Is there a better way to heat strike and sparge water?

I’ve read that breweries sometimes use something that I guess is like a tankless water heater to instantly heat strike and sparge water. I even know that a couple of the Psycho Brew systems are designed with the use of their kind of water heaters in mind. My question is, are they using a piece of equipment that specifically designed to heat water to a selected temperature and if so can anyone show an example of this kind of equipment? Or are they just using a number of tankless water heaters run in sequence, and if so, how do they regulate the temperature to an exact enough number to strike with?

Thanks in advance for helping me out guys.

There are some folks with 4500 and 5500w elements in RIMS tubes that are able to use them for 'on demand' sparge and strike water heaters.

Personally, I just heat my sparge water during the mash. My strike water takes around 15min to heat. I'm ok with that

Larger places have custom equipment. I know of several small breweries that really do use 3-4 tankless water heaters in series. The one I know best has four heaters. The first three just run full blast (or just two for strike water), the last one regulates the flame to control the output temperature.

Scottland: do they adjust the temperature by controlling the flow to the element?

David: that's awesome! Do you know if they use commercial units, or home units?

The PID will fire the element on and off to control the element. As long as the PID is tuned with a consistent flow rate, it tends to work.

Here's one: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-6kw-rims-tube-217754/

I know there's a few other threads on it, but you'll have to search. 'on demand sparge' are good keyboards.

My club uses a tankless water heater for our 1bbl system. It was around 1500 bucks though. We can adjust the water temp from 120-185° by touching a digital screen. The sensors and digital screen are homeade.

I know how to use it but I definitely couldn't build it myself. The guy that built/designed it is an electrical engineer. It sure is handy though.

Now we're getting somewhere! Both of those are great ideas. Do you have possibly anymore information on the tankless water heater Diaperload?

OK, blood. I'll try to describe it more. Keep in mind that I didn't design or build this thing. I've had it explained to me a few times though.

I don't think the tankless water heater was 1500 bucks. 1500 is the total cost with the circuitry stuff also.

First, the tankless water heater was made for natural gas so they switched over to propane use. Not sure how that was done.

The tankless water heater puts out pretty much boiling water on demand. How the temp is adjusted is by how much cold water is added to it. So there is a temp sensor somewhere in the line.

For our system, the increments go by 5 for a bit, then 20. So you can have 120, 125, 130, 135, 140, then 160, 180. It might go to 200 but we have never gone that far. We use the 120° for our pressure washer and stuff like soaking bottles. We preheat our mash tun with 150° (we can't use super hot water or it will deform the plastic cooler mash tun). Now to get lets say we need 175 water for mashing we have to do a little combining. Say 4 gallons @ 180 then a gallon @ 160...or something like that. It's not that big of deal since you just open a control panel and push the arrow button up or down to change temp.

The water does have to be completely off before you can make the change though.

Overall, it takes less than 5 min to get strike water. That's including hooking up the water hose, propane hose, turning on valves, control panel, filling up water.

I can't give any details on the control panel though. The guy at the club that built it is an electrical engineer at Intel.

You will notice all the "guru" type folk have said this is a waste and will not work. I am still using this system and am here in defiance saying it does work...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/ebay-rims-tested-works-super-budget-build-316093/

YMMV but I have reduced my heating times AND propane use by 50%...

Awesome, thanks a lot Diaperload! That is the proof of concept that I needed to see that something like a tankless water heater was plausible. Does anyone know of other solutions?

I have been stalking your RIM's thread Zamial and I love it! Keep givning them hell! I dream of a world where we don't need HLT's and I hope that with some work or money I can come up with something that will take the place of that. You're thread is great inspiration!

bloodonblood said:

I have been stalking your RIM's thread Zamial and I love it! Keep givning them hell! I dream of a world where we don't need HLT's and I hope that with some work or money I can come up with something that will take the place of that. You're thread is great inspiration!

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I want to give no one hell; I want to spread enlightenment...lol. The saddest part of my brew day is the number of MLT's I have...Exactly what happens when all your MLTs are all full of grains + water at temp? Yeah...lots of beer...lol. Cheap RIMS + a pump is so full of win I can't say more about it. I honestly wish I could drink beer faster than I can make it...

If I didn't have kids, I might investigate this sort of thing. I am an electrical engineer, so I could definitely pull it off, but right now I'm just happy to have time to make the beer. A few manual processes don't bother me. Heck, I haven't even taken on the process of running a hose from my water heater to my brew equipment (both in the garage) to at least start with hot water in the system!

That said, to the OP, there are certainly ways to do it. And there are certainly cheaper ways to do it. One of the guys in my brew club actually has an aquarium heater that he uses. Set your mash and/or sparge water out overnight the night before you brew. When you wake up, go turn on the aquarium heater. 2 hrs later or so, go out and the water is almost hot enough to use for brewing, and you can add just a bit of heat to get it the rest of the way.

bloodonblood said:

I’ve read that breweries sometimes use something that I guess is like a tankless water heater to instantly heat strike and sparge water. I even know that a couple of the Psycho Brew systems are designed with the use of their kind of water heaters in mind. My question is, are they using a piece of equipment that specifically designed to heat water to a selected temperature and if so can anyone show an example of this kind of equipment? Or are they just using a number of tankless water heaters run in sequence, and if so, how do they regulate the temperature to an exact enough number to strike with?

Thanks in advance for helping me out guys.

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We are a small micro but we use a "combi-tank" system which places the liquor tank below the mash tun, is digitally controlled and gas fired.

I attached a couple images to give you a look at it, but not sure this is what you were asking but may help in your design in some way.

This thread got me thinking, we just completed a bathroom renovation. One of the nicest things added thermostatic shower valve. Wonder if one of these could be tweaked to mash and sparge temperatures? Might be too pricey.

The trouble with any of the on demand systems is that I draw all my brew water the night before and treat it with campden for chloramine and chlorine issues.

Thanks everyone for all of the info and ideas! I will be looking in to all of them. I had an idea today that i think could be worth giving a shot but we may be getting closer to the DIY section at this point but ill throw it out here anyways. What if an existing house water heater was used to get the water somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 and then a modified tankless water heater that is designed to heat a singe appliance at once with the safety temperature limiter removed is used to get the temperature to the desired strike and sparge levels? This is the kind of unit i i have had in mind.
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-25e...1&keyword=Tankless+water+heater&storeId=10051

AnOldUR said:

This thread got me thinking, we just completed a bathroom renovation. One of the nicest things added thermostatic shower valve. Wonder if one of these could be tweaked to mash and sparge temperatures? Might be too pricey.

The trouble with any of the on demand systems is that I draw all my brew water the night before and treat it with campden for chloramine and chlorine issues.

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As far as I'm concerned you have identified the main problem correctly, water treatment. I am presently using a 2 vessel system with a 5500watt RIMS to provide hot sparge water at about 1 qt/min. I can't do any water treatment to the sparge water, just the initial strike water. I'm thinking of changing to a more traditional 3 vessel system just for that reason. At least I only have to make 1 plumbing change and add the 3rd tank.

ChuckO said:

As far as I'm concerned you have identified the main problem correctly, water treatment. I am presently using a 2 vessel system with a 5500watt RIMS to provide hot sparge water at about 1 qt/min. I can't do any water treatment to the sparge water, just the initial strike water. I'm thinking of changing to a more traditional 3 vessel system just for that reason. At least I only have to make 1 plumbing change and add the 3rd tank.

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Why not just run treatment before the heating unit?

Nightshade said:

Why not just run treatment before the heating unit?

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Because the water is supplied directly from the house piping. That was the purpose of an on demand water heating system, no storage tank required.

ChuckO said:

Because the water is supplied directly from the house piping. That was the purpose of an on demand water heating system, no storage tank required.

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I get what you're saying but it seems to me that if you put an inline filtration before it dumps to the on demand heater it would work fine. The other option is simply a "whole house" purification system.

As for being tankless, the hot water is still tankless, the purification system on the other hand would have tanks most likely (depending on type) or in the case of a simple inline filter you would still be fully tankless.

By water treatment I mean adding minerals to adjust the water chemistry. Right now I use RO water with mineral additions for the initial strike, but must use the house water supply for sparge. My RO system has a tank, but it can't supply the 7 gallons or so of sparge water needed for a 10 gallon batch in a timely fashion.

I will admit that i havent taken the plunge in to all the complexitys of water treatment yet but i hope to before long, does it have to be done before the water is heated? I would say that for your system i would just throw in a beverage cooler as a "treatment tank". It should only loose a degree or two and it would keep you from doing anything to complicated.

The main point of going to a "tankless" system is to eliminate the HLT and heat the sparge as you use it, from house water pressure, no pump involved. This precludes the addition of water treatment chemicals to the sparge water. That's why I am thinking of reverting to a more traditional 3 vessel system.

At present, I adjust the water chemistry of the strike water for the mash, but end up using straight tap water for the sparge.

ChuckO said:

That's why I am thinking of reverting to a more traditional 3 vessel system.

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Here's my HLT setup. I put a shelf about chest high on the wall in my brew area, so no pump required. Picked up the 15 gallon ss pot on a close-out sale for $50. The thermostatically controlled 3000W immersion heater came from eBay. Waited and looked for a long time, but lucked out and got it for the minimum bid of $1 (plus about $10 shipping.) For stirring, on top you can barely see the 135 rpm gearmotor that came from Surplus Center for $6. Even with fittings and site glass from Bobby_M, I'm at well under $100. Well worth it to be able to dial in the temperature for strike, infusion or sparge water and have it ready whenever I need it.

AnOldUR said:

For stirring, on top you can barely see the 135 rpm gearmotor that came from Surplus Center for $6.

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AnOldUR, what do you attach to the motor to stir with?

davidr7283 said:

AnOldUR, what do you attach to the motor to stir with?

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Just a homemade paddle made from stuff I had laying around the shop. The notch in the lid is because I got lucky and this lid also fits on my boil pot. The notch is clearance for my IC. The constant stirring almost cut my chill time in half.

ChuckO said:

The main point of going to a "tankless" system is to eliminate the HLT and heat the sparge as you use it, from house water pressure, no pump involved. This precludes the addition of water treatment chemicals to the sparge water. That's why I am thinking of reverting to a more traditional 3 vessel system.

At present, I adjust the water chemistry of the strike water for the mash, but end up using straight tap water for the sparge.

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I see what your saying and I understand why you might want to go back to three vessels. It is definitely one of the drawbacks to going tankless but i would bet that with some ingenuity a way could be found to treat the water before heating if that is infant what is required.

AnOldUR said:

Here's my HLT setup. I put a shelf about chest high on the wall in my brew area, so no pump required. Picked up the 15 gallon ss pot on a close-out sale for $50. The thermostatically controlled 3000W immersion heater came from eBay. Waited and looked for a long time, but lucked out and got it for the minimum bid of $1 (plus about $10 shipping.) For stirring, on top you can barely see the 135 rpm gearmotor that came from Surplus Center for $6. Even with fittings and site glass from Bobby_M, I'm at well under $100. Well worth it to be able to dial in the temperature for strike, infusion or sparge water and have it ready whenever I need it.

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That is a great HLT AnOldUR! I've never seen an immersion heater with a thermostatic controller. Do you have a build thread for it? How precisely can you control the temperature with that unit?

bloodonblood said:

Do you have a build thread for it? How precisely can you control the temperature with that unit?

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The build was simply a matter of drilling a hole for the pipe fitting and putting a nut and o-ring on. There's a temperature probe between the loop for the heating element. That black knob on the housing sets the temperature. It easily holds the temperature within a couple of degrees. The manufacture is Ogden.

Now that is a good piece of equipment AnOldUS! Ill look in to that also. Does it run on 240?