I’m interested in going all electric and already have plans for an electric Brew Kettle using a water heater element and PID controller.
I would like to get away from infusion mashing in my cooler because, well, I’m tired to calculating infusion volumes and temps. Software never seems to get it right and it’s just annoying. RIMS/HERMS seems more complex than I’d like and a pain to clean and I hate clean up. So I was thinking that if I use my electric BK to heat the strike water, and then use a single electric burner under the MLT to maintain and/or add heat, that it might be the way to go.
The magic would be in some kind of contraption that would let me easily lift the MLT off of the element to fine tune adding heat. Or maybe have the MLT over a hole in a table and just lower the burner from the pot.
You definitely need recirculation in the MLT if you’re going to be adding heat to it. I use RIMS controlled by a variac to fine-tune my mash temps, and it works great. You could also use a PID, but I like to be at least somewhat hands-on. If you want to use an external source to heat your MLT, just use a pump to recirculate the wort. This is a Recirculating Mash System (RMS). You can then fine-tune the amount of heat that you’re adding in with your external source. I would suggest using electric vs. flame as it is very easy to scorch the wort with a flame in a RMS (learned from experience).
