Before I built IGOR, I looked at various RIMS designs on the web, as well as in magazines, etc., but I never liked  the idea of the wort slamming past a heating element. In my mind, a heat exchanger would be a better way to go.

Recirculating Heat Exchange Mashing Systems (RHEMS) have now become an accepted brewing method, quite different than when IGOR was first built. There were only 1 or 2 other heat exchange systems that had been documented at the time. Now there are commercial systems using the Heat Exchange method of brewing.

I also wanted industrial-grade controls, not some Radio Shack kit crap. What I had envisioned was PID (Proportional, Integral, Derivative) temperature control, solenoids instead of an array of ball valves, and PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) process control. This may sound like Greek to some of you (unless you speak Greek), but hopefully, it'll all make sense when I'm done.