RIMS Setup for 15 Gallon Batches

Going to rewrite in morning. Was think you were asking for boil. Brain fart, RIM we'r talking mash. Still to small. Write more tomorrow until someone else has answered.

 

For 15 gallons batches, if you're relying on the 1650 watts to do all the work, it is going to be too small of an element. For example, it would take you about 2 hr to heat from room temp 70 deg F to beta rest 148 deg F. 6000 watts, which would be my min element size would take you about 30 mins for the same temp increase. 6000 watts is a lot to expect for 120V. If you are going for an element to heat from room to strike, recommend you consider 220V. You'll need 28 amps of service and 35 amps breaker in your panel.


Alternatively, if you’re thinking 1650 watts to just maintain mash temp and small steps, I think you’ll do fine. For example, going from a beta rest, to alpha rest, and then even on to mash out wouldn’t be too bad – about 10 mins to heat. However, if you’re talking an acid rest to alpha rest, that will be painful of a wait – about 60 mins. You’ll therefore want to heat to just below strike with propane. Then engage the RIM to heat and maintain your desired temp. Last, make sure you're outlet is a 20 amps breaker, 15 amps is going to be marginal for 1650 watts of power.

 

My buddy has a 5 gal. RIMS system. He uses 120v. Once he tried to do 10 gallons. It worked...kinda. 8 hour brewday and a lot of waiting:
I have a 15 gal. RIMS setup. I use 240v. I average 3.5 hours from mash in to cool in.

 

This is what I use in my RIMs
(out of stock but he has others, including a 1650 watt)

However, I only use it to maintain temperature and still heat my strike/sparge water via propane first, as @InVinoVeritas noted would be necessary above.

I'm no expert on electric brewing, but I know from experience when using 120v outlets (15 amps?), you do want to make sure you are using an ultra low density element. Origianlly my brew partner who built it was just using a standard short 1500 watt element you might find at home depot (so high density), I would actually see my bathroom lights dim off and on slightly as it cycled - probably not a good sign and the element eventually burned out anyway. No issues with this element. My rudimentary understanding is that if you have the same wattage in a longer element, it lowers the density.

I also purchased one of his TC hotpods to put it all together (which was an upgrade over my buddy's idea of just using electrical tape).

EDIT: Just saw your latest post, personally I think 1650 will work for those purposes. Like I said I use 1500 to do the same job just fine on 10 gallon batches (and I have similarly sized vessels).

 

Oh and here is tip - Monitor the temp of the center of the mash as well, not just what your display is registering on the outflow. I typically have to set my heat a few degrees higher to get the actual mash temp where it should be. I suppose this is partly due to my return tube length.

 

Yeah, that would probably work. I think that’s pretty much the SABCO brew magic system. Personally, if I was going with direct fire for the HLT and BK, I would just grab another burner for the MLT and avoid the headaches that can come with a RIMs. But that’s just me.

 

The builds I recall seeing have always seemed to have it incorporated into the tube. The only thing that came to my mind was control - you want to know how hot that liquid is as it enters the MLT. At any rate, I decided to see if I could find info to support that, so here goes:

Source - Probably a lot more helpful info in that thread.

Now if you have a setup like this your differenetial would probably be even less than mine (as mine is a RIMS/pump in a box that sits infront of the MLT). At any rate, it sounds safest to control the temp coming out of the tube while also monitoring the actual mash temps. I just use an old johnson controller box to get a ditigal read from MLT thermowell and the differential can be more/less depending on the ambient temp outside.

On a side note, I stopped using my HLT with this set up. I direct fire the BK and MLT and just hold first runnings in a bucket while I'll heat sparge water. One less vessel to deal with in my mind.

 

I have an 120V, 1800W high density element in my RIMS tube and does just fine for 12 gallon batches. Just FYI though cause you know you're gonna eventually wanna bring temp up...I can get about a 10-12F temp increase every 30 mins from my element when it's on 100%, that's with generally in the range of 8-10 gallons strike water. Don't worry about the scorch issue. If you have a PID controller, it will never scorch. Been using my for 8 years...

PS: my MLT is not jacketed nor are any of my hoses that run to pump>RIMS>MLT so I lose a lot of heat because of that. I'm sure a more efficient system could go faster

 

You know, it looks like you are right, 120 V, 1800 W HD would still be under (or just at?) the 15 amps of a typical outlet. The dimming of my lights was probably because I think the outlet I plug into and the bathroom light are actually wired inline. At any rate, the lower density one I use now obviously pulls less amps.

I only mentioned sorching in regard to temp probe placement (and even then, only quoted someone else). When I used my higher density element, I didn't actually have any sorching issues either.

I think you could even use a 120v / 20 amp outlet up to 2400 W. At least that is what I gather from this thread.

 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but you said you have three vessels and will just batch sparge (I assume from the volumes noted).

• Heat strike water in HLT, transfer to MLT, dough in, maintain heat with RIMS
• While doing that, heat sparge water in HLT
• Transfer first runnings to BK, then transfer sparge water to MLT at mash out temp

In other words, you don't need the element to bring the temperature up. This is exactly how we did it for years (I only recently cut out the HLT so I could just direct fire the MLT).

I think we all agree that the 1650 W element can maintain temps, be that mash temp or mash out and you can always go up to 1800 W like telejunkie.

 

You pretty much nailed my mash schedule...if I want the beer drier, I start at like 146-148F, wait 1/2 hour then bring up to like 160F which takes like 45 mins. Mid-body beers, will go 150-154F for 1/2 hour then bring up to 160+ which takes about 1/2 hour. Big body, start at 155+ for 1/2 hour, then bring up for 15 mins.

At the moment, I can't do 240V either as my garage currently on a 20 amp breaker with 120V going to it. Have an electrician coming in to rework my main breaker box next month and install a small breaker box in my garage. I can then rewire my garage...but first want to get my HLT electrified, then maybe upgrade my RIMS to 240V as well, but that is much lower priority.[/user]