The newer ones apparently had better insulation. I have three of the early ones and two have the cable pulled out of the insulation however have not shorted as yet. Pretty sure these have a 2 or 3 year warranty so should be a straight swap for your element.
Dedicated Rims Guide, Problems & Solution Thread
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That's good to know and Kee has always been great to deal with so I'm not to fussed about it. Have you tried to fix up yours?
Nope, have the cable section cabletied to a stainless bar so theres absolutly no movment or flex at the joint
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Top idea Husky. Any ideas on strain relief for the RIMS heater?
Doing the same. Having a bit of 6mm S/S welded inline with the cable to cabletie off to. Just waiting till I can get a stand made to keep the outlet higher than the inled to have it all done at once. Could organise getting some 6mm rod welded to your keg king tube if you would like. Not sure how else you could do it neatly. Maybe some 6mm or similar round bat clamped to the tube with some metal hose clamps. This wouldnt work for me as the triclover will get in the way.
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Thanks for the offer Husky. Might try it out when we can organise something. Booargy, the element on the left in the pic, have you insulated that with some type of liquid rubber?
silicon, I would use the orange high temp stuff.
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Crusty
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I got my element from Tobins. 1" bsp threaded Stainless,350mm long, screw terminals, 2400watt. Have run test after test with just water, stepping temps & it works flawlessly. My Rims tube is a bit of a PITA as I mounted it vertical & I couldn't source an off the shelf terminal cover so I just used a small piece of PVC pipe & end cap & heated it a little so it fits over the 1" nut on the element. A hole is drilled in the PVC cap with a gland that runs the power. I also got the sparky to use insulated plugs for the + & - as well as the earth terminal that's earthed to the Rims stand so I can simply disconnect it & unscrew the element from the Rims housing without twisting the chord. It's not the best idea for ease of cleaning but it's not too bad. I will be doing my first run with the new system this Tuesday morning. It's a simple APA, 55deg protein rest for 10mins, a 66deg sacc rest for 60mins, a 78deg mash out for 10mins & I am going to batch sparge. I have a 2L yeast starter on the stir plate doing it's thing with a Wyeast 1272.
Crusty
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Ok!
Maiden run done with the Rims system today & I'm not too happy. I mashed in @3.75l/kg but left my grain crush on 0.9 of the barley crusher. From the start, I got an almost stuck sparge. I loosened the grain bed & continued on, almost zero flow from the pump, this is now really shitting me off.
For the whole protein rest, sacc rest & mash out, I had to manually turn the element off & on as the PID overshot my set point by nearly 10deg. I've ended up with a hotter mash than I was aiming for, much more losses to trub, hoses, etc & a 74% efficiency instead of my expected 80%. 22l into the fermenter @1.043 instead of expected 25l @1.047. Improvements needed for round 2. What water to grain ratio are you guys mashing at?
No scorching though, so that's a bonus. For some reason, the mash bed just seemed to gum up with the continuous re-circulation.
Maiden run done with the Rims system today & I'm not too happy. I mashed in @3.75l/kg but left my grain crush on 0.9 of the barley crusher. From the start, I got an almost stuck sparge. I loosened the grain bed & continued on, almost zero flow from the pump, this is now really shitting me off.
For the whole protein rest, sacc rest & mash out, I had to manually turn the element off & on as the PID overshot my set point by nearly 10deg. I've ended up with a hotter mash than I was aiming for, much more losses to trub, hoses, etc & a 74% efficiency instead of my expected 80%. 22l into the fermenter @1.043 instead of expected 25l @1.047. Improvements needed for round 2. What water to grain ratio are you guys mashing at?
No scorching though, so that's a bonus. For some reason, the mash bed just seemed to gum up with the continuous re-circulation.
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Crusty, how long after dough in did you start to recirc? Starting to soon can be a certain stuck mash on some false bottoms
Crusty
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Do you underlet your strike water?
Everyone I've seen brew always underlets, but commences to recirc basically straight away,
Crusty
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Yep.
Added the grain first, heated up 20l strike water & transferred to the mash tun via the tun's ball valve. Stirred it in & let it sit for about 5mins, then started recirculating. Mashed in @3.75l/kg.
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You could try 15 mins minimum to allow for the grist to fully absorb water. Last time I used a domed falsie I had the same problem, I found that letting the mash rest at dough in gave me time to take a pH reading and make water adjustments (if needed) Now I wait 30 mins and recirc for 60 mins, the liqour flows really well.
Crusty
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I only had 500g in this one, it shouldn't have posed a problem.
I might try that razz, but it really shouldn't make too much of a difference. It was a fairly loose mash & I didn't anticipate the dramas I had today. Something that has me a bit puzzled is some times my flow from the flase bottom is quite good & other times, it seems quite slow. I have it hard plumbed with 1/2" copper tube & I am starting to get a feeling that this is where my problem might be. Tomorrow I am going to get a couple of 1/2" barbed tails with a female end & connect the falsie up to the tails via 1/2" silicone tubing just to see if that's the problem. The only thing I'm worried about is the grain crushing the silicone tubing flat, but maybe I'm worrying for nothing. I mentioned this because sometimes when priming my march pump, it flows like there's no tomorrow but tonight when doing some more water tests, I connected the hose to the mash tun ball valve, opened it up to get my suction line filled, it struggled. Opened up the outlet on the pump to release the air & it was filling like snail pace so maybe it's the hard plumbed tubing in my mash tun.
raven19
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Crusty - I actually get my Water into the MT, set my pump on, then turn the PID on to get the RIMS tube up to temp. I tend to aim 4-5 degrees above my target Mash Temp. Let this run for 5mins or so then when up to temp, turn PID off. Continue to run pump so it strips excess heat from RIMS tube. Then I turn pump off, and pour all grain into MT (the grain drops the whole temp by around 5 degrees roughly season dependent). Stir and mix well. Verlouf, however start by doing this VERY slowly, don't open the pump outlet straight away, I only open my pump outlet valve slightly then creep it up slowly to around 50% open. Let this run for a little while then flick PID back on and adjust temp down to target mash temp.
If I open the pump outlet too quickly the grain compacts and a stuck sparge results. Also in massive grain bills I need to be extra careful with more grain weighing down the mash!
Grist ratio for me is 2.5 - 3L per kg of grain approx.
I run a 1mm gap on MM2.
You can also add in rice gulls for bigger mash sizes.
If I open the pump outlet too quickly the grain compacts and a stuck sparge results. Also in massive grain bills I need to be extra careful with more grain weighing down the mash!
Grist ratio for me is 2.5 - 3L per kg of grain approx.
I run a 1mm gap on MM2.
You can also add in rice gulls for bigger mash sizes.
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