My HERMS build

After several months of researching HBT and planning my Gas/Electric HERMS, I've finally started putting parts together. Special thanks goes out to Pinup for my stand and Kal for sharing his amazing plans for his own rig. I've got the HLT pretty much rigged up, and I should have the MT and BK finished by next weekend. Then it's on to the control panel.

All stainless steel components
1/2"Tri-clover sanitary connections
Dedicated gas beam rail with Honeywell Y8210U Retrofit on HLT (to be installed)
Two March 809 Pumps
Bobby_M Sightglasses
5500 ULWD E-HLT
5500 ULWD E-BK

I'll continue to add photos when I make more progress. Sorry for the crappy phone shots...

HLT






HERMS coil


Welds (done by a friend)

Man, I love stainless.... sweet!

JonW said:

Man, I love stainless.... sweet!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the inspiration to finally start a build thread

Those big valves mounted to the pumps scare me. I've already busted pumps heads, so I'm moving to the SS ones for the durability. Be careful with those suckers!

Just an update on the build...Most of the hardware is finally put together, I just have to finish wiring up my control panel.

OMG that's a thing of beauty!!!! I'm a little jealous right now.......

Wow that thing is BA. So fresh and sparkly

Very well designed setup

Very sexyyyyy!

All I can really say is WOW!!! Would be even more impressive to see this thing in some HD video on YouTube.

Very nice looking rig!!!! What did you do, or how did you get those kegs so shinny!!!

Man, that's some serious bling...

So, are you planning to brew in the dark, or wear sunglasses?

WAORGANY said:

Very nice looking rig!!!! What did you do, or how did you get those kegs so shinny!!!

Click to expand...

Thanks! Followed Bobby_M's instructions with the Gator Fine/Polishing pads with various levels of rouge. It probably took 3 hours per keg, but they were pretty beat up

r8rphan said:

Man, that's some serious bling...

So, are you planning to brew in the dark, or wear sunglasses?

Click to expand...

Planning on brewing in my basement, at least during the winter months. Then I'll have to put on some polarized sunglasses

I also just got in my Mini Brew 15G Conical Fermenter. I'm hoping to make the entire system closed (Cool, Transfer, Pitch, Ferment).

The system will be semi-automated with Auber PID's for the HLT and BK. Also have some room for BCS in the future if I decide, especially for fermentation in the adjacent room.

Update 1/10/10:

Here's a series of shots from my control panel. It's a 16x14x8 Hoffman panel, that is primarily influenced by Kal's brewery. All cuts were made with a Green Lee Unibit and Dremel. I decided to leave out the amp and volt meters. The heat sinks at the top are secured by JB Weld and silicone to allow the heat sink to be fully outside the box and weatherproof. There are 3 RTD inputs, 2 pump, 2 element and 1 main power outlets. I'll add photos after it's all wired up. Again, thank you Kal for being an inspiration to many new E-brewers.

Maltose said:

Planning on brewing in my basement, at least during the winter months.

Click to expand...

Make sure you have adequate ventilation in your basement. No need to get CO poisoning while making your inaugural run on that setup!

Ace_Club said:

Make sure you have adequate ventilation in your basement. No need to get CO poisoning while making your inaugural run on that setup!

Click to expand...

It will be ventilated, but for now will just be 100% electric. I'm pretty sure after I start doing electric batches, I won't go back to propane, unless i go off-premise.

got the relays and terminals wired up. i'll clean up the wiring after the door instruments are wired in.

What temperature controllers are those???

Auber SYL 2352

AWESOME!!!

I am in the early stages of building a system. Really just ordering pieces right now. My next order is the Steel. Was going to get 2x2 but thinking 1x1 may be fine. Curious what did you use?

nopucophop said:

AWESOME!!!

I am in the early stages of building a system. Really just ordering pieces right now. My next order is the Steel. Was going to get 2x2 but thinking 1x1 may be fine. Curious what did you use?

Click to expand...

1x1 stainless. Marcus (Pinup) made my stand and it is some quality work.

i see you used elbows for your herms coil. With welded coulpers, how did you get the elbows to be at the correct angle. I have welded fittings, waiting for them to come back from the welder and was looking at ordering my couplers. I was just going to order straight ones and use a tube bender to make nice angles on my copper. but if I can get the elbows to seat correctly, rather have them. Do you just teflon tape until it seats tight with the correct angle?

milldoggy said:

i see you used elbows for your herms coil. With welded coulpers, how did you get the elbows to be at the correct angle. I have welded fittings, waiting for them to come back from the welder and was looking at ordering my couplers. I was just going to order straight ones and use a tube bender to make nice angles on my copper. but if I can get the elbows to seat correctly, rather have them. Do you just teflon tape until it seats tight with the correct angle?

Click to expand...

Yup, took a couple times before I had the right amount of tape. I may try to put some TC's for a quick disconnect in the future.

what did you coil you herms around? Was thinking a corny, but that seems to small of a diameter.

milldoggy said:

what did you coil you herms around? Was thinking a corny, but that seems to small of a diameter.

Click to expand...

I tried with a coil of 1/2" stainless and kept crimping it. I ended up buying the 50' 1/2" stainless wort chiller from Midwest and cannibalizing it. Worked great

not a bad deal for 99, do you recall what shipping was?

Where did you get the plans for the control panel??? Did you come up with it on your own???

milldoggy said:

not a bad deal for 99, do you recall what shipping was?

Click to expand...

maybe $10-15, plus, after the cannabilization, i have another 25' coil to possibly upgrade to a DITCHES design, and the long piece that runs to the top may be used to make a whirlpool return port

lostboysbrew said:

Where did you get the plans for the control panel??? Did you come up with it on your own???

Click to expand...

Before the build, I had basically no experience in electronics, aside from hooking up a car stereo or two.

Kal's Website changed everything. My entire wiring diagram is based on his control panel. I left out a couple things and redesigned a couple of aesthetic aspects, but it is essentially a clone of his system.

Alright guys, finally got a leak test going today on my HLT and MLT. Doing some more work on the control panel and installing heating elements this weekend.

Looks good How long is your HERMS coil? I saw you bought a 50' IC, but you also said you had 25' coil for another project, so did you cut the IC in half, or.. ?

RegionalChaos said:

Looks good How long is your HERMS coil? I saw you bought a 50' IC, but you also said you had 25' coil for another project, so did you cut the IC in half, or.. ?

Click to expand...

I bought the 50' chiller from Midwest and cut it in half.

Cool, I'm thinking of doing 25' of copper for the HERMS in my 10 gal system. Trying to make sure it won't be undersized. I suppose if it ends up being undersized I can just replace it with a longer coil.

Got the control panel mounted today. Heating elements and temp controllers work alright, but I've got a loose connection in one of my RTD cords. Just need to do some cable clean up, install my water filter and a new overhead light and I'm in business. Not pictured is a door to the right leading to my backyard. I'm thinking at least at first to keep it open with a fan to kick out steam during my boil. Hood vent will have to come later. Stoked!

Got the light installed today, water filter and cleaned up some wiring. Need to finish wiring RTD'S and brew the first batch. Cheers

thats pretty sweet, just curious what you used to clean up the stand after welding and grinding.

It was build by Pinup and I assume that he used some polishing wheels, similar to what I used on the kettles.

Very nice. You'll enjoy it. I'm brewing on a brutus 20 and will be moving to 3 kettles soon. You gave me some ideas.

CoalCracker said:

Very nice. You'll enjoy it. I'm brewing on a brutus 20 and will be moving to 3 kettles soon. You gave me some ideas.

Click to expand...

Thank you. I'm glad to give some inspiration to more builds. All the ideas came from HBT users, most notably Kal for the control panel. He's put in some long hours to ensure builds like mine will turn out safe and professional.

One thing I did recently change were my Auber panel mounts for Kal's XLR probes. My novice skill at soldering tiny wires ended up giving me noise on a couple of my probes, so I bought some fabricated XLR cables from Kal. Very neat and well packaged. Installed them in the box in under 30 minutes. I'll post photos soon.

Can you post some pictures of how you installed the elements?