Re-Circulating pre-boil?

[swanwick]

My past experience is with a 3 vessel tiered system. I am now in process building a 3 vessel single-tier HERMS system. So, I will newly have access to pumps which means I can whirlpool.

I am wondering if there is any advantage to re-circulating the wort pre-boil? My hypothesis is that it could create a more uniform temperature throughout the vessel. Without it, seems to me once the wort around the element starts to boil, it then creates a much faster "updraft" which "surprises" the probe driving the PID with boiling wort all of a sudden. By the time PID realizes what is going on you have a greater chance of boil over.

Or am I overthinking this?

 

[Deadalus]

No need for the PID, you don't want to bounce around the boil temp, you just want it to boil. I just have a power regulator that applies a percentage of power. That's probably not the component name but I can't think of it at the moment. Someone will chime in. It's like operating a stove burner.

 

[Jaybird]

Really the only reason I can think of to circulate is if you are adding extract OR you have a really high OG (loads of solids and sugars) and you have a MASSIVE BTU burner. Other than that I don't really see a reason. On that note IF you are starting your BK heat up like I do DURRING the lauter process you will be inadvertently circulating the wort anyway.

Cheers
Jay

 

[Deadalus]

Good point @Jaybird, I pump my wort into the BK through my whirlpool port myself.

Not to say this is the only way to heat the wort but I do have one and it is called a digital power regulator. (Auber DSPR1) Since I don't have a PID on the BK, I'm not sure how one might set the PID to adjust the boil vigor and thus the boil off rate. With the power regulator, I don't have a temperature probe and just use a dial thermometer.

 

[swanwick]

Thanks guys. I am also going to pump wort into BK through the whirlpool inlet. My new system is electric and only 30amps which means that I can only have one of the two 5500watt elements on at a time. I am going to have to work out when is the right time to switch from using the PID to keep the sparge water at temp to when I want to start heating the BK.

 

[doug293cz]

Thanks guys. I am also going to pump wort into BK through the whirlpool inlet. My new system is electric and only 30amps which means that I can only have one of the two 5500watt elements on at a time. I am going to have to work out when is the right time to switch from using the PID to keep the sparge water at temp to when I want to start heating the BK.

I wouldn't worry about temp drop in the sparge water during lautering. You can sparge with cold water just fine (but heating to boil takes longer.) Just switch to the BK element when you are at the point when you will just about reach boiling when you finish lautering (you will have to experiment with your system to see how long it takes to heat to boil vs. how long lautering takes.)

Brew on