x 240v elements inside. Talk about heating capacity. ****. If the elements didn't look so beat, I might have bought it. Well, that and where am I going to get a spare 112 amps from my panel?

It got me thinking though. With enough power, you could use this setup as both an instant water heater for dough in/sparge and with the flick of a few valves could also use it for HERMS. I hate to say it, but I'm rethinking my 3-burner nat gas system.
 
Very cool. About the time slnies was writing about his RIMS set up I was thinking about doing the same thing with the heat exchanger for my Brutus 20 but wasnt sure how. Opened this page and there it was. Finally finished ordering all the parts for it yesterday. Bookoo thanks to slnies for doing all the leg work.
 
slnies, I have to admit when I saw your set up on Sat. the first thing that entered my mind was wow I want. Now that you said it worked I am going to have to build one. Hope you don't mind but you might get a lot of questions from me in the future.
Shawn
 
plumber said:
slnies, I have to admit when I saw your set up on Sat. the first thing that entered my mind was wow I want. Now that you said it worked I am going to have to build one. Hope you don't mind but you might get a lot of questions from me in the future.
Shawn
Ask away, You know where to find me.
 
Bobby_M said:
I like the exchanger. I hadn't seen anyone use a heating element in such a confined area before but it certainly takes away the stratafication you'd get in a larger vessel. Interestingly enough, I just went digging through the stainless dumpster at the local scrap yard and found a similar piece of kit. It was a 4" stainless pipe with end cap flanges. I pulled one end out and it had seven 3000 watt x 240v elements inside. Talk about heating capacity. ****. If the elements didn't look so beat, I might have bought it. Well, that and where am I going to get a spare 112 amps from my panel?

It got me thinking though. With enough power, you could use this setup as both an instant water heater for dough in/sparge and with the flick of a few valves could also use it for HERMS. I hate to say it, but I'm rethinking my 3-burner nat gas system.

Hey Bobby, just as a side note, even without the high power, this set up took 57F water to doe in temperature in 18 minutes. I have the ramp set when I am heating wort to do no more than 2.0 degrees a minute. Not that it makes that much of a difference though because I get 4 degrees a minute with plain water and only a little over three in the wort with the PID function on anyway. I set the ramp to two because I figured that was a good number.
 
plumber said:
Did you put a gfci plug in on main power supply?
No! Only because most garages and kitchens already have GFCI's. If I made one a part of the design I would have issues with it tripping because of the existing GFCI. The solution is to use a contractor style corded GFCI when one is not to be had where ever I bring this thing. At Wally's all off his garage circuits are GFCI protected. And at my house where this thing normally resides there is also a GFCI outlet that it plugs into. You bring up a good point though. You should always maintain a GFCI power supply for anything that deals with water or conductive liquids.
 
I've got a question for you. How efficently does it heat water? Could you chuck your HLT and heat tap water to sparge temps with one pass at 1quart/min? I saw Virtuous's Thread polishin my pipe for 2 hours and followed links to this thread. Sweet system btw!
 
Well Grimsawyer, to answer your question, the element will heat water at 4 degrees a minute with plane water. How ever I do not have a flow meter hooked up to the system so I couldn't tell you what the flow rate is. I let it heat strike water at full tilt, no restriction, and then I shut it down for doe in, start it back up and slowly open the gate valve until I have a good easy flow. It should be noted though that the element is on a PID and the closer you get to your target the heating slows down to decease overshoot. I guess if I were brewing more than 5 gallon batches I might redesign the manifold to hold two elements, so that there is twice as much surface area heating. Again though you run into manifold efficiency issues, more elements will only help if you can move more water or wort past the heaters. I get around this though by having an element in the HLT and the HLT runs when the MLT is not. By the end of the mash, my sparge water is on target and ready. No wasted time. No need for more circuits. I fond that when I went to this configuration I needed to extend the cycle time out on the PID or the element in the HLT would not run. This wouldn't have to happen, but I have a time delay on the HLT to insure that it can't be on at the same time as the MLT. It works great. It takes twenty minutes to get the water to strike temp. In that twenty minutes I measure out and grind my grain. It took me a couple of runs to work things out procedure wise, but boy o boy does this thing make life easy. S.
 
I just finished testing my setup. I was able to raise 5 gal of water from 50 to 150 degrees in an hour. The flow rate was fairly high but I dont think that really matters. I am happy with it though. I am currently running the element at 110 but I may up it to 220v and see how it goes.
One thing I did notice was my march pump lost it's prime and it didnt take but 10 seconds for the water in the heat exchanger to start boiling out the inlet. Hope I didnt flash the element.

I think when I do my first brew I am going to use my 4500W boil kettle to get the water up to strike temp. Then use the MLT element to ramp up.
 
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