eHLT: Recirulation Pump or Stir Motor?

I just wanted to see what everyone's input is on keeping water flowing in an HLT. Currently have a single tier, single pump batch sparge setup. I would assume moving liquid would heat faster and more evenly. During initial HLT heating I could use my march pump to recirc, however once mashing I would like to use March to move wort through HERMS.

Would I be better off stiring HLT during mash, getting a second pump and using it to recir water, or just leave it alone?

I thought I could leave mine alone, it doesn't work as well. I bought a cheap pump off of ebay and constantly recirc.

_

I did a test using my pump to recirculate water.
I found that the pump cooled the water by about 5 degrees. This was
about 5 feet of hose and the pump. I started with 140 degree water
and ended after it dropped to 122 degrees.

I wasn't heating during the test - only recirculating.
Thus I concluded that I should get a motor and stir.
I thought about an ice cream motor, or a regular AC motor with a 30-60 rpm speed.

Squeeky,

Go get yourself one of these motors - 63 RPM Rotation CCW for $18 and then biuld this:









You can make a very simple prop for it and the lid is a very cheap SS one from WalMart. It really works very well and is a lot less than getting another pump.

Just saying.

Haha, leave it to PJ. I actually still had that bookmarked from wortomatic back in 09. I'm gonna brew Saturday hopefully for firt ebrew. I'm just going to hand stir during mash and make the pid work a little harder.

Even without stiring I should be able to regulate mash temp with still water just up/down pid and monitor temp in mash.

Squeeky said:

Haha, leave it to PJ. I actually still had that bookmarked from wortomatic back in 09. I'm gonna brew Saturday hopefully for firt ebrew. I'm just going to hand stir during mash and make the pid work a little harder.

Even without stiring I should be able to regulate mash temp with still water just up/down pid and monitor temp in mash.

Click to expand...

Do not monitor the mash temp, it will overshoot wicked. I moved my TC to the HLT and its been perfect ever since (3 deg differential). As far as the stir motor, I stole the motor/gear reducer out of my kid's electric ATV and made a blade out of copper similar to P-J.

Yea my TC is in the HLT. I just assume stiring, while recircing my mash through HERMS coil would distrubte heat throughout hlt better then still water.

McCuckerson said:

Do not monitor the mash temp, it will overshoot wicked. I moved my TC to the HLT and its been perfect ever since (3 deg differential). As far as the stir motor, I stole the motor/gear reducer out of my kid's electric ATV and made a blade out of copper similar to P-J.

Click to expand...

You make an excellent point. Yea, measure the mash temp so you know the differential between it and the HLT temp. But, use the PID to regulate the HLT temp not the MASH temp. It will only be a few degrees.

Keeping the HLT water in motion helps a lot in keeping the temp stabilized.

Here is a photo of my work in process. The kids are pissed

Seems this would be good too ?!

http://www.herbach.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=HAR&Product_Code=TM94MTR2691

Bit faster, smaller (2lbs) and cheaper.

They have a min order of 15, any idea if that is strong enough to stir mash as well. I could just buy two or have a backup.

I have yet to build lids as my holes aren't perfect and I planned on using foam covered in reflectix.

I use neither a stir motor nor circulation pump. I simply use a different probe location.

my temp probe monitors the wort temp as it comes out of the HEX. I don't monitor the HLT temp at all and I don't need to stir the water in the HLT or otherwise keep it moving to get proper heating.

Walker,

I have a few questions about your setup as I can easily move the probe location. If probe is mounted at HEX-out, are you constantly circulating when heating strike/sparge water?

If I'm heating strike water and circulating through HEX. Whenever I would be transferring water from HLT -> Mash it would require going through HEX to regulate temp correct?

I'm just trying to understand the best route, as I will be brewing for the first time with my setup tomorrow and putting finishing touches tonight.

during initial heat up of water, I use a closed system. water comes out of HLT, pumps through coil in the HLT, and then returns back to the HLT. This keeps it stirred up and flowing past the probe during that heat up.

After that is done, I pump mash water to MLT, dough in, and start pumping wort from the MLT through the coil in the HLT and back into the MLT. It is irrelevant to me what temp the water in the HLT is at that point. I only care what the wort temp flowing back into the MLT is.

subd

mkirkland said:

subd

Click to expand...

????

P-J said:

????

Click to expand...

"subscribed" - he posted to get a subscription to the thread.

FYI: you can do that by clicking "thread tools" at the top of the page, too.

Now I've got to do some thinking. I've already added a coupler for TC, which I could easily chance to a sight glass. I guess we will find out tomorrow Just curious do you recirc with ball valves completely open? I guess with probe on HEX out, it wouldn't matter as long as it was constant flow so that PID wouldn't have to work extra hard.

The valve on the MLT spigot is wide open, but the valve on the output of the pump is the one I use to control flow.

I do not start out my mash circulation with that pump valve wide open. I only open it a little. I've had several bad experiences with the mash compacting and getting stuck if I start with full flow.

After about 5 minutes of circulating the grain bed settles quite a bit, and then I open the valve up more.

Walker said:

during initial heat up of water, I use a closed system. water comes out of HLT, pumps through coil in the HLT, and then returns back to the HLT. This keeps it stirred up and flowing past the probe during that heat up.

After that is done, I pump mash water to MLT, dough in, and start pumping wort from the MLT through the coil in the HLT and back into the MLT. It is irrelevant to me what temp the water in the HLT is at that point. I only care what the wort temp flowing back into the MLT is.

Click to expand...

at what point do you start to control the water temp for the sparge though? or am i missing something?

martinworswick said:

at what point do you start to control the water temp for the sparge though? or am i missing something?

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Its not necessary. The water in the HLT probably just a few degrees warmer than mash and I just use it as-is.

Sometimes I ramp mash temp up in last 5min of mash to get sparge water hotter but sometimes I don't bother.

I've been brewing for a long time and cannot tell the difference between a beer sparged with 155F water and one sparged with 175F water so I see no use in worrying about the sparge temp too much.

Walker said:

"subscribed" - he posted to get a subscription to the thread.

FYI: you can do that by clicking "thread tools" at the top of the page, too.

Click to expand...

And if you use the "thread tools" you can set up folders for different subjects and put the subscribed thread into the appropriate folder, which makes it a lot easier to find a thread you're looking for.

Walker,

After reading an old poll thread of your, I'm going to switch my probe to my HEX output. I'll just place a ball lock on the extra coupler, until I get a sight glass from Bobby_M.

If you're going to use the water in the HLT for anything other than heat exchange (i.e. If you want to control it precisely for strike or sparge), then you definitely need to stir it somehow. Otherwise it stratifies at your heating element and the water below never heats up.

I actually ended up using an aquarium air pump that my LHBS talked me into buying. I used it once for aerating my beer before deciding that I could do better, so it was just sitting around. It's amazing that the tiny stream of bubbles can keep the kettle stirred, but it works great. I also put a pressure sensor on the air line, and I can use that to determine volume in my HLT.

Tell me about the pressure sensor for HLT volume. I was thinking of making
a site glass, but it would be interesting to see another technique.

Sorry, but this is taking a turn off topic... (search "digital sight glass")

Good lord, it took me way too long to find this, but here you go:

http://www.brewtroller.com/wiki/dok...dge_base:setup_a_bubbler_level_sensing_system

Basically, the theory is simple. You're measuring the pressure somewhere toward the bottom of your kettle. The pressure is directly related to the depth of the water, and from that you can calibrate it to know the volume.

In practice it's a little more complicated. As the water changes temperature, the volume of air inside the tube expands and contracts, which in turn means that your sensor isn't really reading the pressure at the bottom of the kettle again. You can get around this by constantly bubbling air through the tube. You then have to filter the data coming back from the sensor, but that's a relatively straightforward software (or even hardware with a properly chosen resistor and capacitor) fix. You can read the output with anything from a multi-meter to an arduino.

I have one of these guys installed on my HLT. I just need to wire it up and rewrite my brewery's firmware.

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=MPX5010DP-ND

Squeeky said:

They have a min order of 15, any idea if that is strong enough to stir mash as well. I could just buy two or have a backup.

I have yet to build lids as my holes aren't perfect and I planned on using foam covered in reflectix.

Click to expand...

Was this ever answered? I am also looking for a mash mixer and HLT mixer. IF this would suffice for both, I have an easy fix to both problems.

This is what I did for my eHLT: recirculation pump and a tangential inlet to whirlpool the water when I want to even out the temp. The first picture shows the setup with the small March pump mounted under the HLT and the second picture shows the tangential inlet that the water is pumped through. The pump inlet is connected to the bottom drain of the HLT.

P-J, Where did you get that propeller?

What about 4" aluminum propeller $22, mcmaster part # 3502K122. Is there a cheaper option for the propeller anyone?

HHP said:

P-J, Where did you get that propeller?

Click to expand...

I made it from a copper sheet, copper tubing and some brass fittings.

What about this motor? It looks small, but it is 115V, .43 amps and 220 rpm. The shaft is only 1/2" long, but at $4.99 I'll figure out a way to jam a coupler on there.

220 RPM is 3.6 revolutions per second - quite quick.

When I was looking at these motors, I was looking at under 100rpm.
I ended up picking a ice cream maker and using that motor and the paddle.
It does a fine job of stirring the water. I had barley grains in the water and could
see where the water was being mixed.

Anyone have suggestions on a gear motor and propeller to agitate a 30 gallon HERMS HLT?

Maltose said:

Anyone have suggestions on a gear motor and propeller to agitate a 30 gallon HERMS HLT?

Click to expand...

I'd strongly suggest this motor:
63 RPM Rotation CCW, Torque 10 lb-in

It is fairly cheap and will do the job very well. You just need to fabricate a prop to do the job.

This is what I did. Yea, a little over kill, but...

P-J, I've been thinking about upgrading my stirrer. I don't see a capacitor in the pictures of your installation. I use a different gear motor that calls for one, but will start without it. Is that the case with yours? It would be a cleaner set-up without it.

The motor I referenced does require a capacitor (it ships with the motor). The cap must be wired as it provides the motor start torque and sets the direction of rotation.

I was all set to use a stirrer for my HLT.

But then, I found a 2.5 gallon SS heat exchanger with a 25 ft SS coil on the inside of it. So I added a heating element to the bottom that sticks up vertically. I recirculate the HLT through the cylinder and the mash through the coil. I turn the element on and off with a PID connected to a RTD measuring the mash temp.

It's a combo RIMS / Herms unit. I realize this is getting off topic, but my point is that I ended up going with a pump that recirculates the HLT water and it serves another purpose. Other than water testing the system, I have not finished it yet to brew after these changes.

Now the off topic part....I was using the a conventional HERMS coil in the HLT, but I think this will be more efficient since I am only heating a small amount of water to transfer heat to the wort instead of heating up the entire HLT water.

In my older HERMS system, when I heated up the HLT water to keep the mash temps where they needed to be, I was heating up the entire HLT to temps that were higher than what I wanted for sparging, so I had to cool the HLT water before sparging and it was pretty inefficient. I have always liked the herms system since i never wanted to deal with the potential to scorch the wort.

Any thoughts ? I will be glad to start a separate post if the OP would like.

Bill

PJ,
I know this is a nold thread, but I have been doing research and came across this thread. I like the propeller on a gear motor idea. How close does it come to your chiller coil? Just trying to figure out the optimum clearance. Thanks.
Bob

Bill,
I would like to see the pics of your hybrid unit. Please start a new thread and show us you design. I am gathering gear and info so I would like to consider as many alternatives as possible before spending my hard earned dollars. Thanks for a great idea, but please put up some pics.
Bob

Rbeckett said:

PJ,
I know this is a nold thread, but I have been doing research and came across this thread. I like the propeller on a gear motor idea. How close does it come to your chiller coil? Just trying to figure out the optimum clearance. Thanks.
Bob

Click to expand...

It's about 3/4" on each side.