Brutus/BIAB users - Draining Brutus vs BIAB when recirculating? and other questions.

[aamcle]

I've been researching both systems, I have built a small inelegant stirred BIAB system and I'm interested in upgrading to a recirculating system.

If you have used these systems I would very much appreciate your thoughts on a few questions.

I've read a large number of threads about recirculating blab that have concluded that it doesn't work because the grain bed compacts and chokes off the water flow.

The principal of the Brutus system seems similar - wort continuously recirculating through a grain bed..

Has it got the same problem with flows that effects BIAB systems, if so how is it overcome?

Is the Brutus 10 system more suitable for step mashing than a BIAB setup?

Is it important to have a heating element in the MT?

If you have changed over from BIAB to Brutus what advantages have you found?

Many thanks for your help. Aamcle

 

[aamcle]

A bit more reading has suggested (Lonys comments) that the Brutus 10 will not go over 1.050 sg.

Has any body gone over that?
Are there any mods. for Big beers?

Lony thought the limit was caused by the water becoming saturate with sugars, but this confuses me the Brutus is I think a full volume mash like BIAB or Braumiester and they go over 1.050 with the same ratios of grain to water.


Atb. Aamcle

 

[jeffmeh]

For recirculating BIAB, you can easily avoid any problems with compacting the grain bed. If one is having that problem it is because:

1) You have some type of obstruction causing the bag to not drain properly. Either the mesh is too fine (unlikely), or you are using a basket that further restricts the bag. Many have further drilled out the basket, but I recommend not using one, and using something like a circular cooling rack to make sure the bag does not touch the element.

2) Or, your flow rate out of the recirculation pump is too high. You should have a ball valve (or equivalent) on the outflow of the pump, and dial it down to a lower flow rate. There is no need for a flow rate any higher than what you need to mix the wort to even out the temperature, which really is not that high.