LP Fire Manual RIMS

[craley1]

So I was thinking of how to complicate my life a little more and this is what I came up with. Right now my buddy and I do 10 gallon batches with a 15 gallon pot. We heat water for the mash with an LP burner and mash in a giant cooler. After an hour mash (usually) we drain runnings through a CPVC manifold and sparge to get our boil volume. We've been having trouble with efficiencies because of low mash/sparge temps due to delays (manifold problems).

I have a small pump that we use right now for moving hot water around. What if I installed a valve at the top of the brew kettle and used the pump to recirculate water? The temperature control would be difficult since everything would be manual control of the fire.

Let's say I could do the temp control without any problems: would this work? What are some of the pitfalls I am not thinking of? Thanks in advance.

 

[Alemaker]

I'm not 100% clear on what you are trying to do with the valve on the boil kettle.

I wouldn't be so certain that your efficiency problems are due to low temps. I'd look more closely at grain crush, and since you say you are having manifold problems, I'd look there as well. You may not be evenly draining the grain. Are you fly sparging? If you are, batch sparging can help efficiency problems related to inefficient mash tun design. I used to mash in a rectangular cooler with a manifold, but after switching to a converted keg mash tun with a full false bottom, my efficiency has improved.

 

[craley1]

I was just over simplifying. I have a valve at the bottom of the brew kettle for liquid out. I would install another valve at the top of the kettle for liquid in and use the pump to go from bottom to top. I would throw a false bottom to keep the grain off the actual bottom of the kettle and direct heating (as well as for straining purposes).

This was more of a theoretical question. I will look into our manifold and see if we can improve the design. I have to admit that the manifold we use now was not designed for this cooler so it does not fit very well. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Yambor44]

Are you turning your BK into the mash tun or moving the wort from the bottom of the MT to the top of the BK and then from the bottom of the BK back to the top of the MT? Just curious as I think either way you will be fine.

I direct fire my mashtun with a false bottom and recirculate from bottom to top the entire mash time. Firing the burner when needed to hold temps.

However, it is very hard to control the temps this way. For me there is no consistency. If I want my mash at 152, I may let it fall to 147-148 then fire the burner. I then let it go to 150 and kill the burner. Sometimes the temp settles at 152-153, sometimes it ramps on up to 157-158. This is on the very first burn. Each burn after you need to stop the burner at even lower temps because each firing of the burner is heating up the vessel. So stopping at 148 may land at 156.

I have found running the pump only when firing the burner holds the temps longer. When it's cold and windy out, the ambient air temps tend to cool the mash temps quicker if the pump is running due to wort running thru the lines exposed to the ambient temps.

For this reason I am going to an electric RIMS to control my mash temps in hopes that it will give me more control over my mash temps and better consistency.

 

[craley1]

I would essentially be turning my brew kettle into my mash tun. Your experience really gave me some things to consider.

Yambor, what kind of burner are you using? I was hoping that I could keep the burner on all the time and just reduce the flame to maintain the temp. It sounds like this is not feasible from your post. I may try this method but if I have to relight the flame each time it would defeat my main goal of making a brew day go a little easier.

 

[Phunhog]

I am planning on doing the same thing with my single tier Brutus. I have read that it does take some dialing in but that it is not that hard. I wouldn't keep the burner on the whole time. My thinking is that 25 lbs of grain and 8 gallons of water is not going to change temperature that much. There is too much thermal mass. From my research it seems like most guys are just firing the burner and recirculating as needed, which is only 2-3x during a 1 hr mash. You could also insulate the MLT keggle.