Help me help myself!!

[birdley123]

So take a look at my current setup; how big a deal would it be to upgrade what i have to using pumps, etc.? My SWMBO is looking for xmas ideas for me!

 

[BroStefan]

Nice gravity system. It looks like you can run water directly into the kettle. If so no need for a pump there.

Some ideas. A pump could be used to recirculate the mash as a HERMS or RIMS but both would need even more equipment. Recirculating during chilling will speed up cooling a lot.

If you don't have a grain mill or a good chiller I'd go there first. Also fermentation temp control. Both more bang for buck quality wise IMHO.

 

[birdley123]

Thanks, I've got a good mill and a good IC chiller; fermentation temps are also taken care of via a dorm frig and a stc1000.
Here's the thing; is there a good illustration somewhere I can look at that shows how all this is actually hooked up?

And as far as recirculating the mash goes, I thought you weren't supposed to mess with it after you doughed in? Until sparge???

 

[jrcrilly]

Mash recirculation is a good technique for maintaining consistent temperatures throughout the mash. No hot or cool areas in which unintended enzymatic activities occur. This is sufficient to justify adding one pump. It does increase mash heat losses and they may be large enough in some systems to be problematic. Most folks, when adding a recirc pump, also add some sort of heat control to the recirculating wort and that's fine (I did, too) but it is not always essential.

 

[TX_Brewing]

Maybe add a port on your kettle for transfer to the fermenter? Agree with above posts on mash recirculation either rims or herms.

 

[birdley123]

Could someone please explain RIMS and HERMS ?
Seen the term but it's greek to me [emoji53]

 

[jrcrilly]

RIMS is Recirculating Infusion Mash System. In its simplest form, it consists of taking mash water from the bottom of the mash tun (usually the ball valve that is used to drain it) and pumping it up and back into the top of the mash tun to equalize the temperatures within. Some sort of diffusion device is usually used at the inlet to avoid disturbing the grain bed. Sometimes folks run the wort through a chamber containing a heating element so the mash temperature can be regulated.

HERMS is Heat Exchanger Recirculating Mash System. Here, the wort taken from the mash tun is pumped through a heat exchanger, usually a coil suspended in the hot liquor tank. The wort is heated by the HLT water as it passes through and, again, temperature regulation can be achieved in addition to the temperature equalization from recirculation.

 

[bigken462]

RIMS is Recirculating Infusion Mash System. In its simplest form, it consists of taking mash water from the bottom of the mash tun (usually the ball valve that is used to drain it) and pumping it up and back into the top of the mash tun to equalize the temperatures within. Some sort of diffusion device is usually used at the inlet to avoid disturbing the grain bed. Sometimes folks run the wort through a chamber containing a heating element so the mash temperature can be regulated.

HERMS is Heat Exchanger Recirculating Mash System. Here, the wort taken from the mash tun is pumped through a heat exchanger, usually a coil suspended in the hot liquor tank. The wort is heated by the HLT water as it passes through and, again, temperature regulation can be achieved in addition to the temperature equalization from recirculation.

If I could jump in one second and ask a question regarding this last post. Could I use this old 3/8 wort chiller that was submerged in a small 5 gallon stock pot with a heat source to maintain temps in the mash tun? Would this be a HERMS system at a very basic level? My immediate thinking is that this has got to be risky for stopping up with grain particles.

Thanks for the thread OP, as this just helped me a bunch.

 

[jrcrilly]

Yes, that would be a basic HERMS system. You'd want to replace the flexible tubing with high temperature silicon. When I was evaluating the idea here, I tested it with a 25 foot, 3/8" wort chiller just like that one. It maintained mash temperature well, but lacked the surface area to quickly drive the mash temperature up to mashout temperature. If you want that capability you'll want a longer and/or larger diameter coil. It should be fine for just stabilizing the mash, though. That's probably all you really want or need.

I didn't have any clogging issues with that size tubing. If it becomes an issue, you could Vorlauf before beginning the recirculation. Once the grain bed is stable, it will keep the wort clear.

You do need to take some care about cleaning it, as you can't see what is going on inside. Using it as an immersion wort chiller, you don't care - but with wort going inside this is much more critical. I clean in place by circulating hot PBW through all of the tubing and the pump after brewing, then rinse with hot water.