BRAINSTORM: How would you use this heat exchanger?

Ok, so I could not resist picking this up. It's a heat exchanger - the 1/2" inner tube has sanitary fittings on each end and the outer jacket has 1/2" FPT on each end. At first I thought indirect heat RIMS tube, but i don't think there'd be enough surface area to be effective running hot water through the outer jacket. Then I found some sort of resistance heaters (in photo) with the same curvature, each 450W @ 240V. I'm thinking of banding two of these on (three may not fit) and see how 900W handles sparge flow rates.

So, any ideas of how this might be put to good use?

vballdrummer said:

Ok, so I could not resist picking this up. It's a heat exchanger - the 1/2" inner tube has sanitary fittings on each end and the outer jacket has 1/2" FPT on each end. At first I thought indirect heat RIMS tube, but i don't think there'd be enough surface area to be effective running hot water through the outer jacket. Then I found some sort of resistance heaters (in photo) with the same curvature, each 450W @ 240V. I'm thinking of banding two of these on (three may not fit) and see how 900W handles sparge flow rates.

So, any ideas of how this might be put to good use?

Click to expand...

I don't understand. Why not use this tube to recirculate your mash and maintain mash temperature? Being the mash is already at temperature from your strike water, it shouldn't take much to keep it at temperature, so it would make a good RIMS tube. Just insulate your mash tun. I doubt that 900 watts is enough to heat on demand sparge water at any sort of sparge rate.

This is a two chamber heat exchanger; unlike the single chamber RIMS tube. So I need an external heat source . Initial thought is great no scorching, second thought is it's probably going to be more complex that a std RIMS tube or HERMS coil to utilize this.

What is this normally used for? Heat pasteurization?

not sure, it was a local scrap find. I'm not sure if the fluid to fluid exchange is going to be efficient enough for a 20g system. Like I said, I just wanted to throw this out and see if anyone saw a practical use for it.

I have a heat exchanger similar to yours that I am going top try as a RIMS chamber. I already recirculate my HLT water to keep its temp constant, so I figured I would send it through the outer jacket to keep the mash temp constant. Hopefully it will have enough efficiency to also heat up the mash to mash out temps prior to sparging.

The one I have is 3/4" tri clover and about 16" long. I planned to insulate it to keep the heat loss down. It it works, I won't have to worry about an element in the wort and any burning or a stuck sparge. I was planning to put the RIMS element I used before into the HLT recirculation path to give the HLT water a boost without having to heat up the entire HLT vessel.

We'll see if it works and would be interested in your results.

Bill

Thought I would post a picture of the one I will try.



I will use it as a element free RIMS type arrangement as described in my post above.

I knew it was a gamble when I bought it, but I couldn't pass it up.

Interested to hear if other HBT'ers think it will have enough heat transfer to do what I want.

Thanks

Bill

Windsors said:

Thought I would post a picture of the one I will try.

I will use it as a element free RIMS type arrangement as described in my post above.

I knew it was a gamble when I bought it, but I couldn't pass it up.

Interested to hear if other HBT'ers think it will have enough heat transfer to do what I want.

Thanks

Bill

Click to expand...

Bill,

Use it as a HERMS exchanger. Pump water from your HLT through it to regulate the Mash temperature.

Guy,

Thanks for the input. That is what I will do. You are right, it is a Herms system. I didn't think of it that way.

The only twist will be that I will use a rims style heater (Derrins) to heat the recirculating HLT water (sort of like a insta-hot heater). My thinking is that then I will not have to heat the whole HLT to the temp required for the wort. Eventually it will all get a higher temp, but it will be more gradual than if I heated the entire HLT water volume with the HLT element.

I know, more complicated than it needs to be, but that's what makes it fun. I justify it by saying that it is very cleanable vs a herms coil and no fear of scorched wort or a burned element if the mash gets stuck.

Bill