Improve mash efficiency with a recirculating pump

Keen to improve mash efficiency? By using a pump and recirculating your wort down through the grain bed throughout the mash period, you can achieve maximum enzyme/carbohydrate interaction leading to greatest sugar conversion possible. This circulation also enables the precise temperature control of your wort using a digital thermostat and electric heating element under the mash screen.

Transcript of video

In this video we want to just briefly look at how easy it is to setup a recirculating system for your BREWHA Mash Tun. As we discussed in another video, each BREWHA Mash Tun has a space underneath the screen for the insertion of an electric heating element and we also discussed another video how easy it is to control the power to the heating element through an electronic temperature sensing device (ETC) which regulates the power to the heating element—when it reaches the set temperature, it will turn the power off and it can keep it precisely where you want it. This is very beneficial for regulating the temperature of your mash, it is also very useful for step-mashing if you want to raise the temperature in your mash, and of course while mashing out when you want to raise the temperature. This recirculating system is also very useful for clarifying your wort. You don’t have to transfer pots or buckets of wort out of the bottom, and put it back in the top manually, you can just let it run for the whole mash period just slowly passing through (the grain) and clarifying the mash [wort] as the filter bed forms.

So all we have done here is we have purchased a Chugger pump (about $200), [BREWHA now offers a complete March Pump Assembly] you can also get a March pump, they are a little bit more. We definitely recommend getting one of these pumps. We have tried cheaper pumps and they typically don’t work, or they give out really quickly.

So all you do, on your out port, there is a pickup tube on the inside, which picks it [wort] up right from the middle of the mash tun, underneath the mash screen, ensuring the wort is coming through all your grain bed. It comes out here into the pump and is circulated back into the top and through the sparge arm; circulating back in it constantly makes this loop. The [pump] cord is plugged into the wall, the entire time you have your mash going, and it is ensuring the temperature is being distributed. The heating element at the bottom warms up the wort if the temperature is dropping, or if you program the ETC thermostat to go a little bit warmer, it warms up the bottom, it [the wort] gets pulled out here and gets put back into the mash tun at the top.

If you have any questions about how to set this simple system up, we’d be more than happy to answer them, you can send us any questions you like, using the form on the ‘About Us’ [‘Have a Question’] page of the website.

One more thing I want to quickly mention, there is a sanitary valve at the top which is very useful for throttling the control. We have left it on because this pump is quite a powerful pump and puts a lot of output and it is sucking the wort through the Mash Tun so fast, you are probably going to get a stuck mash. Here at the top is where you want to throttle. Make sure you have hose clamps on because the pressure builds up and it [the hose] could pop off. You can throttle [the wort flow] by slowly closing the valve until you get the flow rate that you want.

 Again, thanks for watching!