First home brewing batch with the new RIMS controller.
I brewed a batch of Karamel Citra Session IPA over the weekend to test out the new RIMS system that I had built for my home brewery. Sometimes you can test as much as you want, but until you go live with an actually batch of beer, you just never know what is going to happen. Thankfully everything with this batch seemed to work just about perfectly.
There are a couple of things that I would like to make note of for anyone else who is planning on building their own RIMS setup using a similar configuration as mine. Initially the march pump did not seem to want to pass the wort through the RIMS heating chamber. To correct the issue I bypassed the heating chamber and recirculated directly back into the mash tun for a couple of minutes until the work began to clear a bit. After that it passed through the heating chamber with out any issues. Also, as a safety measure I wired my Ranco temperature controller so that the only way that it can be on is if the mash tun pump is active. I would recommend that you do the same in order to help reduce the chances that the heating element engages with out any fluid in the heating chamber. You will also want to check on your flow rate periodically to make sure that the march pump is transferring fluid at the expected rate.