Apartment RIMS - crazy idea?

[Islandboy85]

Ok, I'm designing an electic rims system for my apartment. I want to do D and W0 gallon batches with my newly acquired sanke kegs I'm going to convert. I was thinking of using two kegs for brewing and the third for fermenting. One huge obstacle is space! For that reason I was thinking of using the first keg for my hot water tank, gravity drain it to the mash tun, and move it again to use it as the boiler next.
To make it all easy to store I was going to build it without a sculpture and instead of a heat chamber use a paddle and geared motor to re circulate the mash and bitter wort.
If I don't sound crazy enough yet, I would like to use CO2 to pump the wort into the fermenter.
Feel free to tell me I'm crazy or send me ANY of your thought. Sorry this post turned into a novel.

 

[XXguy]

You have 3 15.5 gallon Sanke kegs & want to brew in your apartment?

Oh, and what are "D" and "W0" gallon batches?

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

Not that long of a post, but not much of it makes sense. Let me see if this is right...

You:
have three half-barrel kegs (sanke), i.e. 15.5g kegs.
would like to brew 5 and 10 gallon batches.
want an electric RIMS but do not want a heat exchanger or to use a pump.
do not want a stand and do not have a lot of room for storage.
want a two vessel system and to use a single batch sparge.
want to use CO2 for pumping.

Is that pretty much your desires???

 

[Islandboy85]

Sorry I wasn't clear. Typed out the message on my blackberry. Yes, you hit it right on. The CO2 pumping is optional. My main reason for a gravity system for now is strictly financial.

 

[Sawdustguy]

Ok, I'm designing an electic rims system for my apartment.

To make it all easy to store I was going to build it without a sculpture and instead of a heat chamber use a paddle and geared motor to re circulate the mash and bitter wort.

I assume instead of heat chamber you mean heat exchanger. You can't nuild a RIMS without a heat exchanger. The RIMS tube is a heat exchanger. You say you want a RIMS but you are going to recirculate with a geared motor and a paddle? Recirculation is not simply stirring the mash. My suggestion, and I am not being nasty, is for you to understand a little bit about what you are asking for help with. It is just that it is difficult to help you when it doesn't make sense.

 

[Islandboy85]

I do have a possible alternative to brew at a friends house, but not sure his wife would let me leave it there to ferment. That would also be awkward since I would have to bring back ten gallons of wort up 10 steps to my apartment (bad idea).

 

[XXguy]

Everyone starting out wants to brew big batches for less...

If money & space are primary concerns - consider selling the Kegs to someone with money & space, and use that money to build something like JKarp's countertop electric setup. Nice, compact, good for an apartment.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/countertop-brutus-20-a-131411/#post1476569

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

That system is soooo sexy. Starting assembly of a friends tonight. 10g in an apartment is not the easiest thing. It can be done, but takes some creativity and some money. I think you need to do some reading and rooting around to more clearly define what you want/need. Also, the first step in any sort of equipment situation is to clearly define your budget.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

+1 to the Countertop Brutus 20. That's such a nice system!

 

[Islandboy85]

Ok, threw out some stuff in the spare bedroom. Space is no longer an issue. As far as me not being plain on what I want, maybe true. I had in the back of my mind a design I saw a few weeks ago and can't find now. The guy made his mash tun with a heating element and a paddle driven by a geared motor and said it was another RIMS design. I figure the paddle moves your mash around so it could in fact be said to be circulating. Is that a bad design for a tun? And I am starting to see Boerderij_Kabouter's point on the budget...I think it will suite me better to save for a pump. I just thought a motor driven paddle was a cool design too. What would you call that anyway? Padle Recirculated Imersion Mash?

 

[Cede]

Basically, recirculation means you get the wort out of the kettle and take it back on top of the grain bed.

You can do this manually or with a pump.

A motor driving a paddle is doing nothing more than stirring and can also be done by hand

IMHO, 10 gal if you never brewed all grain is really big.
As you're concerned by money, wasting 20 lb of grain is still twice than 10 lbs.

You should try 5 gals batches first, then go 10 gals later when you'll master the process

 

[Islandboy85]

Ok. Sorry about the confusion. Off to go study up a bit more on what I REALLY need. Thanks guys.

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

Have you seen this:

http://www.byo.com/component/resource/article/1987-countertop-brewing-system

It is apartment sized. You could scale it up.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

Cpt. that is the Countertop 20 we were talking about. Jkarp's invention has a good thread here in the DIY section!

Islandboy, I still don't understand the stirrer idea. Is there a heating element IN the mash? I would be concerned about some serious scorching but maybe I am wrong. Or does it use a burner under the mash tun, a false bottom, and the stirrer just keeps everything stirred up? Just stirring is a very difficult way to apply even heat through a mash. I know from experience that it is very difficult to control temps that way.

 

[Islandboy85]

Ok, so the paddle is a bad idea. I have decided to see what I can scrounge up for $650 right now. I figure I can buy a pump, GFI circuit breaker, temp controller, make a false bottom, and get all the valves and pluming for about that.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

$650 is a good budget. You should definitely be able to put a nice system together for that.

Read up around here and elsewhere, and ask any questions you may have!

 

[Cede]

For 650$ you can make a good setup even if it's a simple one.
I was thinking of one boil kettle that can be used to boil and heat water, a kettle to mash ( a cooler is nice ) and one last kettle as buffer.
The buffer can hold wort during sparge and then you pump the wort to the boiler, all this with one pump !

Many ways to do it.

 

[Islandboy85]

I am hoping to keep the third keg as a fermenter and was thinking of using the two others as the mash tun, and letting the other keg do double duty as the kettle and HLT. If I want spare water I have an 8 qt pot on the stove . Is that impractical? I suppose I could always buy a fourth keg since I made more space, but am trying to design a two keg setup. I will put up pics of my plan later when I revise it seven or eight more times.

 

[Cede]

If you want to do 5 gals per session, 8qts will be way too small if you go with 1qt/1lb ratio.

 

[Islandboy85]

Yeah, starting to see that after reading these plans:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/rims-system-plans-119969/

I was wondering something, if you are using the heating chamber to heat all your mash tun, is it possible to use it to simply recirculate and heat each step of the brew? Im not sure if it's practical, but my design with two kegs I am using it to heat the mash and HLT.

 

[Islandboy85]

Stupid me...I have a 50 quart or so cooler I could use for my sparge water...