Will This Basic RIMS work?

[HungusBrews]

So I think I can upgrade my brew rig a bit, but I wanted to do a sanity check here before I try it. Here is a photo of the rig in the background.

https://cdn.homebrewtalk.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=39570

This is how it currently works. I heat the strike water in the keggle and pump it into the MLT cooler (white one in center). As I'm mashing I heat the Sparge water and pump into the HLT cooler (Blue one on Left). For the Sparge/Lauter I use gravity to drain the MLT into the keggle as I am pumping the sparge water through a sparge arm. Then boil so on and so forth as usual.

I was thinking of trying to add some sort of crude RIMS into this. My thought was to build a better sparge arm (currently, that copper rectangle holding the MLT open) that will float a tube on top of the grain bed, similar to the Blichman auto sparge.

So my sanity question is this...If I now have a better sparge arm that gently adds water to the MLT, can I recirculate the mash through the keggle and apply heat? Will this burn the wort? Obviously I would love to have various temp controllers at different points in the recirculation process, but just wanted to keep it simple at first. It takes me about 30 min to heat the sparge water so that will give me 30 min+ to be recirculating. I figure this will now allow me to get to mash out temp and if I feel like doing step mashes I can. I guess I would have to stop the recirculation briefly to change over to adding sparge water...

Does this make sense? I know most people use electric to heat RIMS systems...

Thanks
Karl

 

[SporkD2]

I would say you would definitely scorch the wort if you tried that. The reason for using a RIMS is that you can use a ultra low density element so that you don't get that exact thing. They cost around 75$ for the tube + the PID and you would just circulate the wort from the MLT through the RIMS and then back into the MLT. The advantage obviously is you wouldn't have to get your sparge water or mash water to the exact temp and just let the RIMS bring it up to temp.

Make sense?

 

[HungusBrews]

Makes total sense...So you think that I would risk scorching the wort even with the burner at the lowest flame and a moderate flow rate? I have never had a stuck sparge or even come close to one...anti-jinx

I guess my newly designed sparge arm is still a good change, I just might need to look harder at the Recirculation heating part. Do you recommend any "tubes and PID's" or have any links.

I'm sure there is a plethora of info on them here...Off to the search the forums again.

 

[Bobby_M]

If heating wort in a kettle was a scorch risk, we wouldn't be able to boil wort in that kettle. If the flame is low, there's no reason you can't flow a small amount in and drain it out. The big downside is that it's not going to be all that easy to control from a temp perspective. Well, not as easy as a traditional RIMS/HERMS that is.

 

[HungusBrews]

Hey Bobby! Haven't seen you in a while, hope all is well my man.

So then my thread title "BASIC" holds true. While it is not a perfect solution, it can introduce me to what RIMS is all about. Obviously if it turns out to be a headache I won't go through the process, but I thought it would be worth a try. I use a temp probe/thermocouple that I keep in the mash tun that I can use to monitor the temp change.

In the small amount of research I've done today on RIMS, I can see how the electric heater on a PID can work out well. I think I'm creating a monster here =)