RIMS mashing & sparging strategy

[jameswatsonuk]

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!

 

[Peebee]

You should get plenty of replies, but a lot of "one-pot" system users still don't realise they what they have is RIMS. And rather a lot of brewers use one-pot systems now.

I tend to use them as "no-sparge" ("full boil length mash"), a technique that'll save you a lot of moving heavy buckets of hot water about. But people have widely varied extract patterns with "no-sparge" so it can put some off (I personally don't seem to lose any significant extract). I also use "no-chill" cooling techniques (which can be aseptic, brew one day ferment another day in another week, month, even year, or the better known "just let it cool in the fermenter or boiler overnight") ... I go the former but start fermenting within two days. I have Grainfather G30 and G70 systems (and a 3V combined HERMS/RIMS system). Erm, I think I might be a bit of a geek?

So basically, you can choose to do any scheme you like that fits in with your lifestyle and risk comfort zone. I obviously go for the "I don't want to move heavy weights about and I'll spread the job over as much time as I want" technique. (I think it might be "can't" not "don't want to" and a bad grasp of how much time it takes me to do anything).

 

[jameswatsonuk]

You should get plenty of replies, but a lot of "one-pot" system users still don't realise they what they have is RIMS. And rather a lot of brewers use one-pot systems now.

I tend to use them as "no-sparge" ("full boil length mash"), a technique that'll save you a lot of moving heavy buckets of hot water about. But people have widely varied extract patterns with "no-sparge" so it can put some off (I personally don't seem to lose any significant extract). I also use "no-chill" cooling techniques (which can be aseptic, brew one day ferment another day in another week, month, even year, or the better known "just let it cool in the fermenter or boiler overnight") ... I go the former but start fermenting within two days. I have Grainfather G30 and G70 systems (and a 3V combined HERMS/RIMS system. Erm, I think I might be a bit of a geek?

So basically, you can choice to do any scheme you like that fits in with your lifestyle and risk comfort zone. I obviously go for the "I don't want to move heavy weights about and I'll spread the job over as much time as I want" technique. (I think it might be "can't" not "don't want to" and a bad grasp of how much time it takes me to do anything).

Cheers for the verbose reply. I started with batch sparing due to limited gear (mostly DIY, bucket-in-a-bucket mash later device, rectangular cool box mash tun etc) so it made sense to keep it simple.

I upgraded my gear over time and started fly-sparging, until I had kids and found I needed to cut down the length of my brew days drastically. Also increased my batch sizes to account for the reduced brewing opportunities having kids brings! I remember having a stuck mash when fly-sparing once and it kind of spoiled it for me too.

On a side, I did no-chill for a couple of brews also, but I struggled with haze and hop utilisation (excessive bitterness, lost aroma). Since investing in a good steel IC and pumping a whirpool I’ve had much better resulting product.

So, I’m reluctant to change what’s working with the classic batch sparge given that brewing occasions are free and far between (maybe 3 or 4 40l batches a year).

I’ll definitely be using the pump to move the volume of liquid, but it’s the recirculation sparge idea keeps me up at night!

 

[doug293cz]

Adding the sparge water to the mash, before doing a run-off, is equivalent to doing a no-sparge process. A no-sparge vs. single batch sparge will have a lauter efficiency and mash efficiency about 8 percentage points lower. To get an efficiency boost you need to sparge with fresh water during (fly sparge) or after (batch sparge) run-off.

Brew on

 

[jameswatsonuk]

Adding the sparge water to the mash, before doing a run-off, is equivalent to doing a no-sparge process. A no-sparge vs. single batch sparge will have a lauter efficiency and mash efficiency about 8 percentage points lower. To get an efficiency boost you need to sparge with fresh water during (fly sparge) or after (batch sparge) run-off.

Brew on

Fair enough. I think I understand. 8% efficiency loss seems plausible in a no-sparge method, if what I described qualifies as that.



Could I therefore preserve some efficiency, or perhaps improve on the expected batch-sparge efficiency, by collecting the first runnings to the kettle and recirculating (“fly-sparging”) the “second runnings” for certain amount of time? Or…would that simply be a total waste of time?

 

[doug293cz]

Fair enough. I think I understand. 8% efficiency loss seems plausible in a no-sparge method, if what I described qualifies as that.



Could I therefore preserve some efficiency, or perhaps improve on the expected batch-sparge efficiency, by collecting the first runnings to the kettle and recirculating (“fly-sparging”) the “second runnings” for certain amount of time? Or…would that simply be a total waste of time?

That would just be a batch sparge with automatic stirring. All that's needed for a batch sparge is to get the sparge water well stirred into the grain. No dwell time is needed.

[Edited to remove errant coma that totally changed the intended meaning of the last line.]

Brew on

 

[day_trippr]

The errant comma actually changes that last sentence

 

[doug293cz]

The errant comma actually changes that last sentence

Yilkes, so it does. Fixed.

Brew on

 

[Bobby_M]

The minor error in the original plan is that recirculating mash liquor/wort back over the grain is not technically a sparge. That's to say, you pick up no new sugar when the gravity of the liquid passing the grain is already at equilibrium. The efficiency gain of a sparge relies on dilution and gradients.

 

[jameswatsonuk]

That would just be a batch sparge with automatic stirring. All that's needed for a batch sparge is to get the sparge water well stirred into the grain. No dwell time is needed.

[Edited to remove errant coma that totally changed the intended meaning of the last line.]

Brew on

Understood. I guess I’m better off sticking with what I’m doing with batching, and just using the pump to move wort to the kettle.

Conventional wisdom suggests vourlaff should be done with the valve slightly open, then with batch sparging, fully open to collect runnings.

Could vourlaff be skipped altogether when using a screen in the collecting vessel (just open it all the way and collect). Is there something “special” about that gentle recirculation OTHER than filtering grain out of the wort?

 

[doug293cz]

Understood. I guess I’m better off sticking with what I’m doing with batching, and just using the pump to move wort to the kettle.

Conventional wisdom suggests vourlaff should be done with the valve slightly open, then with batch sparging, fully open to collect runnings.

Could vourlaff be skipped altogether when using a screen in the collecting vessel (just open it all the way and collect). Is there something “special” about that gentle recirculation OTHER than filtering grain out of the wort?

Vorlauf can also "set" the grain bed prior to fly sparging, which supposedly improves lauter efficiency a little when fly sparging. If batch sparging, vorlauf just filters the grain particulates from the wort prior to run-off.

Brew on