3 vessel system

[mariomiraglia]

Hello,
What do you think of a 3 vessel system: A Mash tun - boil kettle, a Lauter tun and a Whirpool. So ill mash it, the separate the wort in the lauter, and the boiled it in the same vessel of the mash tun. Then send it to the whirlpool.
I would like to hear some advices, if there are pros and cons, how efficient this system is?...
thanks,
MM

[RipRap]

I guess it would work but my concern is that it would be less efficient doing back to back batches. You cant start mashing your second batch until you the previous one is in the whirlpool, where with other setups, as soon as your kettle is empty you can start running off into it.

[BeerBred]

I share the concern with riprap about concurrent batching. However, the German brew master I am planning to hire this year wanted the same configuration. I think it makes it easier to decoction mash? I decided to just spend the money and get a 4 vessel when the time comes later this year.

[Todd Hicks]

Hello,
What do you think of a 3 vessel system: A Mash tun - boil kettle, a Lauter tun and a Whirpool. So ill mash it, the separate the wort in the lauter, and the boiled it in the same vessel of the mash tun. Then send it to the whirlpool.
I would like to hear some advices, if there are pros and cons, how efficient this system is?...
thanks,
MM

You have just described a typical German type decoction system.

[jebzter]

You would have no efficiency gains over a two vessel system. The point of adding more tanks is to increase the number of simultaneous processes. In what you have described, you would be boiling in the vessel that you should be mashing into with the second batch. Most efficient system is a 5 vessel, Mash Tun/Mixer, Lauter Tun, Wort Receiver, Kettle, Whirlpool. If they are all designed correctly, you can be running up to 4 batches at a time, you would need HLT that either heats the incoming water with steam through an HX or a large(4x batch size) HLT, second hot water recovery tank to refill HLT and a CLT.