RIMS/HERMs single vessel setup

[Kev888]

Why are you thinking of RIMS?

There are a few reasons, but mainly my own motivation for considering a single vessel system and a no-sparge process is very much convenience in use; cheapness or simplicity of the build are relatively unimportant to me in this particular case. I'd also not be wanting a step backwards from the very successful three-vessel system I currently have, in fact rather than losing anything I'd be looking to actually increase the system's flexibility/capability to help me concentrate on quality and variety; now that every pint will be a luxury.

Its my feeling that, under the circumstances, the partial automation of a recirculating system would suit my particular requirements quite well; allowing fine tuning of mash temperature and mashing out at the press of a button or two, without having to stir and adjust things manually. I'll have to do some calculations on heating rate vs recirculation speed with these larger wort volumes, but its possible that step mashing may be realistic too. The same pump system would also then be in place for recirculating through my plate chiller and pumping out to the FV, and later recirculating cleaning solutions through the setup.

Cheers
Kev

[barneey]

Kev, Keep in touch over the build, apart from not having a larger pump, I have a couple of spare 100ltr pots a 70ltr pot, a 50ltr thermo pot, pids, elements and various aother spare parts ready and available for a build of some sort (was saving them for my timber clad build).

So if you need any dims or how a pot fits inside another one, or if theres enough room for an element in a 70 / 100ltr set up let me know.

Regards

[Kev888]

Thanks, thats most kind!

I've been a bit tied up (apart from naughtily JBK'ing from work) but I've had a few ideas so hopefully I'll be able to start playing with design concepts soon. That said, I'm not working to any pressing deadline; I've got a stock of beer that'll last me forever under the circumstances, but I'm already missing brewing!

Cheers
kev

[Kev888]

Hey Kev, I was listening to an episode of Brew Strong recently in which they were discussing mash thickness.
They came to the conclusion that up to 5L/kg is not a problem, if that's any reassurance to you.

Which episode was that Spud? Would be worth a listen...

Pretty sure this one without listening to it again.
It's a Q&A

I'll have to give that a listen when I'm back home. Just been doing some calculations and if I've got it right (which I may not have) then I'd be looking at brewing with OGs of roughly about 1.070 or more to keep below 5L/kg on full-volume/no-sparge brews.. depending heavily on efficiency of course. If so maybe its not 'just' reducing pot size that makes topping up useful.

EDIT: right I sneaked a listen from work . I'd been assuming that the issue of a mash thats too thin would be washing out the wrong stuff, like over sparging, but they seem to feel its a case of diluting the diastatic power. Their feelings seemed to be that (as Spud mentioned) up to around 5L/kg was fair unless you have a lot of grains with low power in the grain bill, but also that if you were concerned then a longer mash would help make sure you got full conversion.

I guess that this, combined with the recorded success of BAIB, means that there wouldn't be a problem for almost all recipies I'd want to do. Maybe its just something to weigh up in terms of convenience; I'm not bothered about maximum efficiency as long as its repeatable, and a longer mash vs re-heating a top-up probably have similar effects on time. If so it may come down to topping up being another stage/process where as a longer mash just means leaving it alone for a bit longer. I'll continue to look into diastatic power but so far I've not found much that relates it to mash thickness.

Cheers
Kev

[barneey]

One thing I`m having trouble getting my head around is with all this wort flowing around the system as in the braumeister setup how clear does the wort get before the boil, the wort in the inner container when lifted only gets one chance to filter through the bed whilst the wort left behind in the boiling vessel doesnt get filtered, or am I missing something here?

Cheers

[Kev888]

It looks fairly clear in the videos I've seen, at least clear enough that I didn't have reason to think it was unusual. I don't know how fast the flow rate is, but all the wort must recirculate through the grain bed many times during the mash and mashout, 'presumably' there isn't enough back-flow when you lift out the grains to wash much crudd back out again.. To be frank its not something I've considered much so far though.

That said, I'd be fairly happy as long as its not 'too' rubbish. With the big setup I used to be a bit lax with recirculation before running off and it was often quite cloudy; ever since getting pumps I have recirculated until its very clear before running off, but it has to be said that I can't actually tell any difference in the finished beer - I guess it must mostly get worked out in the boiling and fermenting/settling stages.

Cheers
Kev

[danbrew]

EDIT: right I sneaked a listen from work . I'd been assuming that the issue of a mash thats too thin would be washing out the wrong stuff, like over sparging, but they seem to feel its a case of diluting the diastatic power. Their feelings seemed to be that (as Spud mentioned) up to around 5L/kg was fair unless you have a lot of grains with low power in the grain bill, but also that if you were concerned then a longer mash would help make sure you got full conversion.

...I'm not bothered about maximum efficiency as long as its repeatable...

Thanks for summarising Kev, probably saves me listening to it, though I might have to in order to see what evidence they concluded this upon given that I would expect the dilution of diastatic power to have a negative effect on mash efficiency when in fact mine and many others experience is a huge increase...

I meet target OG's easily now and often exceed them so much so that I don't worry about it anymore. I probably never reached target OGs when trying batch or fly sparging.

Regarding wort clarity, Kev - have you decided either way if your are recirculating upwards or downwards through the mash? I was always going to pump from bottom to top because when I open the tap on the mash with my current set up the wort literally pours out unhindered. I don't think the solar pump will have a problem with pumping it or am I missing something. I just don't get why recirc up through the mash would have any advantages...

[barneey]

One conclusion for the braumeister setup mightbe it is simplier to have the pump at the bottom of the set up rather than having the pipework slotted in somehow to allow the wort to recycle in a downwards motion???? less parts???

From a wort clarity point I would have thought having a downward cycle you could at least make your own setup extendable so that when the inner mashtun is draining you could at least recyle a few times if you wanted?

[danbrew]

Interesting point barneey. I'm still thinking downwards is best for my purposes. In fact with downwards I could gravity drain to the FV, remove the grain and return crystal clear wort to the boiler!

[Kev888]

Yes, I've decided on using recirculation but am still in two minds about its direction. Initially I'd assumed that without gravity compressing the grain against the 'out' filter an upwards flow would allow considerably faster recirculation (and therefore easier/faster temperature adjustment) than even a good traditional false bottom, however having seen that the top filter can still start to block I'm no longer as sure its worth the extra complication, but unfortunately without actually trying it I can't think of a way to tell.

At the mo I may go with upwards recirculation because I can't see it would make things any worse and 'may' have some benefit. But it doesn't seem to be the clear improvement I'd initially imagined, so I'll only go that way if I can come up with a design that doesn't compromise other things for the sake of it (such as inherently splashing the hot wort around).

Cheers
kev

[Kev888]

Not sure if its worth posting this or not but last night I had a play with possible volumes vs nordic pot sizes.

My starting point was a 100L main boil pot - as I have one already and it would allow either one or two-corny brew lengths. I reckon I'll never brew below about a 3%ABV minimally hopped mild so that was my minimum and I've never gone over a 7%ABV well hopped APA so thats my maximum requirement (if I wanted to make a barley wine I could/would stick to 1-corny). With no-sparge/full-volume brewing the space the grain/mash takes up in the inner pot/basket is somewhat open to choice, so for the sake of argument I stuck to the traditional 2.5L/kg, and I'm assuming 75% efficiency and got this:

(the brown colour denotes the mash volume if restrained to 2.5L/kg, and the blue is the remaining liquor)

Now this is static and takes no account of what happens when recirculation starts so it possibly not that useful. But what 'I think' its showing me is that if I wanted to use the same inner grain pot/basket diameter for this range of brewing strengths and capacities then either the grain bed would be very shallow for the smaller/lower ones or it would have to be considerably looser; at this point I've no idea if varying mash thickness/looseness matters given that I'd be recirculating all the liquor through it anyway, or if it would be better to have a couple of baskets for the different sizes. I notice that the braumeister is quite tall and narrow compared to the nordics; maybe thats something related to this?

But also, its showing me that it would be possible to have the grain (in the central pot/basket) submerged under the total liquor, so if I were to recirculate upwards then it wouldn't 'have' to splash downwards again afterwards. However I'd have to cut down (or put holes in) the grain pot/basket to let the liquor out at a suitable height; if it always filled the inner pot to the rim then the outside level would drop and there would be splashing in most cases.

Obviously, this is just conceptual; in reality I'd probably need at least a small void under the grain to let the liquor run evenly through the lower grain-filter/false-bottom and that kind of thing.

Cheers
Kev

[danbrew]

[deletes talking rubbish comment...]

[barneey]

Kev, Only one observation regarding your drawings is the need for a boiler element and suitable area for the wort to circulate around the bottom. I would think a simple burco style element mounted in the base would be the best option as a kettle or emersion heater elements are just going to get in the way. Thus if a 70ltr inner pot is to be used suitable outlet holes will be needed as mentioned in your post, (unless you have other heating ideas). This of course pushes the inner pot upwards.

Cheers

[barneey]

Just one other thing to think about is the weight of a 70ltr pot with grain and wort, a 50 ltr 3/4 full pot is about my safe limit.

[Kev888]

Hi yes, theres a lot to plan re the elements. Having a burco-style element on the base of the kettle (possibly with the grain basket stradling it) would probably be one of my top two choices, the other condender being like the braumeister - having the elements bent in a hoop to sit almost on the base of the kettle but outside the diameter of the inner pot/basket, letting the basket sit on the base.

Theres probably not a lot in it, though the latter may make it easier to position the grain basket. I think it may (again) partly come down to the direction of recirculation though; if wort were flowing down through the grains then I'd prefer the burco option, but if flowing up I'd ideally like a bit more distance between the element and the grain, so that the heat has time to even out before the wort meets the grain.

However, there's also a left-field option, which is to use the element 'only' for the boil and have a completely separate herms/rims setup, with its heater outside the pots. I was quite taken with Aleman's flexible herms (or maybe it is a rims, can't recall) which lets him connect it up if and when he wants to, rather then being permanently integrated. With such an approach I could use the same thing with the big system too (if I keep it), or migrate it easily to future systems and so on.

Decisions, decisions..

EDIT: yes, the weight is definately an issue. The bigger 200L braumeister has a winch but I'd prefer to keep things more compact, so possibly some way of gradually removing the basket that lets the wort drain out as you go may be possible. I could manage the wet grain, but a pot full of wort at the same time would not be fun even if it was a 50L one; I've carried 50L FVs about and its enough of a strain to not feel entirely safe for my back.

Cheers
kev