new eBrewing setup, eBIAB or eHerms?

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So I am finally getting closer to getting my indoor electric brewery working. Just need to finally get the circuit breaker installed in the panel. All other work is done. It’s been a long road that involved building a new house, lol.
The initial plan was to go with the idea from TexasWine above, 2 vessels plus and external germs coil via the exchilerator seen above. I had spike build 2 custom kettles and I am going to use a blichmann brecommander to control it all.
But now I am wondering if it just might be easier to do 2 vessel recirculating biab? I would have only 1 heating element in the boil kettle. Send wort through the bottle of the kettle, the pump and into the top of the mash tun. Then out of the bottom of the mash tun, through another pump and into the top of the boil kettle as indicated in the image above.
First of all any reason this would not work? Any downsides? I think this would be easier connections wise than adding the xchilerator to the mix. Although one thing I am confused on would be how much water to add to the boil kettle to start the process? In regular BIAB i use about 8.5 gallons for a 5.5 gallon batch. Wondering if this would be enough. I really just need to make sure there is enough wort covering the heating element in the boil kettle.
Thoughts?
 
View attachment 664169

So I am finally getting closer to getting my indoor electric brewery working. Just need to finally get the circuit breaker installed in the panel. All other work is done. It’s been a long road that involved building a new house, lol.
The initial plan was to go with the idea from TexasWine above, 2 vessels plus and external germs coil via the exchilerator seen above. I had spike build 2 custom kettles and I am going to use a blichmann brecommander to control it all.
But now I am wondering if it just might be easier to do 2 vessel recirculating biab? I would have only 1 heating element in the boil kettle. Send wort through the bottle of the kettle, the pump and into the top of the mash tun. Then out of the bottom of the mash tun, through another pump and into the top of the boil kettle as indicated in the image above.
First of all any reason this would not work? Any downsides? I think this would be easier connections wise than adding the xchilerator to the mix. Although one thing I am confused on would be how much water to add to the boil kettle to start the process? In regular BIAB i use about 8.5 gallons for a 5.5 gallon batch. Wondering if this would be enough. I really just need to make sure there is enough wort covering the heating element in the boil kettle.
Thoughts?

Absolutely. What you're describing is Kettle RIMS. The main difference between K-RIMS and a standard RIMS setup is that you're using the kettle to heat the wort, not a RIMS tube. Most people who do K-RIMS do a full-volume mash with no sparge. Volumes would be very similar to a BIAB although you'll get high grain absorption that BIABers who squeeze.

If you look up the manual for the Blichmann BrewEasy, you'll see that it's the same setup except they use one pump and gravity. The toughest part of K-RIMS is balancing the flow between the MT and the kettle. Blichmann's solution (and what I plan to do) is to use an autosparge that regulates the flow back into the MT. The you manage the overall recirculation rate by manually setting the flow rate from the MT to the kettle. The autosparge will match it automatically.

Some other things to consider:
  • I plan to use a bag and a BrewHardware BIAB false bottom so that I have easier cleanup.
  • You'll need to measure the temp for your controller. I think most people measure the temp coming out of the kettle. I have mine set up that way for recirculating eBIAB anyway.
Just put your full volume into the kettle and heat to strike temp, then pump strike volume to MT. Dough in, vorlauf (if you want super clear wort), then begin circulation. When the mash is done, just drain from the MT to the kettle and start the boil.

If you use the bag, cleanup is just lifting the bag out of the MT and an easy cleanup. Clean the kettle after transfer to the fermenter and you're good to go.
 
Good to know it should work fine. I have two riptide pumps which allow you to set flow rates so hoping i can use these to manually get things flowing correctly. I also plan on using a bag in the mash tun to make clean up easier.

I did watch this video and not sure on a couple of the steps he does, looks similar to what you describe.

 
Hi
For a while I had a kettle rims setup and was not satisfied with the results. Once you get past all challenges that Hwk said above, which I solved, I was not satisfied with my wort clarity out of the mtun. in order to get clear wort you need to recirculate in the mtun and only in the mtun. I ultimately went with a rims tube and could not be happier.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/new-30-rims.665089/#post-8576788

Not trying to poopoo your setup, but ultimately the money and time I spent on the krims I wish I would have just built my current setup... so trying to save you that time and headache.

I am using a lot of lodo techniques and with clear wort my beer has never been better. Maybe your beer goals are different than mine.
YMMV

thanks haeffnkr
 
Hi
For a while I had a kettle rims setup and was not satisfied with the results. Once you get past all challenges that Hwk said above, which I solved, I was not satisfied with my wort clarity out of the mtun. in order to get clear wort you need to recirculate in the mtun and only in the mtun. I ultimately went with a rims tube and could not be happier.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/new-30-rims.665089/#post-8576788

Not trying to poopoo your setup, but ultimately the money and time I spent on the krims I wish I would have just built my current setup... so trying to save you that time and headache.

I am using a lot of lodo techniques and with clear wort my beer has never been better. Maybe your beer goals are different than mine.
YMMV

thanks haeffnkr
Did you vorlauf before circulating into the kettle? If your only get clear wort from the mash tun, I'm confused how you don't get clear wort in the kettle at the end...
 
When I ran the pump continually in my krims setup, I never got all the wort filtered though the grain bed in the mtun with krims setup. Thus it was not very clear pre boil wort out the dual kettle setup.
Now I do full volume mashes in my mtun with the rims tube and it is super clear. I continually vorlauf now in the mtun, start to finish mashing, after 90 minute or longer, full volume re-circulation it is again, super clear at the end of mashing. Starting with clear pre boil wort leads to clear post boil wort for me.
 
When I ran the pump continually in my krims setup, I never got all the wort filtered though the grain bed in the mtun with krims setup. Thus it was not very clear pre boil wort out the dual kettle setup.
Now I do full volume mashes in my mtun with the rims tube and it is super clear. I continually vorlauf now in the mtun, start to finish mashing, after 90 minute or longer, full volume re-circulation it is again, super clear at the end of mashing. Starting with clear pre boil wort leads to clear post boil wort for me.

You might have had better luck if you'd vorlaufed a quart or two before beginning the recirculation to set the grain bed. If you go straight to recirculation it's like draining your cooler mash tun to the kettle without a vorlauf.
 
So is vorlaufing just recirculating in the mash tun prior to sending the wort to the kettle? If so should it be done at a high or low flow rate. I have the riptide pumps so I can set flow to whatever I want. It also looks like that might be the step shown in the video above before he starts his "infinity" loop?
 
So is vorlaufing just recirculating in the mash tun prior to sending the wort to the kettle? If so should it be done at a high or low flow rate. I have the riptide pumps so I can set flow to whatever I want. It also looks like that might be the step shown in the video above before he starts his "infinity" loop?

Pretty much. You can take the MT outlet to the pump and back into the top of the MT. I plan to gravity drain from the MT, so I just plan to do what I did with my cooler mash tun which is gravity drain into a pitcher which I just pour gently into the top of the MT. For the cooler MT, about two pitchers full would produce clear wort. Best to wait about 5 minutes after dough-in/stirring to let the grain settle, then begin the vorlauf.

At that point you can start the recirculation and nothing but clear wort should get into your kettle. If you just start out immediately recirculating, you will get particulate into your kettle, just as you would if you drained a cooler MT into your kettle without a vorlauf. It's standard brewing process.
 
Pretty much. You can take the MT outlet to the pump and back into the top of the MT. I plan to gravity drain from the MT, so I just plan to do what I did with my cooler mash tun which is gravity drain into a pitcher which I just pour gently into the top of the MT. For the cooler MT, about two pitchers full would produce clear wort. Best to wait about 5 minutes after dough-in/stirring to let the grain settle, then begin the vorlauf.

At that point you can start the recirculation and nothing but clear wort should get into your kettle. If you just start out immediately recirculating, you will get particulate into your kettle, just as you would if you drained a cooler MT into your kettle without a vorlauf. It's standard brewing process.

Thanks its not something I was aware of.

I am thinking the process will look like this.

1. heat full volume of water in BK to strike temp.
2. Open valves, start bumps, start circulating from BK to MT, once up to strike temp shut off pumps, heating element and close valves.
3. Fill mash ton with grains and dough in.
4. Let settle for a min or two, change hoses, start pump to recirculate in mash tun only for 5 mins. Low flow?
5. change hoses back to recirculate between both kettles, start pumps and fire back up heating element. Once hit mash temp start timer.
6. Once mash is complete, stop one pump and close BK bottom valve so all wort drains into the BK.
7. Start ramping BK to boil and start cleaning mash tun.
8. go about business as usual.

Look about right?
 
Thanks its not something I was aware of.

I am thinking the process will look like this.

1. heat full volume of water in BK to strike temp.
2. Open valves, start bumps, start circulating from BK to MT, once up to strike temp shut off pumps, heating element and close valves.
3. Fill mash ton with grains and dough in.
4. Let settle for a min or two, change hoses, start pump to recirculate in mash tun only for 5 mins. Low flow?
5. change hoses back to recirculate between both kettles, start pumps and fire back up heating element. Once hit mash temp start timer.
6. Once mash is complete, stop one pump and close BK bottom valve so all wort drains into the BK.
7. Start ramping BK to boil and start cleaning mash tun.
8. go about business as usual.

Look about right?

Yep. I plan to just recirc in the boil kettle while heating to strike, then my strike volume to the mash tun once it's at temp. Then dough in. Alternatively, if you wanted to underlet, you could put your grains in the MT while the strike water is heating/recirculating in the kettle. Then pump your strike water into the MT as a typical underlet.

I'd start pretty slow for your vorlauf recirculation...you could ramp up to your intended total recirculation rate while in vorlauf mode to ensure your grain bed doesn't compact. That way if you have problems, you can stir it and restart the vorlauf.

In general, the process looks sound.
 
I have two riptide pumps which allow you to set flow rates so hoping i can use these to manually get things flowing correctly.

You are going to hate brewing, and perhaps even life in general, if you attempt to control a K-Rims system manually with valves.

My previous set up could be used in a variety of configurations, including K-Rims (using a Blichmann auto sparge). I tried it a few times and determined I didn't like it. Cloudy wort, as mentioned above. Splitting the wort volume into two vessels resulted in more heat loss and more sporadic control of the temperature. I just found it to be generally unenjoyable.

Could I have persevered and made it work? Sure. But external HERMS was easy from the get go and allowed me to achieve the brewing best practices that were important to me.
 
Thanks its not something I was aware of.

I am thinking the process will look like this.

1. heat full volume of water in BK to strike temp.
2. Open valves, start bumps, start circulating from BK to MT, once up to strike temp shut off pumps, heating element and close valves.
3. Fill mash ton with grains and dough in.
4. Let settle for a min or two, change hoses, start pump to recirculate in mash tun only for 5 mins. Low flow?
5. change hoses back to recirculate between both kettles, start pumps and fire back up heating element. Once hit mash temp start timer.
6. Once mash is complete, stop one pump and close BK bottom valve so all wort drains into the BK.
7. Start ramping BK to boil and start cleaning mash tun.
8. go about business as usual.

Look about right?

Your process will make beer, yes.

But-
As stated above, by multiple others in this thread, some that have tried this setup, it will painful. It will always need to be watched and fiddled with. You will never be able to leave this setup for an hour while you go do something else.
 
Your process will make beer, yes.

But-
As stated above, by multiple others in this thread, some that have tried this setup, it will painful. It will always need to be watched and fiddled with. You will never be able to leave this setup for an hour while you go do something else.

That's true if you just try to manage the flow rates of the two pumps manually. If you use an autosparge to keep the MT at a constant level, it'll be as set-it-and-forget-it as any recirculating rig.
 
Ok so lots of no’s on k-rims. I got the breaker installed, wooo! So I fired up the system just to try and understand the brew commander a little bit. I decided to try the external herms route so used the exchilerator as a herms coil. I was messing around with different things so didn’t get a truly accurate picture on ramp up time but within about 40 mins I had the mash tun to 160 degrees. I think if I got it going correctly it would probably be around 30 mins. Think I am going to try this with first brew. I have never done herms and have some questions.

1. What is the most efficient way to circulate? Slow or faster for the MT and the HLT (external).
2. When it comes time to mash in, do I shut coil and pumps off?
3. Why are there less flow issues sending wort through a herms coil back to MT vs sending wort through to a second tank(k-rims)
 
The problem with K-rims in terms of wort clarity is that the kettle's wort is not guaranteed to be recirculated back through the grain bed which serves as the filter. If you keep the kettle volume very low (or had a bottom drain), this is mitigated. I'm not sure that clarity is that big of a deal in homebrew - but of course there is a preference thing.
 
The problem with K-rims in terms of wort clarity is that the kettle's wort is not guaranteed to be recirculated back through the grain bed which serves as the filter. If you keep the kettle volume very low (or had a bottom drain), this is mitigated. I'm not sure that clarity is that big of a deal in homebrew - but of course there is a preference thing.

I guess I don't understand how you get wort that's not clear in the kettle. People vorlauf routinely to get clear wort, then drain to a kettle when they use a standalone MLT (such as a cooler MT or an insulated MLT like SS Brewtech has). Are you saying they cannot get clear wort either? I never had a clarity problem when I used a bazooka filter and vorlauf on my cooler MLT.

So if I do the same thing, only before circulating into the kettle instead of at the end of the mash, why would I have anything but clear wort in the kettle to begin with? If you insulate your mashtun (which I am doing), you could even do a 5-10 minute recirc with just the MLT and pump at the beginning with very little drop in temp.

I'll admit, I haven't done this, but I'm not seeing how you end up with a wort clarity issue that's inherent in a kettle RIMS rig unless you just jump straight into recirculating (which is a process issue, not a rig issue).
 
Recirculating constantly runs the same wort through grain bed, so its continually filtering and improving. Once you take that work to an intermediate holding place like the kettle, the cloudy stuff has a place to stay/settle and not necessarily get recirculated back to the mash tun.

Again, probably not a deal breaker IMO... some swear clear wort matters. So if clear wort is what you are after, you cannot compare K-rims or BIAB to a legit MLT.
 
Recirculating constantly runs the same wort through grain bed, so its continually filtering and improving. Once you take that work to an intermediate holding place like the kettle, the cloudy stuff has a place to stay/settle and not necessarily get recirculated back to the mash tun.

Again, probably not a deal breaker IMO... some swear clear wort matters. So if clear wort is what you are after, you cannot compare K-rims or BIAB to a legit MLT.

I'll defer to your expertise and experience. I want wort as clear as what I got with my cooler mash tun, bazooka filter and vorlauf (which was not cloudy). I figured that's a worse case result with a continuously recirculating KRIMS with a vorlauf prior to recirculating.
 
So I did my first brew day on the new setup last night. Ended up using the exchilerator as an external herms coil based on all the comments here. That worked just fine. One BIG issue I had however was very low pre boil effiency. Was supposed to be 1.041 and end up 1.024. Never had an issue like that before. Looking for advise on what could have gone wrong. Here is what i did.

Heated water in Mash tun by recirculating through the herms coil. Got to 160 strike temp and doughed in. I kept the pumps running and heat going, was this my mistake? The mash then recirculated through the coil for 60 mins. When done I transferred to kettle. Once there did a reading and saw how low it was, so I transferred back and let it go for like another 30 mins, did not see any difference. Finally gave up, added a bunch of sugar and called it a day. OG ended up around 1.050.

Thinking maybe it was start of mash where i messed up?
 
So I did my first brew day on the new setup last night. Ended up using the exchilerator as an external herms coil based on all the comments here. That worked just fine. One BIG issue I had however was very low pre boil effiency. Was supposed to be 1.041 and end up 1.024. Never had an issue like that before. Looking for advise on what could have gone wrong. Here is what i did.

Heated water in Mash tun by recirculating through the herms coil. Got to 160 strike temp and doughed in. I kept the pumps running and heat going, was this my mistake? The mash then recirculated through the coil for 60 mins. When done I transferred to kettle. Once there did a reading and saw how low it was, so I transferred back and let it go for like another 30 mins, did not see any difference. Finally gave up, added a bunch of sugar and called it a day. OG ended up around 1.050.

Thinking maybe it was start of mash where i messed up?
If your temps never went above 160 then keeping the pumps running wasn't the issue. Enzymatic activity should stay active until 170F or above. Were you keeping an eye on your MT temps throughout the whole mash? I would think it would be difficult to keep constant temps with manual pump operations. Did the wort maybe get too hot in the herms coil to kill off the enzymes maybe? Just some thoughts. 1.024 is way low, grain crush size? Mash PH issues?
 
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I crushed the grains myself which i always do. Don’t belieave i had any ph issues. I kept an eye on the temps and they seemed fine the entire time. I will say for about 40% of my grain bill I used some 2-3 year old grains but they were in a sealed 5 gallon bucket. However last summer they were in a storage unit that got hot at times. Not sure if that could have anything to do with it.
 
I crushed the grains myself which i always do. Don’t belieave i had any ph issues. I kept an eye on the temps and they seemed fine the entire time. I will say for about 40% of my grain bill I used some 2-3 year old grains but they were in a sealed 5 gallon bucket. However last summer they were in a storage unit that got hot at times. Not sure if that could have anything to do with it.
Did you see any evidence of weevils in your old grain that was stored hot? pretty much all grain have weevil larvae present unless it is roasted at high temps recently. They can eat through grain pretty quick and cause it to loose starch viability. The grain will pretty much look whole because the bugs get inside the husks. I have seen weevils cause low OG before. Weevils have a tendency to hatch in grain stored above 70F. This is a far fetched possibility but possible. Weevils just add more protein to the finished product that is boiled so no harm to humans. But gross to think about.
 
Never heard of weevils, didnt see anything strange. They smelled fine. Not sure if that matters. Interestingly enough if i deleted the portion of the grain bill that matches the amount of old grain my calculator says pre boil would be 1.024 which is exactly what i had, so thinking it could have been bad old grains. I guess we will find out next brew day if i use new grains and have any issues or not.
 
So I did my first brew day on the new setup last night. Ended up using the exchilerator as an external herms coil based on all the comments here. That worked just fine. One BIG issue I had however was very low pre boil effiency. Was supposed to be 1.041 and end up 1.024. Never had an issue like that before. Looking for advise on what could have gone wrong. Here is what i did.

Heated water in Mash tun by recirculating through the herms coil. Got to 160 strike temp and doughed in. I kept the pumps running and heat going, was this my mistake? The mash then recirculated through the coil for 60 mins. When done I transferred to kettle. Once there did a reading and saw how low it was, so I transferred back and let it go for like another 30 mins, did not see any difference. Finally gave up, added a bunch of sugar and called it a day. OG ended up around 1.050.

Thinking maybe it was start of mash where i messed up?

I have an almost identical setup but not using an external heat exchanger. I have a Blichmann Thermonater that I use for chilling so it would be very simple for me to add this in as an external heat exchanger. Where do you put your temperature probe for your pid controller in this setup? Currently I have mine coming out of the boil kettle outlet. If I put it on the mash outlet then I would have to move it over to the boil kettle for boiling.
 
I have an almost identical setup but not using an external heat exchanger. I have a Blichmann Thermonater that I use for chilling so it would be very simple for me to add this in as an external heat exchanger. Where do you put your temperature probe for your pid controller in this setup? Currently I have mine coming out of the boil kettle outlet. If I put it on the mash outlet then I would have to move it over to the boil kettle for boiling.
I see the answer in post #12; the mash side.
 
Biggest efficiency gain you’ll get with BIAB is grain crush. Buy a mill and set it up. I have a 10 gallon kettle and still use a cooler with a brew bag. My efficiency was all over the place until I got a mill. Best purchase I made. Very consistent 69% BHE.
 
Recirculating constantly runs the same wort through grain bed, so its continually filtering and improving. Once you take that work to an intermediate holding place like the kettle, the cloudy stuff has a place to stay/settle and not necessarily get recirculated back to the mash tun.

Again, probably not a deal breaker IMO... some swear clear wort matters. So if clear wort is what you are after, you cannot compare K-rims or BIAB to a legit MLT.
Could the cloudy wort issue here not be solved by moving the water in the BK over to the MT at the end of the mash? That way the entire volume would pass through the grain bed one final time as it's all pumped back over to the BK. Maybe even just recirculate the entire volume at the end of the mash.
 
I'm not quite visualizing what you are saying... but it sounds ok.
In a Kettle-Rims set up, there needs to be enough water in the boil kettle to at least cover the heating element. In an “infinity loop” recirculating between the two kettles, my understanding from reading this thread is that you might NOT filter all the wort through the grain bed thus leading to cloudy wort in the boil kettle. So my thoughts are, can you not move the water that is covering the element in the BK (that is probably cloudy), back over to the mash tun, recirculate (hopefully clearing the wort further) and then transfer all the wort back over to the boil kettle. Sorry if I’m not clear.
 
In a Kettle-Rims set up, there needs to be enough water in the boil kettle to at least cover the heating element. In an “infinity loop” recirculating between the two kettles, my understanding from reading this thread is that you might NOT filter all the wort through the grain bed thus leading to cloudy wort in the boil kettle. So my thoughts are, can you not move the water that is covering the element in the BK (that is probably cloudy), back over to the mash tun, recirculate (hopefully clearing the wort further) and then transfer all the wort back over to the boil kettle. Sorry if I’m not clear.

You could if you turned off the element. You could pump the kettle dry, putting it all in the MT (assuming sufficient space in the MT), ensure there's no gunk in the kettle, then vorlauf until it runs clear (should be clear right away since you've been recirculating the whole time), and finally drain back to the kettle for the boil.

I still don't understand how you can't vorlauf before beginning recirculation. If you can vorlauf from a cooler MLT to get clear wort and then drain to a kettle, I don't understand why you can't do the same in a K-RIMS system. Initially you could just recirculate from the MT to the MT until it runs clear, then move the hose that's returning to the MT to the kettle and begin the full recirculation. That's probably overkill given that I only needed to run 2-4 quarts to get clear wort from my cooler MT when I used it with a bazooka filter. If you only send clear wort to the kettle, it's not clear to me how you ever have wort that's not clear in your kettle.
 
Unfortunately, no good pics. Does this sketch help? Basically you just use your chiller instead of a HERMs coil to exchange heat with water.

Another advantage of this set up is that you don't have to keep a whole bunch of water in the HLT just to cover HERMs coils. You need just enough to cover the heating elements in the HLT/BK. That means your heating response time during the mash should be much improved.

Personally, I measure the wort return temp to the MT instead of the traditional way of messages the HLT in a standard HERMs design. I can do this because there is never more than a few degrees differential between the HLT and MT, and because the thermal mass in the HLT is small due to the fact that I only need enough water to cover the elements, which is about 3 gallons in my set up.
TexasWine, I think I'm going to give this a try. Are you putting the PID temp probe after the "wort out" of the chiller before it returns back into the mash tun? I am going to try with my Blichmann Thermanator. Thanks
 
TexasWine, I think I'm going to give this a try. Are you putting the PID temp probe after the "wort out" of the chiller before it returns back into the mash tun? I am going to try with my Blichmann Thermanator. Thanks

Yes.

If using a plate exchanger, be mindful of grain bits getting into the exchanger passes. I recommend using a bag in the MLT if you are going this route.
 
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