Mash recirculation

[beerisyummy]

Greetings zymurgists,
I’m a BIABer thinking about mash recirculation. I have a Blichmann whirlpool thingie on my mash/brew pot and I use a Blichmann RipTide pump to move wort through my CFC. (Blichmann, you’re welcome for the advertising.) Any reason I couldn’t use this equipment for mash recirculation? Specifically, I think I’d want the option to throttle down the recirc by closing the whirlpool valve halfway, and I’d want to be sure this would not hurt the pump.
Thoughts?

 

[day_trippr]

"whirlpool thingie"?
Do you mean an "autosparge valve"?

Cheers!

 

[doug293cz]

As long as you throttle flow on the output side of the pump, it should not cause any problems. Throttling on the input side can lead to cavitation in the pump chamber, which can severely damage the impeller and chamber walls.

Brew on

 

[mabrungard]

As brewers, we're working with a mixture of solids and liquid that we'd like to be fairly homogenous. Since your grist is in a bag, stirring the grist is not really a feasible option. Moving the liquid is the option that's left to us for homogenizing the mixture and having a uniform wort composition and temperature. So yes, recirculating the wort is a good idea. The only issues are making sure that the wort passes relatively uniformly through the bagged grist and avoiding atmospheric contact with the wort during recirculation. I recommend creating some sort of mash cap structure so that all your wort flow is under that cap and separated from air contact. It will make a real difference in wort oxidation and I find that its worth it.