Poor Efficiency, I want to recirc Mash

[itsmymilkyway]

As said above i need better efficiency, and stirring the mash is a no go. I have never seen anyone i know recirc mash but id like to do it. How do you recirc the mash while retaining the temp? Anyone recommend a high temp pump for this or a budget friendly way? I would appreciate pics of a set up, i imagine i would just hose from outlet of mash tun to the pump and dump it into the top of my cooler. My biggest question is how to control temp, heat loss for an hour while this runs.

 

[triletter]

What you are after is a simple HERMS or RIMS system. If you are handy and patient you could obtain parts over time to make it work. Temp control is going to be the most difficult/expensive part without a controller of some sort. I guess you could dough in thick and add hot water to the top of your mash during recirc, but that would have temps all over the place. Even insulating your hoses, most of your temp loss is going to be through the pump and volume of recirc could be an issue, depending on your manifold situation. No simple solutions that I can think of that would give you any kind of consistency. Good luck.

 

[Rodent]

I tossed together a simple HERMS system utilizing

- a pot that was not currently being used in the kitchen
- a $30 high temp pump from my LHBS
- hi temp silicone tubing
- a $35 wort chiller coil sourced on eBay
- a candy thermometer in the pot to measure water temp

I control temp by adjusting the burner on the stove, which heats the water in the pot, which transfers to the wort that is being recirculated thru the wort chiller tube, and back into the insulated mash tun.

It's a super simple system that works very well as proven by multiple brewing sessions.

 

[aprichman]

Why can't you stir the mash?

 

[mongoose33]

Why can't you stir the mash?

This^

Stirring my mash a couple times at 15- and 30-minutes helped my efficiency immensely, as did being able to control my crush. Add water composition into that, and water temp, and IMO there's no reason not to get high efficiency.

 

[Rodent]

I stir my mash 2-4 times over the course of a typical 60 min session

I also start to recirc via the HERMS at roughly 10 min after dough in, and adjust temp in my mash tun as needed for that session. Even though you will be recirculating, it's still important to stir the mash a couple times to ensure you have even temp and also that you don't develop channels for the wort to short cut thru the grain bed.

I do pause the recirc for a minute or three when stirring, and then restart the flow slowly so that there's no issue with compacting the grain bed on top of the false bottom

Before adopting this workflow I was struggling to hit 60% efficiency. My last brew day I hit all of my numbers within a point and achieved 75% efficiency. I'm sure I can hit even higher efficiency than this for a regular beer, but most of my brews are 2x or Imperial type heavies where +20 pounds of grain is utilized to collect 8ish gallons of pre-boil


as noted above, controlling your crush is also key for efficiency. your LHBS doesn't set their crush size for maximum efficiency - they have it set so guarantee the general brewer utilizing their mill won't get stuck sparges. in some cases, this crush size may only get you 60% efficiency without a lot of work.

 

[kevin58]

There is a whole lot of information missing here that could explain your efficiency. First off, what is your current efficiency?
How do you crush your grains and how fine is your crush?
What are you using for a mash tun?
How do you sparge? Batch? Fly? None at all?
What are your losses... dead space in the mash tun, hoses, pumps, etc? (if those are being used)

Paying attention to these things could be less expensive while giving a worthwhile boost in efficiency.