Recirculated Mash Setup With Pot And Urn

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Truman42

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I was thinking about setting up a recirculated mash setup using my 20 litre pot and urn, like a RIMS setup.

So I would put my bag in my pot on a cake rack so the bag didn't get sucked into the outlet. Dough in, then recirculate the wort through my urn which would be controlled with my stc1000 to maintain mash temp.
At mash out pump all the wort into the urn to start boil and use my pot as a dunk sparge vessel.

Should this work okay and is there anything I need to watch out for using this method?

Thanks for the advice.
 
Interesting you bring this up mate, as ive been thinking of doing the same thing for some single batches.

I cant see any glaring problems, only good stuff, but i havent done it yet either.

Have been thinking id mash as normal using my esky, then drain to temp controlled vessel, and recirculate mash using stc1000, then just drain runnings and boil.
 
its a HERMS your thinking of. RIMS is a element in a tube and the wort runs threw the tube and back into the mash, the wort has direct contact to the element. The HERMS is a coil in a volume of water and the element heats the water and the wort runs threw the coil.

Only problem I see is the ramp rate (if ramping at all) Most run less the 10lt pots for there HERMS as the ramp rate is to slow otherwise also a bigger volume not only takes longer to heat up but it takes longer to cool down so you can overshoot using to big of volume. But if you do the steps as a infusion then set the new ramp temp it will be faster and it should not overshoot.
 
Why does the wort have to go through a tube with an element? Why cant it go through a stockpot, urn, or other vessel with an element directly heating?

I used to have a few cheap kettle elements kicking around and could make an urn out of a small stockpot.

Not that its my topic, but i was thinking mash in as normal but different temp schedule, open mash tun and drain to urn which could be on a controller for accuracy, pump back up and return to top of mash. At mash out stage, just switch off return pump and boil...
 
I would put your urn lower and gravity feed from mash tun. Then pump back up. The urn becomes a grant/rims. just make sure to keep the liquid in the urn moving. should work well.
 
From my experience you will find that the grain bed will compact down slowing wort flow, you need to keep an eye on flow and throttle it back so as not to cause the bag pot to overflow. A bag does not make a good filter medium when you start recirculating. If you dont want to constantly fiddle then you will need to go down the braumaster method ( see mine under blackdog brewhouse) or go down the trad herms 2/3 V system. Cheers
sean
 
Oh ok I see what your planing now. As said you will have to consistantly keep stiring the urn and watch the flow rates, Also as said you will have to gravity feed or use 2 pumps wont you??

Prob not a thing I would try and not a thing that would be worth it with BIAB as when you lift the bag the grain bed is disturbed and will defy half the perpose of reirculation. If its purly to keep the mash temp stable then give it a try, it cant hurt but seems alot of work and stuffing around to me. I have tried things I thought that would work well but relised that people do things certain ways as they work and make the day easier.

If it works well then report but I dont think you will keep this going for to long for some reason.
 
Heres a video clip of a trial run I did with water. (Excuse the sub standard commentary :blink: )

Recirculated mash

Once I had reached mash out I would shut the urns valve off and pump the wort back into the urn to start boil so wouldn't have to disturb the grain bed.
Then with what wort was left in the pot maybe add some more boiled water from a kettle if need be and recirculate it back on to itself to sparge then add this to the boil as a top up.

It means I wont have to raise my bag at all.

Only thing Im concerned about now is getting a stuck sparge like Sean said.
 
Who cares if you get a stuck sparge? It's in a bag so you can just stir it to free it up again :)

PS Looks good, have thought about doing stuff like this before.
 
Give it a go mate. A regular grain crush shouldn't see an issue... Going too fine will encourage it getting stuck. I'd be more concerned with channelling in the bag... Giving a good stir mid mash and a cut before the sparge will up your efficiency
 
The problem with the bag is that it will suck onto the side of the pot then the pumpsucks down the grain bed...flow problems.
No way around it except stir/ adjust flow. Give it a go if trying a step mash and just reciculate during temp rises then inulate stop pump for rests.
I tried several methods and changed to pumping up through the grain bed ala bruamaster
 
Oh ok I see what your planing now. As said you will have to consistantly keep stiring the urn and watch the flow rates, Also as said you will have to gravity feed or use 2 pumps wont you??

Prob not a thing I would try and not a thing that would be worth it with BIAB as when you lift the bag the grain bed is disturbed and will defy half the perpose of reirculation. If its purly to keep the mash temp stable then give it a try, it cant hurt but seems alot of work and stuffing around to me. I have tried things I thought that would work well but relised that people do things certain ways as they work and make the day easier.

If it works well then report but I dont think you will keep this going for to long for some reason.

Sorry truman for hijacking again, but i'm assuming this one is for me kelby?

Im 3v traditional brewing at the moment, (as traditional as an esky mash tun can be), and thought i might do as proposed by truman on my esky mash tun (no bag).

Agree that this would make a big difference, and that doing this biab would be somewhat of a waste of time.
 
not directed at you nath. I just trying to figure out the reason behind it. As you might know doing it BIAB will be a wasted of time. I done BIAB in my esky and figured I would use the bag as a manifold so to speak. Did it work?? not really the bag kept getting stuck in the pick up tube. Was it worth it? NO!. Did I get clearer wort from recirculating before draining?? not really.

The extra effort was not worth the extra effort. For me BIAB was always a step and I tried to find a way to make it more like 3V with the gear I had so I didnt have to make manifolds and by more gear. But the reality is, it didnt make it easier, I didnt get clear wort and I didnt get any better efficiency.

What did get me to these steps I was aiming for was to go 3V, I went double batch as I can do a brew in 5 hours and produce twice as much. I get crystal clear wort in the boiler, I get 8% more efficiency, I dont have to lift a bag, I can mash in and leave for a hour and get less then 1deg drop in the mash, I can heat sparge water and infusion water while the mash is on and I can fly sparge while filling the kettle.

I mean if you wanna BIAB thats fine but if you want to 3V then go that way I tried to mix it up and the proper method works as prob nath and many others have tried in the past and found out.

Oh and dont think you can get away without a pump (you have one, but other) I ruined my back liftin 55lts of wort from the ground up to chest height onto a burner. For $37 now for brown pump (i got the green pump) its not worth the pain and money.
 
Why does the wort have to go through a tube with an element? Why cant it go through a stockpot, urn, or other vessel with an element directly heating?

I used to have a few cheap kettle elements kicking around and could make an urn out of a small stockpot.

Not that its my topic, but i was thinking mash in as normal but different temp schedule, open mash tun and drain to urn which could be on a controller for accuracy, pump back up and return to top of mash. At mash out stage, just switch off return pump and boil...

This guy is doing just that. Running a Rims in a small open vessel.

 
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If you are doing this to maintain mash temperature then fine, but passive lagging is really just as effective - you only lose around a degree per hour. Ramping in an urn to do step mashes is almost trivial, I do it every brew.

If you are doing this to obtain clearer wort then it's a waste of time as, when you eventually hoist the bag, all your filtering and recirculating is for naught.

my 2c.

This isn't a "defend BIAB" post, just pointing out that plain BIAB wins competitions without any need to somehow "improve" the system. If it aint broke why fix it. (And I spent months last year, and a few hundred dollars trying to tweak it, and went back to plain old ;) )
 
Ditch the bag, buy an esky and some copper pipe. I don't think you'll get the clarity benefits of recirculating if you have the bag there, being moved around and disturbing the grain bed.
 
Yup, I missed cuddling up to the old hot wet bag and wrestling it till it dripped B)
 
Interesting discussion on if this would be worth doing or not. I agree that using an esky with copper manifold
Would probably be the way to go eventually. But I was just trying to give this a go with what I have already.

I was going to sit my bag on a cake rack in the pot which sits above my tap so that should stop the bag blocking the tap. And I wasn't going to hoist the bag at all. Just leave it in the pot and after mash out top up with water from a kettle to dunk sparge. Then after giving the grain a stir just recirculate until it clears up before adding to my boil.

I see the advantages over standard biab as this

Not having to lift a heavy wet bag at mash out and when dunk sparging.

Clearer wort.
 
I do this with an urn and an esky tun. Better to pump from the urn and let the mash return gravity feed back. Google the Brutus. 20.
 
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