Markalanbrown
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I am an all grain brewer - 2 years in - Can I use a pot with a ball valve and a pump to recirculate my wort effectively even with no temperature control on the pump?
I am an all grain brewer - 2 years in - Can I use a pot with a ball valve and a pump to recirculate my wort effectively even with no temperature control on the pump?
ahh now I see you posted same question second time. I'll answer second time too.
Yes you can recirculate
It may improve your efficiency and/or clarity and many people who do like recirculating systems will mention these reasons
I'm going to disagree a bit with @RM-MN even though he is pretty clearly more experienced and smarter than me. I did recriculate without a controller for about 10 batches and found I could do it. I used a very low flame under my mash tun and kept an eye on the temperature with a cheap digital thermometer. I was the controller. When the mash got too hot I turned off the burner. When it cooled back down I turned it back on. Using a very low natural gas flame I could usually run the burner about 60% of the mash and had to turn it off and on about 5 times.
Still that was 100 batches or so ago and I did replace the "brewer is the controller" with a PID based controller pretty fast.
But your other questions about improving efficiency and clarity. I would not recommend a new brewer jump into recirculation to try to solve either of these issues. There are much easier ways and best to get further down your own personal brewing adventure before getting involved with pumps and controllers.
I doubt you will improve clarity with recirculation. Water chemistry might be issue. Kettle fining with whirlfloc might help. Gelatin fining when you cold crash also works well.
Brewhouse efficiency is combination of mash and kettle efficiency. Mash efficiency is combination of mash conversion efficiency and lauter efficiency. Some of the best conversion efficiencies I have seen come from the BIAB guys who pulverize their grain. With batch sparging and a cooler though you should be able to get mash efficiency around 85% or so. Then the difference between mash efficiency and brewhouse efficiency is how much wort you leave in the kettle. Key to batch sparging efficiency is usually getting in there and stirring it well once or twice during mash and then again - stirring really well - when you do your sparge(s). Like 5 minutes of stirring is by no means too much.
...higher brew house efficiency and better clarity with recirculation- I guess those would be my goals...
I just have a chance to get a bigger 16 gallon pot (currently use an 8 gallon pot w/o false bottom, thermometer, or ball valve) and what to know if I can recirculate with a pump and other potential uses or advantages of the new equipment.
...My clarity has improved a lot since I started kegging and then even more so when I started cold crashing for kegging. My BH efficiency (using a cooler) is varied form 60% to 72%.
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