1/2" vs 3/8" SS Herms Coil

I'm piecing together my E-HERMS system. I have two basic questions.

1. Is 50' of 1/2" tubing really needed or would 50' of 3/8" work just as well for a HERMS. I ask because it is much easier to find already coiled 3/8" stainless.

2. Is a 50' coil recommended or would a 25' coil suffice.

Ideally I would like a 50' 1/2" stainless coil that is already coiled for me. It dosen't seem like this will be possible to find unless I want to compromise for 3/8". Here our the sources I have so far. I realize others have run into this same problem but I don't know if anyone has found a good buying source lately.


I could purchase 50' of 1/2" stainless but would have to coil myself
http://www.nybrewsupply.com/products/tubing-steel.php

A 50' precoiled 3/8" chiller that I could chop and mount into my keggle.
http://www.nybrewsupply.com/products/wort-chiller-stainless-steel-immersion.php#c3850

Another source with not as good pricing.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Stainless-Steel-DRAFT-COIL-Make-your-own-JOCKEY-BOX-/360265908763?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53e185821b#ht_1893wt_905

Bump........

I use 25' of 3/8 in mine and have no problems at all with mine. I hold temps steady for the whole mash. Why spend the extra cash if you don't have too?

CoalCracker said:

I use 25' of 3/8 in mine and have no problems at all with mine. I hold temps steady for the whole mash. Why spend the extra cash if you don't have too?

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. I thought this thread was going to die with no responses. So you can maintain temps. What is your batch size? Also, are you able to effectively ramp up your mash temp when you need to mash out and how does the discharge from the herms coil compare to the water temperature in the HLT? Thanks for the help.

Bump......

My 3/8 25ft. copper herms works fine. You can't get full flow from a pump with it, but it's more than enough to maintain temps. I recirc at a gallon per minute.

So to follow up with this thread.... I FINALLY finished my all electric HERMS system. I ended up going with 50' of 1/2 SS that I had to end up coiling myself. The coiling went very poorly even though I was being very meticulous. It didn't even work with a tubing bender and I would not recommend this route to anyone. I ended up with about 30-35' of coil which seems to be doing well holding the mash temp. For a 5 gallon batch it takes me about 20 minutes to raise the temp to mash out at about 165F. It seems to be working well but it's hard to judge as this is my first HERMS build.

If anyone is interested I tried many many ways to try to get the SS to coil nicely. In the end the best method was to turn a 5 gallon bucket upside down, have my wife stand on top while I pushed/pulled the stainless to conform around the bucket. It took a moderate amount of force to do and by the end my arms and hands were tired but it did give a very nice result with uniform coils and NO kinking. Knowing what I know now I could coil 50' in about 20 minutes with some elbow grease but nice results. Live and learn.

Did you consider just going with copper instead?

I'm starting to think about a HERMS, but reading a lot of these posts it's seems using stainless is just not worth the extra trouble/effort.

I use 25' of 1/2" copper.

No issues with flow or holding temp.

Markd27 said:

Did you consider just going with copper instead?

I'm starting to think about a HERMS, but reading a lot of these posts it's seems using stainless is just not worth the extra trouble/effort.

Click to expand...

I definitely considered going with copper. My biggest detractor from using it was the fact that I wanted liberty to clean my system with most anything and SS is more capable of dealing with that. I use a copper IC but this is removable. I am glad I went with SS for the HERMS coil but it was a ***** to get in there. To do it now really wouldn't be to bad of a chore in comparison.