HERMS -- wort lost in tubing?

Finally finishing up my herms setup -- very simple with a march 809 pump and a 50ft copper coil heat exchanger in my HLT.

My question is this:

The March pump cannot run dry, so when recirculating there is a certain amount of liquid (in this case wort) that will stay in the coil & lines. I did the math and with 50ft of 3/8" copper and 10ft of 1/2" ID tubing, this amounts to 2.4 qts of wort left in the lines

That's a lot of lost wort, IMO. I'm just wondering if this will affect efficiency, or if I need to use a higher water/grist ratio so that the grain bed doesn't run dry (I use 1.25 qts/lb currently) .

I was also wondering--do most people somehow flush the wort back into the MLT at the end of the mash, or just clean it out later????

I think the easiset way to solve that is to run the sparge water through on its way to the mash. My herms isn't hooked up yet so i dont know by experience, however it should work in theory .

He may have a two-tier and gravity feed the heating water in the HLT as sparge. Collect it and toss onto the grainbed. If that is too difflicult, then the boil pot.

tbulger said:

I think the easiset way to solve that is to run the sparge water through on its way to the mash. My herms isn't hooked up yet so i dont know by experience, however it should work in theory .

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Good thought, but with the wort going through the sparge arm I would risk HSA....and also have to clean out the sparge arm after each use.

wild said:

He may have a two-tier and gravity feed the heating water in the HLT as sparge. Collect it and toss onto the grainbed. If that is too difflicult, then the boil pot.

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Three tier actually--everything is gravity except the mash recirculation. My initial plan for sparging was to disconnect the line that runs from the MLT to the pump, replace it with another hose and just gravity feed the wort to the boil kettle.....now I'm wondering if I should just run the wort through the pump & heat exchanger while sparging and divert the wort to the boil kettle right before it gets back to the MLT.

I don't really like the idea of running the pump when I could just use gravity, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt anything and it would solve my problem of leaving wort in the lines.

Any thoughts?

maltMonkey said:

Good thought, but with the wort going through the sparge arm I would risk HSA....and also have to clean out the sparge arm after each use.



Three tier actually--everything is gravity except the mash recirculation. My initial plan for sparging was to disconnect the line that runs from the MLT to the pump, replace it with another hose and just gravity feed the wort to the boil kettle.....now I'm wondering if I should just run the wort through the pump & heat exchanger while sparging and divert the wort to the boil kettle right before it gets back to the MLT.

I don't really like the idea of running the pump when I could just use gravity, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt anything and it would solve my problem of leaving wort in the lines.

Any thoughts?

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If drizzling 2 qts of wort through the sparge arm is going to cause HSA, you probably have it falling too far onto the grainbed. I wouldn't worry here. The biggest problem with leaving the wort in there is that it's the highest gravity wort you'll be producing. 2 qts of first runoff wort is a big hit on efficiency. I'd just put some quick disconnects on the pump hoses and simply switch the pump input over to the HLT output and run it for 20 seconds, then you can switch over to gravity. Clean the sparge arm? You'll be running tons of hot fresh water through during the sparge... clean enough. One thing I'm confused about though is how are you delivering the wort back onto the grain bed during recirc? I would think this and the sparge delivery would be about the same. You'd want to diffuse the recirculated wort just as much as you would for the sparge.

FWIW, I don't really get the idea of having a pump and not dropping down to 2-tier.

Bobby_M--Here's what I have planned so far. Let me know if I'm screwing up anything, as I don't completely know what I'm doing

Bobby_M said:

If drizzling 2 qts of wort through the sparge arm is going to cause HSA, you probably have it falling too far onto the grainbed.

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The sparge arm is affixed to the top of the MLT, so it will have a bit to fall. I could make the arm height adjustable. Would you recommend that?

Bobby_M said:

One thing I'm confused about though is how are you delivering the wort back onto the grain bed during recirc? I would think this and the sparge delivery would be about the same. You'd want to diffuse the recirculated wort just as much as you would for the sparge.

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I have a separate inlet for the recirculated wort -- it's just a 1/2" tube that feed below the level of the mash. It creates a bit of stirring action from the pumped in wort and I'm hoping it will mix the mash well enough.....

Bobby_M said:

FWIW, I don't really get the idea of having a pump and not dropping down to 2-tier.

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There's no reason it couldn't be 2-tier with the design I'm currently going with. It just happens to be 3 because I've been doing a gravity system and I'm just upgrading it.

Here's the idea I have - let me know what you think!

BTW I've already built about half of this, but will be finishing it tomorrow to brew on Saturday so any input welcome!

I'd make the return back to the MLT the same method whether it recirc or sparge. The closer to the grainbed you deliver it, the less heat loss and aeration you'll have. That Holle guy that wrote the artical for BYO seemed to make a big stink about the negative affects of getting oxygen into the mash. If you put a female quick disconnect on the input to your sparge arm, you can attach your pump output OR your HLT spigot output.

I don't know anymore than you do about this stuff. I have all the parts but haven't brewed a batch using my keg with pump system yet.

I thought about making the recirculation go through the sparge arm a couple of times. I guess I decided against it because I would have to make the arm height adjustable and since the cooler lid is on a hinge it would have to be lowered with the lid closed....i can't see what's going on in there.....i'd have to raise my HLT.....I'd have to continually adjust it during the sparge....it just seemed like a big hassle.

I guess I'll give what I've got a shot Saturday and I can always redesign if things don't go well!

My plan for an adjustable height sparge arm is to mark 1 inch lines on the straight section of the sparge arm that extends through the lid. I will secure the position of the arm in the lid with an o-ring. My plan is to measure the height to the grain bed with a ruler, then close the lid and adjust the height of the sparge arm accordingly. I haven't brewed with this new idea, but the setup works well physically. Might be an option for you.

Boerderij Kabouter said:

My plan for an adjustable height sparge arm is to mark 1 inch lines on the straight section of the sparge arm that extends through the lid. I will secure the position of the arm in the lid with an o-ring. My plan is to measure the height to the grain bed with a ruler, then close the lid and adjust the height of the sparge arm accordingly. I haven't brewed with this new idea, but the setup works well physically. Might be an option for you.

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That's kind of the idea I was thinking about, but during the (fly) sparge it's so hard to perfectly match flow rates that I would have to keep opening the lid to see how the level had changed.....I've been thinking about installing a sight glass on the MLT, but I'm not sure how well they work with a grain bed.

Eventually I plan on using these.

VFB-85-EC-SS is the part number that would work best. Until then (may be a long time) I plan on eye balling it and checking every once in a while. I know Bobby_M has sight glasses on all his vessels, including his MLT. I also would think that would get dirty and be hard to clean, but who knows.

I've also thought about putting "floats" on the adjustable sparge arm so that it would float on top of the mash--no adjustments needed. That would actually be the perfect solution, but I haven't found any floats that would fit and be food-safe.

I don't know that you'd need to see inside to adjust the height. Couldn't you just lower it until it bottomed out on top of the grain bed, then lift it up an inch?

Bobby_M said:

I don't know that you'd need to see inside to adjust the height. Couldn't you just lower it until it bottomed out on top of the grain bed, then lift it up an inch?

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That actually might work.

I think it might be beneficial to be able to see inside somehow just to check that the water level wasn't too low....I've been thinking about installing a piece of plexiglass or something as a little window just for this reason.

I usually just give a couple of good blows with co2 to clear the wort in the coil and tubing. Works perfectly.

I'm sure that works too but you still have to run water through it for cleanup. Running the sparge water through just seems intuitive to me but like anything else, YMMV.