RIMS vs HERMS vs Recirculating Direct Heating

[mabrungard]

when you do it that way you are actually mashing some of the liquid at 160f and it changes the outcome as far as mash temps from what the software estimates at a certain mash temp..

the real question is if you want to mash at 150 why is your mash at 140? some sort of step mash or poor strike water calculations would be the only reason this would occur right?

The only thing that matters is the temperature of the wort. The temperature of the mash bed does not matter. If you're flowing hotter wort through a cooler mash bed, eventually that 'wave' of hotter wort will make its way through the entire bed and the whole system is at temperature. It's unreasonable to think that you can instantly step the temperature of your entire system up. It does take time and watts to add and distribute heat.

 

[augiedoggy]

The only thing that matters is the temperature of the wort. The temperature of the mash bed does not matter. If you're flowing hotter wort through a cooler mash bed, eventually that 'wave' of hotter wort will make its way through the entire bed and the whole system is at temperature. It's unreasonable to think that you can instantly step the temperature of your entire system up. It does take time and watts to add and distribute heat.

I totally agree with you. not sure how your interpreting what im saying.. what im trying to say is a poorly designed rims can effectively heat the wort around the element to much higher than setpoint but by the time it reaches the probe at the opposite end of the tube some of the wort that also made it through the tube but didnt come in contact with the rims element surface will mix and bring the temp back down..to me thats a less efficient way to use the rims and some wort will effectively see very high element surface temps this way.

 

[augiedoggy]

I always looked at it as rims is for no hlt or a gas fired manual controlled hlt and herms is for a electric hlt setup. I can't see how a rims would give better "performance" than a properly built Herms setup. Cheers

herms is very slow to react and climb vs rims and its even more difficult to correct things like temp overshoot. Ive owned and used both and would never go back to herms myself but I could see how it would work perfectly fine for some depending on system setup.

 

[BrunDog]

Of course but your using liquid that you have to heat regardless to heat that mash liquid. So it's basically free. In order to just heat the mash liquid directly without
using the already heated hlt liquid would require a 3rd heating setup unless I'm missing something or we are talking about using a Herms in a non traditional mash setup which I would agree makes no sense. Cheers

True. This is why I personally built an "HLT free" system and heat on the fly. If you have an HLT... I will agree it doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense to add a third element for RIMS. If you boil in your BK, then that might make sense.

 

[augiedoggy]

at the brewery we heat our sparge water to 170 while the mash is reciculating through the rims... in that scenero I think it actually saves us time and headache... we sometimes do a proper "mashout by raising the mash with the rims and sometimes we just switch over to sparging and let the sparge water perform the mashout... because we often have to add more water to the HLT after doughing in a herms would not really be usful because by the time it got to the proper temp much of the conversion would be done since I find a lot is done in the first 15 minutes.

 

[Blazinlow86]

herms is very slow to react and climb vs rims and its even more difficult to correct things like temp overshoot. Ive owned and used both and would never go back to herms myself but I could see how it would work perfectly fine for some depending on system setup.

I guess I never really considered the climb speeds that closely and admittedly I don't do many step mashes but it usually takes appx 5 mins to raise 10f as long as I run it full speed on a typical 18g batch. is that fast enough? I have a heating element and some extra pids ssrs etc so I could build a rims setup if the quicker climbs are beneficial to step mashing. I control the heating element via the hlt output temp so I don't think it's possible to overshoot on my config. Cheers

 

[brewbama]

at the brewery we heat our sparge water to 170 while the mash is reciculating through the rims... in that scenero I think it actually saves us time and headache... we sometimes do a proper "mashout by raising the mash with the rims and sometimes we just switch over to sparging and let the sparge water perform the mashout... because we often have to add more water to the HLT after doughing in a herms would not really be usful because by the time it got to the proper temp much of the conversion would be done since I find a lot is done in the first 15 minutes.

I’d like to see the brewery-sized RIMS system. I run puny 5 gal batches with mine.

 

[Paulaner]

I guess I never really considered the climb speeds that closely and admittedly I don't do many step mashes but it usually takes appx 5 mins to raise 10f as long as I run it full speed on a typical 18g batch. is that fast enough? I have a heating element and some extra pids ssrs etc so I could build a rims setup if the quicker climbs are beneficial to step mashing. I control the heating element via the hlt output temp so I don't think it's possible to overshoot on my config. Cheers

Running it too fast becomes detrimental to your wort see the post on pg 1 about TBI.

 

[augiedoggy]

Running it too fast becomes detrimental to your wort see the post on pg 1 about TBI.

also contributes to channeling in the grainbed which you might only see as lower efficiency or dryer beer than expected.

 

[augiedoggy]

I’d like to see the brewery-sized RIMS system. I run puny 5 gal batches with mine.

stout offers it.. its a regular rims though like bobby sells they also have the 3bbl herm setup but its avaliable from the manufacturer who made our kettles (stout sells it too ) a friend who owns a nano is using that version while I decided to go rims based on my home brewing system experience with both.
We are only averaging about 85% eff at the brewery and still trying to dial things in. a better false bottom is on my list

our rims is custom being extremely long and ulwd.. ill see if I have any pictures.

 

[augiedoggy]

I guess I never really considered the climb speeds that closely and admittedly I don't do many step mashes but it usually takes appx 5 mins to raise 10f as long as I run it full speed on a typical 18g batch. is that fast enough? I have a heating element and some extra pids ssrs etc so I could build a rims setup if the quicker climbs are beneficial to step mashing. I control the heating element via the hlt output temp so I don't think it's possible to overshoot on my config. Cheers

Your setup seems to work much better than the one I had. I had made a few mistakes with mine since it was my first year brewing. I had issues with uneven temps in my HLT and had to add a pump just to keep stirring the water and it got to the point where I just decided I wanted to try a rims. The rims just seems to be logically more efficient for me and I could actually clean it where with the coil I was always worried about the inside getting nasty at the time.

 

[brewbama]

We are only averaging about 85% eff at the brewery and still trying to dial things in.

When you say 85% efficiency. How are you measuring efficiency? Is this Mash efficiency? OrBrewhouse efficiency? I’ve seen contradictory calculations for each. It helps us understand each other if we’re using the same definition.

 

[augiedoggy]

When you say 85% efficiency. How are you measuring efficiency? Is this Mash efficiency? OrBrewhouse efficiency? I’ve seen contradictory calculations for each. It helps us understand each other if we’re using the same definition.

brewhouse as calculated by beersmith 3 pro. I use beersmith2 at home (not that it matters) to get 91% average efficiency and if im not mistaken my mash efficiency is usually much higher than that. some beers like wheat beers tend to hit a bit lower around 88-89%

 

[brewbama]

Ah. I use BS as well so we’re talkin the same language. Mash efficiency is where the RIMS increased my Mash efficiency consistently to 90% +/- 2% measured across many brews (calc by BS).

With Brewhouse efficiency how a mash is performed is simply one of many other factors. For instance, at the completion of the boil simply draining the BK into a fermenter would dramatically increase BH efficiency. However, I prefer to whirlpool the trub and leave behind the cloudy wort. I prefer clear, clean wort in my fermenter so my BH efficiency suffers as a result. I imagine a pro would simply use centrifugal force to separate the trub. I use 70% as a planning number and generally get +/- 2% there as well.

 

[augiedoggy]

Ah. I use BS as well so we’re talkin the same language. Mash efficiency is where the RIMS increased my Mash efficiency consistently to 90% +/- 2% measured across many brews (calc by BS).

With Brewhouse efficiency how a mash is performed is simply one of many other factors. For instance, at the completion of the boil simply draining the BK into a fermenter would dramatically increase BH efficiency. However, I prefer to whirlpool the trub and leave behind the cloudy wort. I prefer clear, clean wort in my fermenter so my BH efficiency suffers as a result. I imagine a pro would simply use centrifugal force to separate the trub. I use 70% as a planning number and generally get +/- 2% there as well.

at home I use 2 hop spiders as well as a fine stainless braided line on my bk diptube to filter anything out as it goes through the plate chiller. so I generally get no noticeable trub in my conicals
at the brewery we use hop bags (as many do with electric) and we whirlpool.. our hop efficiency is actually over 100% even with the bags. so much more efficient weve had to adjust our recipes vs the test system. we do get more trub in the conicals at the brewery.
either way we measure post chilled wort gravity for efficiency so not sure how it would matter

 

[Blazinlow86]

Your setup seems to work much better than the one I had. I had made a few mistakes with mine since it was my first year brewing. I had issues with uneven temps in my HLT and had to add a pump just to keep stirring the water and it got to the point where I just decided I wanted to try a rims. The rims just seems to be logically more efficient for me and I could actually clean it where with the coil I was always worried about the inside getting nasty at the time.

Ah yes I recirculate the hlt and I run my clean sparge water thru the hlt to clean it out. Cheers

 

[Blazinlow86]

Running it too fast becomes detrimental to your wort see the post on pg 1 about TBI.

Don't believe everything you read online. I brew close to 500gallons a year on the system with no issues. Cheers

 

[Blazinlow86]

also contributes to channeling in the grainbed which you might only see as lower efficiency or dryer beer than expected.

As long as you adjust your grist to your setup you won't have any issues with channeling. I condition and mill at .045 and always use rice hulls if im using wheat etc. You can tell when your pumping too fast by watching the sight glass level. If it drops your going to fast. Admittedly efficiency *could* take a hit but in my personal experience it hasn't and its not worth the extra effort to save a few dollars. I feel Efficiency is the least important factor overall. I'm mostly concerned with consistency and end product. Costs aren't much a concern. Cheers

 

[Paulaner]

Don't believe everything you read online. I brew close to 500gallons a year on the system with no issues. Cheers

Has nothing to do with online or in your case anecdotal, this is verbatim from Kunze.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Has nothing to do with online or in your case anecdotal, this is verbatim from Kunze.

No idea. All I can say is it works great for me. Believe whatever you like. Cheers

*Edit*
I took a look at the previous posts and i couldn't see anything that relates to TBI with how fast the mash liquid is turned over. So just to clarify I'm not running my heating element full. I'm talking about my recirculation rate. Im thinking thats were the misconceptions about poor performance with a Herms comes from. At least on my system I HAVE to run the circulation at the full speed in order to maintain the same temp between my hlt and MLT. If for example I messed up my milling and cannot run it full speed it will take along time to heat as others have noted and my mash temps won't match the hlt .chee ch

 

[augiedoggy]

No idea. All I can say is it works great for me. Believe whatever you like. Cheers

*Edit*
I took a look at the previous posts and i couldn't see anything that relates to TBI with how fast the mash liquid is turned over. So just to clarify I'm not running my heating element full. I'm talking about my recirculation rate. Im thinking thats were the misconceptions about poor performance with a Herms comes from. At least on my system I HAVE to run the circulation at the full speed in order to maintain the same temp between my hlt and MLT. If for example I messed up my milling and cannot run it full speed it will take along time to heat as others have noted and my mash temps won't match the hlt .chee ch

youve mentioned that before and I still have a hard time believing your mash tun is losing temp so quickly you need to recirculate at full speed.. unless your brewing in a cold windy location, have no top on the tun or stirring, somethings amiss.

 

[Blazinlow86]

youve mentioned that before and I still have a hard time believing your mash tun is losing temp so quickly you need to recirculate at full speed.. unless your brewing in a cold windy location, have no top on the tun or stirring, somethings amiss.

long story short basically what I'm saying is I have had the same issues with my herms setup as you had with yours. Fortunately it was easy to correct by adjusting the grist to work with the system. Cheers

 

[brewbama]

If I run my pump wide open I’d compact my grain bed and cavitate the pump. I run it at a 5/16” output linear flow valve gap setting which is ~ .7 gpm.

View attachment 612715

 

[Blazinlow86]

If I run my pump wide open I’d compact my grain bed and cavitate the pump. I run it at a 5/16” output linear flow valve gap setting which is ~ .7 gpm.

I would also compact my grain bed if I didn't adjust my grist correctly for my system. Hence the recommendation to mill looser when using a Herms in order to get the best *performance* rather than best effiency if thats what your going for. Because I specifically built my setup for temp control and not for better efficiency it works excellent for me. Cheers

 

[brewman !]

FYI, CraftBeerPi3 has a "Cascaded PID" controller for managing both the return temp and the mash temp at the same time. The source for it is here: https://github.com/jangevaare/cbpi-CascadePID

I will test it and report back how it works.

 

[DNelson]

again.. this is the issue I try to account for when using a 36" long heating element 5/8" diameter in a 1" tube at a fairly low flow rate with a lower wattage (1800w) and very low watt density element... Its also one of the main reasons I believe that I average 91% efficiency.

Hi augiedoggy, do you have a build thread here or elsewhere for this setup? I recently saw a picture of the RIMS setup in another thread, and it looked great. What element did you use?

 

[augiedoggy]

Hi augiedoggy, do you have a build thread here or elsewhere for this setup? I recently saw a picture of the RIMS setup in another thread, and it looked great. What element did you use?

my signature below?

 

[DNelson]

my signature below?

Ha! Sorry. No signatures on the mobile version. I see it now. Thanks

 

[Gameface]

I would also compact my grain bed if I didn't adjust my grist correctly for my system. Hence the recommendation to mill looser when using a Herms in order to get the best *performance* rather than best effiency if thats what your going for. Because I specifically built my setup for temp control and not for better efficiency it works excellent for me. Cheers

I want to clarify something. You say that if you don't run wide open then you don't have the same temp between the HLT and Mash Tun. Does that mean that if you run a bit slower your mash progressively loses temp? As in, it'll drop a couple degrees below the HLT after a few minutes but after 20 min it's like 10 degrees or more off, and more than that after 40 min?

I can't imagine that's the case. What I assume is that your mash runs a degree or two lower than your HLT and holds that temp. That's pretty normal and very easy to account for after you've used your system more than a couple times. It's very predictable and repeatable. Having to run wide open so that there is no difference at all isn't gaining you anything. But that said, if that's how you like to use your system that's perfectly fine.

 

[Blazinlow86]

I want to clarify something. You say that if you don't run wide open then you don't have the same temp between the HLT and Mash Tun. Does that mean that if you run a bit slower your mash progressively loses temp? As in, it'll drop a couple degrees below the HLT after a few minutes but after 20 min it's like 10 degrees or more off, and more than that after 40 min?

I can't imagine that's the case. What I assume is that your mash runs a degree or two lower than your HLT and holds that temp. That's pretty normal and very easy to account for after you've used your system more than a couple times. It's very predictable and repeatable. Having to run wide open so that there is no difference at all isn't gaining you anything. But that said, if that's how you like to use your system that's perfectly fine.

You are correct that the mash would run appx 3-5 degrees cooler than my MLT if I restrict the flow thru my Herms which could easily be compensated for. It also causes a few biggerr issues however. The ramp speeds will be VERY slow and the biggest issue for me personally is I like to not monitor the mash. If I mill tighter then I have to reduce the flow significantly otherwise I'll compact the grain bed and I have to sit around babysitting the pump. Milling looser to allow good flow means I can dough in and head out for errands etc.

To summarize

I brew 18g batches on a 3v **herms** Kal clone setup. It's works perfectly but requires a completely different process than a rims set-up. if you go check out The electric brewery site which is mostly Kal clones it's common knowledge that for the system to work correctly you need to mill looser and alot of new users battle that at first. I have tried milling at .035 a few times and it didn't make any positive difference. My efficiency was the same but my temps were all over the place. My setup works as perfectly as I could imagine is possible. I love the system and couldn't be happier. I'm not a efficiency chaser. I upgraded for consistancy and ease of use. Set it and forget it. When you say I'm not gaining anything are you speaking from experience using your Kal clone herms system or based on a different setup? I've brewed over 800 gallons to date on this setup without a hitch using this proccess. Cheers