Yesterday I brewed and English Bitter and I put the new setup to the test. Once my strike water was heated I pumped my strike water into the mashtun as I added my grain and stirred the mash all at the same time. That was pretty nice. Had my HLT heating on the stove at the same time so I could have it ready for circulating the mash. Did a quick vorlauf so I can hook up the pump to circulate. Initial mash temp was a little low on purpose so I could bring it up to the 153* I was aiming for. Only took a couple mins to do that. Part 1...Perfect.
I kept my HLT at about 160* keeping the burner on a low flame during most of the mash and the pump was on more than it was off. I wanted to keep a mash temp around 153* so I set the controller for 152* because of the differential, the pump kicked on at 152* and kicked off at 154*...never seen temps below 152* for the whole 60 min. Part 2...Perfect.
As I got to the end of the mash I wanted to ramp my mash temp up to 168* just because and to see how the system would handle that. I needed my actual sparge water to be at 185* or so anyway so that's the temp I ran my HLT up to by kicking up the burner. I was at 168* within minutes and the pump kicked off. Swaped out the HLT for my kettle on the burner and I pumped my first runnings from the mashtun into the kettle. Started heating the first runnings while I pumped my sparge water through the heat exchanger and tubing into the mashtun. Now the heat exchanger was clean...sweet. Part 3...Perfect.
Then when it came time for cooling I put my wort chiller in the kettle at 15 mins like usual and set up the pump for the kettle. I pumped hot wort through it for about 10 min to sanitize everything. Boil was over and I set up to start chilling. I did a 25 min hop stand after the boil once I cooled to 180* and let the pump run a whirlpool with that. Then I turned the water back on to the chiller and finished chilling to 64* while I never stirred once...that part also perfect.
All went really well, it didnt' save me any time really and I wasn't expecting that but it did make things easier on me and made for a very smooth brew day. It was cool to sit back and watch it all do it's thing. I don't plan to take it any further or get all fancy with more automation but this was a nice upgrade.
I ran a thinner than usual mash at 1.75 qts/lb compared to my 1.25. But with recirculating I wanted to have enough liquid in there. I think anything over 1.5 qts/lb would be fine. I also used a full pound of rice hulls, for one it gives me more thermo mass to help maintain temps but I also need a very good filter while recirculating the mash. Using a false bottom, the rice hulls are cheap insurance. It worked so well, I was able to open both the valve on the mashtun and the pump wide open. No problem.
Just thought I would share what I have been busy with. Next batch is going to be a Kolsch. I could even do step mashes now with no water additions. Might give it a try.
