Thirsty,

That mash tun is Suh-Weet! I hate you.

But that RIMS unit is absolutely the shit!!! I have some sanitary fittings in our warehouse, and think I could bang one of these together. Couple of questions:

What is the Diameter of the spool piece, Length?

How does the heating unit mount on the end plate?

Do you just move the wort through, and monitor the mash tun temp, or do you monitor the outlet temp on the RIMS unit? I am just trying to figure out what all the ports on the two end plates are.

Any help would be extremely helpful.

yeah... and its basically what I have been trying to come up with in my head for a few weeks now. I want to add a small electric RIMS unit to my system for the rare occasion I want to do a step mash. I was thinking of using a small pot with an element mounted in it, but after seeing your "little stubby unit" I think that a closed/sealed tube is the way to go. I'll have to do some thinking and have a guy I know weld it up for me. Thanks for sharing!

Hammy -

It is I seem to recall a hunk of 4inch diam pipe - but that was dictated by what my fitter mate could find lying around that would also fit the width of the element. Narrower element would have meant narrower tubestock. It could also have been half the length - but I asked for it to be kept long in case I decide to put a bigger spiral low density element in it in the future.

The element mounts through a hole in the end that my mate said was a bitch to make as its diameter was bigger than any of the drills he was able to access - I don't know how he ended up doing it, I think he used a milling machine (kind like a big metal plunge router) and a lot of care. Those end plates are about 5mm thick. The kettle I scavenged the element out of, had a gasket for the element. Its a kind of shaped like |=| with a seal both inside and out and the element has an outside piece that clamps the two seals together. You can see it with orange gasket installed on one of the pictures - I didn't include the outside part that clamps it together and has the electrical fittings etc. Its basically a plate with screws that go into the element backplate.

I monitor the temperature of the wort as it returns to the mashtun (so basically in the dish of the mash tun or at a T junction where wort return line meets mash tun. You cant do it by monitoring actual mash temp... there is too much lag time and your rims would boil on ramps. You just have to understand that if the wort is entering the mash tun at X degrees ... eventually the tun itself will raise to that temperature. I have in the past not even bothered with measureing the actual mash temperature -- but the new mash tun comes with that ever so nice dial thermometer, so I will from now on.

THirsty