Recirculating mash, how to heat?

[Homergah]

Good point. I always add a handfulish of hulls when using wheat, oats, rice and all that. Cheers

I use them in every mash regardless. It's become habit. I've had one stuck sparge in nearly 30 years. That grain bill did have a lot of wheat in it. From that point on I toss a few handfulls in as habit. Biggest problem is a lot of the LHBS do not stock them.

 

[Blazinlow86]

I use them in every mash regardless. It's become habit. I've had one stuck sparge in nearly 30 years. That grain bill did have a lot of wheat in it. From that point on I toss a few handfulls in as habit. Biggest problem is a lot of the LHBS do not stock them.

I don't use them unless there's a fair bit of not grain in my grist. I find they get all over the place lol. I've also been lucky enough to have only had a stuck sparge once. Cheers

 

[mongoose33]

I use them in every mash regardless. It's become habit. I've had one stuck sparge in nearly 30 years. That grain bill did have a lot of wheat in it. From that point on I toss a few handfulls in as habit. Biggest problem is a lot of the LHBS do not stock them.

I've started to do the same thing. Costs next to nothing, and cheap insurance. I get a nice porous grain bed.

Once I decided I'd buy 10# of rice hulls from Ritebrew. They're 90 cents per pound, 70 cents if you buy 10#. I bought 10#.

You have no idea how large in volume is 10# of rice hulls. Or maybe you do.

 

[Homergah]

I've started to do the same thing. Costs next to nothing, and cheap insurance. I get a nice porous grain bed.

Once I decided I'd buy 10# of rice hulls from Ritebrew. They're 90 cents per pound, 70 cents if you buy 10#. I bought 10#.

You have no idea how large in volume is 10# of rice hulls. Or maybe you do.

I know! First time I picked up a big bale like that I nearly threw myself over backwards.

 

[RichBenn]

I was going to go the RIMS route back when I started, but Yooper talked me into HERMS. Reasoning was no possibility of scortched wort, and the fact that one needs an HLT anyway for sparging. There is also no possibility of a burnt element, as I installed a float switch to send a disconnect to the controller if the water gets low.

That all said, the comments already listed can help you minimize issues two of these problems. Also, I should admit that although my HERMS system can do fly sparge, batch sparge, and BIAB, I find myself doing BIAB more frequently now to minimize cleanup. And I don't think my beers are any better than when I used a cooler with batch sparging, frankly. A lot of ways to make good beer.

 

[augiedoggy]

Anything wrong with channeling if I'm not sparging?

yes you still want consistent flow through the mash if you develop channeling the grain in the other areas will not contribute as much to the wort. and you will get temp fluctuations which counterdicts the point of a herms or rims.

Again for the comments about scorching , if the rims is designed and implemented correctly it does not have these possible issues and it has advantages over a herms. Speed and quick being the biggest one. I had a herms system before I went through a few different rims configurtations trying to see what worked better and why... if the probe is near the element and in the flow stream you should not get scorching.. if youre still worried ad a flow switch a good one is $20 and easy to wire in. And of course if the element is low enough watt density theres no fear of denatured enzymes. it works more like an on demand water heater with the herms being the old hot water tank..

 

[augiedoggy]

I don't use them unless there's a fair bit of not grain in my grist. I find they get all over the place lol. I've also been lucky enough to have only had a stuck sparge once. Cheers

I also do not use them at home. We do at the brewery because of the size of the mash and wanting to optimize flow speed through the rims there due to time and volume.(at this size it still takes 15 mins or so just to get a stable mash temp after doughing in and prolonged uneven temps is not good) Even at 5gpm it still takes a while to go through 80-100 gallons of mash..
At home I have absolutely no reason myself to recirculate faster. my thin bayou classic kettle holds temps fine while using the rims at even 1gpm speeds for a 10gallon mash.. my rims element is also lower watt density so its no problem.

At the brewpub I do start to get localized boiling which I can see in the sight glass if im trying to raise the mash more than a few degrees at a time with low flow of say 2-3gpm or lower... In hindsight I should have looked for longer elements. but at around 4-5gpm everything works great.

EDIT having these two different setups made me realize different things can cause different needs in different setups so yeah what works in one setup well may not in another due to some other weakness or design limitation.