jameswatsonuk
Member
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2022
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- 14
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Hi folks. I’m a batch sparger. It works well for me, I get pretty good efficiency and it saves me time.
However, I’ve introduced a pump for circulating/whitpooling wort in the kettle, and to speed up water heating/wort cooling, and I like it…got me thinking where else I could put this to use in my system. As in, a sort of RIMS/continual-sparging/full volume “no sparge” kind of deal.
My mash tun is a 10g cylindrical plastic cooler with stainless false bottom. My kettle is a 50l stainless on 3kw induction hob.
Current mash/spare method: I heat the full volume of water; drain off the mash volume to the tun once at strike temp; mash/dough in; do a “normal” mash for 90mins; vourlaf then drain first runnings into a bucket; drain remaining water volume to mash tun, stir in a little and rest for 10mins; add first runnings to kettle and then collect the 2nd runnings; add second runnings to kettle and off you go. Pretty standard stuff, but involves a lot of lifting and tipping off large cones of hot liquid - fairly dangerous really, but I’m careful.
I have a rotating sparging arm that I’ve never used, as I’ve been happy batching. I also have my old kettle with a 2.4kw element and bazooka screen, and now I have the pump…
…so I thought I could employ these as follows. Complete the mash as I normally do, but at when it’s time to vourlaf, skip it and instead drain both the first runnings and the remaining water in the kettle into my old kettle below (screen installed to catch grains) and then recirculate the entire boil volume through the pump from the old kettle into the top of the mash tun through the rotating arm. Recirculate for, say, 45mins, and then pump to the kettle to start the boil.
The old kettle Element could be used to apply heat during recirculation to do an easy mash-out of sorts.
Does this sound sensible/feasible to anyone? Interested to hear is anyone else employs this sort of strategy. Would certainly make things safer and easier, just not sure what you’d call this type of system!
However, I’ve introduced a pump for circulating/whitpooling wort in the kettle, and to speed up water heating/wort cooling, and I like it…got me thinking where else I could put this to use in my system. As in, a sort of RIMS/continual-sparging/full volume “no sparge” kind of deal.
My mash tun is a 10g cylindrical plastic cooler with stainless false bottom. My kettle is a 50l stainless on 3kw induction hob.
Current mash/spare method: I heat the full volume of water; drain off the mash volume to the tun once at strike temp; mash/dough in; do a “normal” mash for 90mins; vourlaf then drain first runnings into a bucket; drain remaining water volume to mash tun, stir in a little and rest for 10mins; add first runnings to kettle and then collect the 2nd runnings; add second runnings to kettle and off you go. Pretty standard stuff, but involves a lot of lifting and tipping off large cones of hot liquid - fairly dangerous really, but I’m careful.
I have a rotating sparging arm that I’ve never used, as I’ve been happy batching. I also have my old kettle with a 2.4kw element and bazooka screen, and now I have the pump…
…so I thought I could employ these as follows. Complete the mash as I normally do, but at when it’s time to vourlaf, skip it and instead drain both the first runnings and the remaining water in the kettle into my old kettle below (screen installed to catch grains) and then recirculate the entire boil volume through the pump from the old kettle into the top of the mash tun through the rotating arm. Recirculate for, say, 45mins, and then pump to the kettle to start the boil.
The old kettle Element could be used to apply heat during recirculation to do an easy mash-out of sorts.
Does this sound sensible/feasible to anyone? Interested to hear is anyone else employs this sort of strategy. Would certainly make things safer and easier, just not sure what you’d call this type of system!