Beer Forum

I am working on a Brutus clone sculpture. I have the stand built and have started orienting the pumps and such. My question is what do you use to put the circulated mash back into the top of the mash tun? So I am pumping off the bottom of the mash trough a double bazooka tube then to the pump into a coil of copper in my hot liquor tank then back into the mash tun. Do I go into a sparge ring or just use a tube directly into the tun? I assume that I do not want splashing or to create a current through the mash where it will not all be circulated.
So instead of reinventing the wheel I would like to know what method you guys use.
Thanks,
Jim

Sparge ring.

How do you clean the ring out? It seems to me that you would plug the small orifices drilled in the ring as the particals in the the first circulation make it through.

To avoid plugging and easy cleaning, I have a copper manifold that has four 90 degree elbows turned up vertical. The whole thing sits just below the water surface. Works great with no plugging.

I would personally make bigger holes in a sparge ring used for recirculation than what foomench has. I'm sure the false bottom doesn't let much through - but those holes are tiny. If it's only used to sparge, it's not an issue.


Mylo

My technique is a bit high tech, so you might want to grab a pen, or come back when you’re sober...
I poked about billion holes in a pie tin and place it on top of the mash. I then rest the hose in the middle of the tin. Nothing gets clogged, really easy to clean.
I imagine that there are reasons against it. Actually, as I type this, I just realized that that is the only piece of Aluminum in the brewery…probably not that big of a deal.

I use something very close to Foomench, and have had a problem in the past with clogging, but larger holes, and run a vorlof (collect a gallon or so before cycling through the sparge unit, run until you don't see the solids in the collected wort), and you should be "good to go". Remember to keep the flow rate on the low side, since you will be able to really pack down the grain with the pump going full flow, causing a stuck mash.
Good luck,
-Greg

I do use that for recirculating. I've only had a problem with clogging once. I was thinking about putting more holes in to better insure dribbling out and not spraying, but maybe I'll make them bigger.

If you look over on the Northern Brewer forum, Gumby77 (I think that is his name) just sets a copper manifold right on top of the grain bed and it appears to work well. Once you see his manifold, you'll see there isn't much need for drilling thousands of holes. I'm building a RIMS system and I plan to "steal" his manifold design for mine.