Any Micros Use a Recirculation Mash? Why not?

[biertourist]

Does anyone know of a microbrewery using a home brewer-style recirculation mash?
Does anyone know a reason that micros might not want to use a constant recirculation mash?


Recirculation mashing just seems like such a great way to ensure even temperatures in a simple English-style mashtun to me; it even seems simpler than installing and dealing with a mash mixer and with an added heat exchanger you could even perform step mashing using an existing simple and cheap mashtun. It also seems like the constant recirculation would save time as you'd get conversion faster AND you wouldn't need to do the vorlauf step at the end of mashing before starting sparging.

As the sparge is the most time consuming part of a commercial brewday and a lauter tun has the best width to height ratio for lautering/sparging I also see a possible opportunity for a micro to use a lauter tun vessel as an MLT; typically the downside from a mashing perspective of mashing in a lautertun is the large surface area means that you'll lose heat quickly but if you're recirculating the mash through a heat exchanger similar to the home brew HERMS systems you can maintain your temps through the mash, again clarify without a separate vorlauf step (as the whole mash is "vorlaufed"), and then you would get a faster runoff and lauter than using a typical micro mashtun where you have a 1:1 or even 1:2 width to height vs. the ideal 2:1 for lautering.


I've had this stuff in my head and I have to get it out; it's hard to find good brewery engineering materials all the brewery consultants just seem to keep it all in their heads...


Adam

[Stinkfist]

I am pretty sure most Micros and pros use mash rakes and steam jackets to keep a consistent temperature...I am sure it works better than just recirculating....if you recirculated and constantly stirred you would probably be pretty close to what pros are doing...

[Mills]

My 15bbl system does not recirc like a traditional homebrew setup but the process is not that much different. I have rakes that I run continuosly throughout mashing in. I raise them periodically thru the process so as not to be over stirring the bottom portion of the mash. Once the dough in process is complete I allow the rakes to run for another couple of minutes to achieve a consistent temp in the tun. About 20 min into the mash rest I begin a 15 minute recirc, then I runoff for 90ish minutes. So in some ways some pros had practices near a recircing mash, but not completely the same.

Mills

[Quin]

I'm sure there are some that constantly recirculate, but I don't think it's necessary if you're doing a single step infusion (which most seem to be). 10-20 minutes is all that is needed to set the filter bed and clear up the runoff. Most breweries follow the English equipment-MLT-ale route. There are much fewer breweries using step mashing, german-style equipment with mash-kettles and separate lauter tuns.