2 vessel gas fired HERMS build

Ok. Ive been lurking and looking at everyones brew stand bling for too long.
I've gone over every permutation and combination of brewing system there is:
1 vs 2 vs 3 vessel, 1 vs 2 vs 3 tier, BIAB, HERMS, RIMS, driving myself crazy trying to design the AG system best suited to my needs. This is what I've finally come up with.

I don't have a lot of cash to throw at this, so first, the system has to be relatively inexpensive. But I want to be able to tweak, add and improve upon it as I develop my brewing skills and as I can afford it.

I want to keep the equipment list as short as possible. I love the simplicity of BIAB. So I started to think about a 1 vessel system. I like the idea of full volume mashing and can live with the loss of efficiency, but Im not crazy about lifting and transferring grain in a bag. So Ill need to incorporate a mash tun.

I love Lonnie's Brutus 2.0 concept as a method of keeping a mash tun in the equation:
http://www.alenuts.com/Alenuts/brutus20.html
I have an igloo cooler MLT so I wanted to use this in my system. The things I don't like about the Brutus 20 are the need to use 2 pumps and 2 burners.

I love jkarp's countertop Brutus 20:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/countertop-brutus-20-a-131411
It solves the two pump, two burner problem, but I don't want to use electricity and I want to be able to ramp this thing up to eventually do 10 gallon batches.

So I kind of stole what I liked from both these systems and designed my own. It is a two vessel, two tier system that utilizes a 10 gallon igloo MLT, a keggle HLT/BK, a single burner and a single pump. I will be building this initially on a wood frame with the idea that Ill eventually build a nice shiny metal stand. I'll incorporate a HERMS coil into the keggle that can be used to mash out and used as an immersion chiller after the boil.

Since I already had the igloo MLT, keggle and burner, this should be a relatively inexpensive build.

It won't be high on the bling factor right now, but the money I'm saving by not using two more keggles, two more burners and another pump I can use eventually to pretty this up.

Here is the concept for the system:

Strike water is heated in the HLT and transferred to the MLT:

The Igloo cooler should hold temps for the entire mash time, but if not the mash can be recirculated through the HERMS coil in the HLT. At mashout, the wort is recirculated through the HERMS coil to raise to mashout temperature.

After mashout, the wort is transferred to the BK. After the boil, the HERMS coil becomes a counterflow chiller

After chilling, the wort is transferred to the fermenter

Cleaning water is heated in the HLT and the HLT/BK is cleaned

So I'd like to get some feedback on the system. I know its limitations with respect to efficiency. Im not worried about that. I'll also post pictures of the build as it goes along.

With the exception on the HERMS/chiller that is my exact setup. I also have my MLT on top and BK below. I did this for two reasons. First I like having a natural drain from the MLT. Second, I like having the BK low to monitor potential boil overs and it's easier to put my immersion chiller in. I used to have a 10gal round mash tun too, but upgraded for larger capacity. For 5 gallon batches I do a full volume mash and recirculate, firing the top burner when necessary. For 10 gallons I split the total liquid volume between the two vessels, match the flow rates, and recirculate for the entire mash. In that scenario I fire the lower burner for temp adjustments.

Demon said:

With the exception on the HERMS/chiller that is my exact setup. I also have my MLT on top and BK below. I did this for two reasons. First I like having a natural drain from the MLT. Second, I like having the BK low to monitor potential boil overs and it's easier to put my immersion chiller in. I used to have a 10gal round mash tun too, but upgraded for larger capacity. For 5 gallon batches I do a full volume mash and recirculate, firing the top burner when necessary. For 10 gallons I split the total liquid volume between the two vessels, match the flow rates, and recirculate for the entire mash. In that scenario I fire the lower burner for temp adjustments.

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Thats a nice looking setup. What type of efficiencies are you getting on the system? Id like to eventually get to the point that you're at, but I'd probably still use the HERMS for 5 gallons, do 10 gallon the way you are doing it and get away with only one burner.

Thanks for the info

Efficiency doesn't take a big hit like many people think. I get right around 75% which is fine with me.

Demon said:

Efficiency doesn't take a big hit like many people think. I get right around 75% which is fine with me.

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Thats what I was hoping to hear

Time to make the HERMS coil. I sacrificed my old immersion chiller. Wrapping it around a fermenter pail to get it to the size I wanted:





Here it is after wrapping:

I used zip ties to temporarily hold everything together:

All fifty feet of copper was seemed too big and heavy. I cut the coil in half, using 25 ft of copper for the coil. I soldered the coils together at several points to keep the coil from unravelling in the HLT/BK:

Here is the finished coil:

Next I silver soldered 1/2" couplers in the keg using the techniques in the "How to solder stainless" sticky. Here is the dimple tool and the dimples:

The couplers soldered in and an inside view:

Here is a picture of the coil in place inside the HLT/BK:

Got some work done last night.
Finished plumbing the HLT/BK.
I did a wet run on the plumbing and nothing leaked.
During the wet run, I figured out that I would need 2 four foot hoses and 2 six foot hoses.
I made these from 1/2" silicon tubing.

I have decided that for the time being, I won't mount the pump on the stand. So I mounted my March pump in an ammo can. Looks pretty cool:





I've measured everything and have my lumber list for the stand. More to come when more is done.

See I like this kind of build, any updates? This is exactly the route I will be going, almost exactly.

Can you elaborate a bit on the pump box build?

Coff said:

See I like this kind of build, any updates? This is exactly the route I will be going, almost exactly.

Can you elaborate a bit on the pump box build?

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I haven't build the stand yet, but I have finished the vessels. I brewed a pale ale this weekend as a proof of concept. I haven't had time to post the pics yet. I will try to do this when I get home, but I can say that the two vessel system worked great.

I'll also take pics of the march pump in the ammo can.

Ok. Ive brewed several batches on the system and have worked some of the technique out. The system is supposed to be a modified Brutus 20, but its evolving into something completely different. I wanted to use two vessels, but unlike the Brutus 20, I wanted to use only 1 pump and 1 burner. With this hybrid system, I found that I was getting my best efficiency by mashing at the "normal" 1.25 qt/lb volume instead of using a no-sparge, full volume mash like BIAB. I am recirculating my "sparge" water from the HLT/BK into the MLT and then back into the HLT/BK until the wort reaches equilibrium throughout the system. This is similar to the Brutus 20.


I still haven't built a stand for the system. I am working off of work stands until I get everything tuned in how I like it.

Today I brewed 10gal of a cream ale and I took pictures as I went along.

The cream ale had a target OG of 1.048 with 21 lbs of grain. 90 min mash, 90 min boil.
As I mentioned above, I decided to go with a traditional 1.25 qt/lb mash.
I heated up the strike water in the HLT/BK and recirculated the water through the MLT to heat it up as well. Here is a picture of the setup:




I made a copper thermowell in the out port of the MLT so that I can measure the temperature of the MLT outflow. I would eventually like to automate the temperature steps:

Here is a photo of the inside of the HLT/BK. It has a copper HERMS/IC coil that I have been using only as an immersion chiller. The igloo cooler MLT holds temperatures so well that I don't have to recirculate the wort during the mash. As I will show later, I heat all of my sparge water in the HLT/MK and recirculate it through the MLT and back into the HLT/BK, so I am not using the HERMS coil to raise the temperature of my mash. I tried a couple of 5 gallon batches where I did a full volume mash and recirculated through the HERMS coil to get to mashout temperature, but my efficiency wasn't terrific so I'm trying this method where I use a traditional 1.25 qt/lb mash and recirculate the proper volume of sparge water to get my proper pre boil volume.

At the bottom of the HLT/BK you can see the copper pick up tube and the copper whirlpool recirculation tube.

Once the strike water reached my target temperature at the outflow of the MLT, I adjusted the volume of strike water in the MLT to 6.5 gallons.
Here is a picture after dough-in. You can see the loc-line that is used as a sparge arm.




After a 90 min mash at 149 degrees, the iodine test demonstrates conversion:

After the 90 min mash, I sparged/recirculated with 9.5 gallons of water.





As the mash was going, I heated 9.5 gallons of water to 175 degrees. I started running off into the HLT/BK while pumping water/wort from the HLT/BK into the MLT via the sparge arm. Here is a picture of that setup:

I sparged/recirculated for an hour until the SG inside the MLT and the HLT/BK were equal. Then I shut off the pump and let all the wort drain into the HLT/BK:

The 90 min boil and hop additions were like any traditional system.

15 min before the end of the boil, I recirculated the wort through the pump and back into the whirlpool arm to sanitize the pump:




At the end of the boil, I hooked cold water into the HERMS/IC coil and brought the temperature down to pitching temp:

When the temperature of the wort was less than 90 degrees, I disconnected the input arm from the whirlpool arm and let the wort splash into the HLT/BK aerating the wort. After several minutes of this, I rehooked the whirlpool so that i could get its benefit:

While the wort was cooling, the IC water was routed into the MLT to rinse it. It had had hot Oxyclean inside to clean all the stains out:




After the wort had chilled, it was transferred to the fermenter:

The HLT/BK was rinsed and hot Oxyclean was run though it and the pump. After about an hour, everything was rinsed with cold water and circulated.

My measured OG for this brew was 1.049 which gave me an efficiency of 71.3%. I'm happy with that, especially since I'm still tweaking the system.

All in all I am happy with this system and I feel that I get a good efficient brew day with a minimum of equipment. I can brew both 5 and 10 gallon batches on this system and I don't think I'm losing too much efficiency by not sparing into a separate vessel.

Although I am not using the HERMS coil to regulate the temperature of the wort, it is available in case I want to do step mashes, say for example I wanted to do a protein rest on a wheat beer.

As the system progresses, I'll post more.

An update:

Brewed a 10 gal batch of a 1.053 APA today. Same technique as before using a recirculation/sparge technique as outlined above. Efficiency was 67%. Wasn't too bad, but I think my efficiencies are just too variable. Most likely this is due to the recirculate/sparge. The drawback with this system I think is variable efficiencies with varying OGs. As the OG of my beer goes up, my efficiency goes down. Id like my efficiencies to be more consistent across styles. I just dont think I'm gonna get that with this technique. If I remember correctly this is one of the reasons why Lonnie didn't go with this system.

I think I'll go back to a traditional three vessel system and see if my efficiencies are more consistent.

Any feedback from others using a two vessel system?

Was there any new brews done on this system?

Have you improved your efficiency at all?

The last few brews I've been batch sparging and collecting the running a into a bucket and then transferring into the HLT/BK so I haven't been using it as a recirc system.

It still works well as a single burner, single pump system.

Still haven't given up totally on doing a no sparge recirc system. Probably will experiment more with it here in the near future.

This is exactly what I want to do. It looks great! What made you go back to batch sparging?

Any advice would be great. I have the pot and the cooler, but I don't want to spend the money on the pump if there are any major drawbacks. Thanks!

joeg13 said:

This is exactly what I want to do. It looks great! What made you go back to batch sparging?

Any advice would be great. I have the pot and the cooler, but I don't want to spend the money on the pump if there are any major drawbacks. Thanks!

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Its a great system but I found that I couldn't keep a consistent efficiency between different styles of beer. The higher the gravity, the less efficiency. However, my efficiency was repeatable when making the same beer over and over again.

I still use the system as pictured, but the only thing I do now is batch sparge into another vessel and when Ive finished sparging, I pour the wort into the BK to boil. Still one burner, one pump.

Others on this forum use this type of system successfully as a no sparge system. Id try it first as a no sparge system and then if needed, you could add a vessel.

If you have any other questions let me know

Thanks for all the info!