Here is some background:
I previously mashed in a square cooler with a copper pipe manifold(cut w/ splits), I have a chugger pump helping to recirculate through a RIMS tube. I never had any flow issues or stuck sparges with this setup. After 5 years of brewing with this setup, the cooler was starting to wear out.
For Christmas I received a 15 gal MegaPot. I purchased a NorCal false bottom for it. Wonderful piece of equipment, by the way. I was finally able to break away from life and brew with the new equipment.
Now comes my question: I brewed up a Pliny the Younger clone over the weekend. I had roughly 18.5 lbs of grain, using the 1.5 Lbs/qt for my strike water (this has been a good number in my previous setup to use as a starting point). While mashing and recirc'ing thru the RIMS tube, I was having some pretty significant flow restrictions. I had to keep stirring the mash, therefore disturbing the grain bed, every 10 minutes or so throughout the 90 min mash. Is this something that I should have been doing all along or is there some other solution that I over looked? In the past, I would mash in, stir to make sure that there were no grain balls, start the pump, turn on the RIMS element and forgot about it until it was time to raise the temp for mash out.
I am thinking that I may have to add 0.5 to 1 lb of rice hulls as a necessity to all of my grain bills from now on. Any help, suggestions, ideas, etc would be greatly appreciated.
I previously mashed in a square cooler with a copper pipe manifold(cut w/ splits), I have a chugger pump helping to recirculate through a RIMS tube. I never had any flow issues or stuck sparges with this setup. After 5 years of brewing with this setup, the cooler was starting to wear out.
For Christmas I received a 15 gal MegaPot. I purchased a NorCal false bottom for it. Wonderful piece of equipment, by the way. I was finally able to break away from life and brew with the new equipment.
Now comes my question: I brewed up a Pliny the Younger clone over the weekend. I had roughly 18.5 lbs of grain, using the 1.5 Lbs/qt for my strike water (this has been a good number in my previous setup to use as a starting point). While mashing and recirc'ing thru the RIMS tube, I was having some pretty significant flow restrictions. I had to keep stirring the mash, therefore disturbing the grain bed, every 10 minutes or so throughout the 90 min mash. Is this something that I should have been doing all along or is there some other solution that I over looked? In the past, I would mash in, stir to make sure that there were no grain balls, start the pump, turn on the RIMS element and forgot about it until it was time to raise the temp for mash out.
I am thinking that I may have to add 0.5 to 1 lb of rice hulls as a necessity to all of my grain bills from now on. Any help, suggestions, ideas, etc would be greatly appreciated.