120V, E-HERMS, 2 Vessel Broth of Vigor Build!

A huge bow is in order for all of the great folks on this board who have shared their ideas and continue to participate in discussion and development of really great homebrewing tools and solutions.

I have a tendency to go off the deep end on new hobbies, high as a kite on the thrill of something new and exciting, only to get burnt out and move on. To date, cooking and homebrew have managed to overcome this unfortunate, yet well intended, hurdle. From the days of watching Michiba create his famed "Broth of Vigor" on grainy mid 90's Iron Chef, I find the title to be equally fitting to a steaming pot of glorious wort. It was meant to be.

After reading threads on this board and finding Kal's www.theelectricbrewery.com it took a while to get over the "who needs a guest bedroom when I could be using it every day to make massive batches of beer"-phase (that happens to everyone right?). I decided to go small. In my case, go sane. To point out a few great resources that led me here, JKarps famed counter-top brutus, Resslerk's incredibly difficult to find using the search function cart of greatness, and more recently Jrb03's 110V e-biab thread full of fantastic information. After lots of lots of flip-flopping between the brutus, HERMS, and BIAB, I came to settle on the HERMS setup for a couple reasons:

-Potential step mashes
-No need to build a CFC, permanent "immersion" chiller
-Tame kettle size by having a separate mash tun.
-Counters that are not that well designed for a cooler sitting on top of a bucket.. (I know that ones lame but what can I say?)

I of course had to remain true to myself and avoid that voice in my head that said "make it affordable, you wont tell the difference when its all done!". So, the scratch to that itch: lots and lots of stainless compression fittings. My disclaimer to this build is that many parts could be done for less money, but I find compression fittings to be the best substitute for Legos. Plus you can get hell'a deals on Ebay! (So, still sort of cheap? Right voice? Right..) :rockin:

So to actually get somewhere with this post. Using a six gallon pot, five gallon round cooler (recycled from 2.5gal stove top all grain), single pump, and single 120V 2000W element, I hope to be making 3-4 gallon batches with great mash temperature control (Auber PID) using my kitchen GFCI outlets and vent hood.

Progress so far:

Using the cheapy Harbor Freight step bits I've popped all the holes in the kettle. It worked amazingly well, making perfect holes with no headaches. I just lubed it up with some cooking oil and away it went. Drilling the pilot holes with a wood bit was the hardest part, go figure. A total 6 holes went in.



I've acquired all of my fittings needed (the word "needed" could be argued) after hounding Ebay for months. To list what is in the photo from left-ish to right-ish:
120V 2000W element - Ace Hardware
1" 304 locknut - McMaster
1/2" 304 stainless dip-tube for main outlet.
1/2" M-NPT to 1/2" compression bulkhead fitting - Ebay
1/2" 304 ball valve - Ebay
1/2" 304 M-NPT to 1/2" barb - BargainFittings
3/8" poly tube for sight gauge - McMaster
3/8" compression tee - Ebay
1/8" compression to 3/8" tube adapter, bored through - Ebay
1/2" copper tubing for HERMS coil with 1/2" compression to tube adapters. -Ebay
1/2" hose barb to 1/4" M-NPT fitting - Ebay
1/4" M-NPT to 3/8" compression bulkhead fitting - Ebay
1/4" M-NPT to 3/8" compression elbow - Ebay
Above mentioned 1/2" bulkhead fitting with 1/2" hose to 1/2" tube adapter - Ebay
Valve assembly, including 1/2" pipe to tube bulkhead fitting, 1/2" M-NPT to compression adapters, 1/2" compression tee, and 1/2" hose adapters.

Nearly all fittings were about $8. Ebay is amaaazing.



The exact purpose of some of these items came in a "ooooh yeah that'd be great!" moment, so I got them only to realize "mmm, maybe not so great". But I have them now, so they must be used!

The general idea: Distilled and treated water is heated in the kettle and drained to the MT. The kettle is refilled to cover the coil, after which the element is set to the mash in temp and the pump begins to circulate (up through the valve assembly (bottom right of photo), going through the horizontal valve into the coil), bringing the cooler to equilibrium. The grain is then added, stirred, and constantly circulated at the set temp. After mashing the kettle is drained of water, (this is the really unnecessary part, get ready) the horizontal valve is closed slightly and the vertical valve is opened slightly, allowing wort to slowly fill the kettle (AWESOME NO HOSE CHANGE.... it seemed valuable late at night). After the kettle begins to fill, the coil can be shut off, allowing all liquid to enter the kettle. Boil as usual. After boil, the coil can be hooked up to tap water for cooling, and the pump can be attached to the kettle outlet and inlet for a whirlpool (I hope), increasing cooling efficiency and separating some coagulated gunk. Cooled wort is then drained right into the fermenter and off to the yeast races.

Maybe needlessly complicated. But it should look cool and save a little bit of stress I hope. Like I said, many features could be done with traditional bulkhead fittings or erased completely. I am thinking of adding a stir plate under the kettle to mix the water while mashing and cooling, thoughts? Has anyone achieved a worthwhile vortex from a stirbar in the kettle to separate solids after cooling?

If anyone actually read that whole mess, I am super stoked to start putting this together. I would love to hear any feedback and comments on this!

Thanks guys!

Quick update. I slapped all the hardware on for a leak test and photo opportunity. I'm really happy with how its looking. The recirculation valve assembly is comically large, but I still like it! The 1/8" compression fitting for the RTD works like a dream with a nylon ferrule. Next step will be to take it all apart, give it a thorough cleaning, and apply 1/2" thick adhesive backed polyurethane foam insulation (http://www.mcmaster.com/#9385K61)

Hey man, very nice work so far! Maybe you could add an elbow up at the top so you don't have too giant of a house sticking up like alfalfa?

I think you should go the stirplate under the kettle, yeah - it'd be easier than mucking around with your RTD placements. I have my RTD in the sightglass as well, and it definitely stratifies quite a bit. When I'm heating up my strike water the temperature can be off by 10F sometimes before I stir. Once I'm recirculating during the mash it stays accurate, but since you're doing a HERMS you won't have that whirlpool flow effect.

Have you started working on your mashtun? Unsure how you're planning on doing it but just keep in mind that the dual vessel systems really need minimized deadloss. Not a big deal, but try to plan out a good hose design and a low drain, bottom would be optimal, etc.

Cheers and keepup the thread.

Thanks Iijakii. I played around a lot with the weird recirculation assembly, but nothing seemed all that romantic. In the end it came to practicality for the parts I had already purchased. The silicone arch has kind of grown on me though, it adds character!

Good to know about the temperature issues. I'll have to start thinking about a stir bar gizmo. Any ideas if the typical PC fan magnet getup will adequately mix this kind of volume? Can obviously get a large stir bar, and I imagine that since the viscosity of water during the mash and wort post boil is not high, there should not be an issue of throwing the bar. Its more an issue of the bar's mass being enough to create enough resistance to get the entire volume spinning. Logically that makes sense in my head, but I wont be surprised if that is wrong. Anyone have experience with this?

The mash tun isn't really getting a lot of special treatment. It is definitely the cheap part of this project. It's just a 5 gal round drink cooler with a colander in the bottom and plastic pick up tube. In its previous application it only had about 1 cup of loss in the bottom after a gravity drain. Its my feeling that the majority of my loss will occur in the pump itself and tubing post-pump (so a few feet of 1/2" silicone running up to the kettle). Surprisingly this hasn't plagued my mind yet. I'm not terribly interested in sparging, but I have thought of using some of the hot water from the kettle to sort of pretend to begin a little fly sparge, with the simple intent of making my recovery rate of high gravity wort greater, and the loss in the tun and tubing being lower gravity "rinse wort" that never really makes it to the kettle. I figure I'll obsess over it when the day comes

Late progress report, lots of photos.

I cut the insulation for the kettle jacket, including a couple of disks for the lid and bottom.


I had a bit of a mental speed bump trying to figure out exactly where to cut holes in the insulation to match up with the holes in the kettle. With the wax paper on the adhesive backing, wrapping the insulation around the kettle and marking the holes directly was not going to work, so I came up with a rough system for applying a grid system onto the kettle's surface. I marked three strings in 1 inch increments, all vertically synced. Then I could count inches from starting point (3.5" from center of element hole) around the circumference of the kettle, use a right angle ruler to get height on the kettle, and mark those measurements right on the insulation.



I kept any rivets on the kettle exposed, since I'm slightly worried that my 15$ kettle might not be of the highest quality, and rivet joints may leak in the future. With everything marked out, it was simple to cut the pieces out with an exacto-knife.

Continued from previous post.

The method worked (thankfully, one shot or bust situation..) and the holes aligned well, and the insulation's adhesive backing isn't going anywhere anytime soon.



Next all the hardware went back on. Below are a few more detailed photos of the final assembled unit.





I love the look of it, even with the bulky valve appendage hanging off to the side. Aesthetics was pretty high on my list of things to accomplish with this build, and its right up my alley so I couldn't be happier.

Next up will be adding volume marks to the sight glass. I've decided to officially go metric. I'm sick of thinking about cups quarts pints gallons fathoms furlongs chains and the like.

I also need to start on the control side of things. I started a separate thread regarding the diagram, and would appreciate any additional feedback on the topic. I think I will definitely be switching to the Auber 2362, and am a little confused on that unit's instruction manual for proper wiring and can't find any relevant PJ diagrams to try and learn from. Slow and steady.

Thanks!

Its been too long since this project got attention. I've finally accumulated all of the parts I need for the control panel and decided on a plan. I got a nice little outdoor panel box at a local thrift store brand-spankin new for $5. Due to its small size though, it isn't quite big enough to do the job on its own. I decided to do a modular panel, using the assistance of two single-gang boxes that will house the receptacle for the pump/element and the SSR. Below is a simple diagram (sparsely annotated)



Here is a snap of the major components going in. The silver thing in the top center is a 12V DC supply that will be used for the mash temperature readout (seen in the bottom left) and stir bar motor (using the PWM in the bottom right). Top left is just a tiny 120V LED that will be used to blink with the SSR.



I've completed all of the panel cuts, and it is ready for assembly.



I decided to place the RTD plugs at the bottom of the receptacle box (not shown in diagram). That way every plug will be centrally located. The third small hole is for the stir motor power.



I'm really hoping to have this all put together and ready for a test run within a week or two. I'm hoping to have the maiden batch be ready for New Years!

looks great man..

one comment.
on your herms out (i beleive thats what it is), youve got 2 valves (one for recirc I assume.. I would be slightly concerned with the distance you will be from the pot in terms of the 2nd valve handle.. the further you get away, the more torque you will be applying to that weldless connection.. over time, you may see leaks.. of course, this is just from the pics, it may be solid as a rock.. but just a comment!

cheers!

You're absolutely right, it does take a bit of oomph to switch the valves (even the one closer to the kettle wall), but instead of wiggling the bulkhead connection itself, it kindof flexes the thin kettle wall. I guess that's the price I pay for not paying the price of a thick-wall pot.. With the wide washers on each side however, I'm not worried about the integrity of the seal. But all the valves do require a little respect and thought when turning them.

you may want to brace the upper valve using the handle somehow.. a long threaded rod and some ingenuity should get you there

Spent most of the day assembling the control panel. I haven't plugged it in yet, I'll wait for tomorrow for some more thorough testing when I have some fresh eyes.









And the guts:







Testing report to come soon!

After poking nearly every piece of conductive material for continuity testing, I plugged it in and it all seems to be operating just fine. I still have to finish getting my element wired up before I can do a boil test, but the outlets work, RTDs are in agreement, PWM seems in order. The one thing that doesn't work is the indicator light in the main power switch (supposed to light up red like all the others). And go figure, it is the one switch that is not easily replaceable (the conduit body is gobbed full of JB weld, which I now believe is the most annoying substance on Earth), so I guess I will just have to live with that.

I still need to assemble the kettle stir plate, but that should be all of five minutes. Once that and the element are finished, it should be time for a true test. So excited!

Here is a photo with everything on.

So I wired up the element, just used some 1" pvc fittings to cover the wires and sealed it up with some silicone. I ran the ground around and pinched it in between a couple of lock nuts on one of the bulkhead fittings with a spade terminal fitting. Seems quite solid and all parts of the kettle are grounded now.



Popped a couple holes in the cooler lid for the RTD and top in-feed from the HERMS. The RTD hole has a small rubber grommet that keeps it pretty snug. Also chopped out a little section of the rack for easy access to the cooler.



The stir bar has been melting my brain. Initially I was planning on using a 12V pc fan and had gotten it all rigged up. The 3/4"x1/2" rare earth magnets had so much draw however that I had to get them pretty far away from the fan motor for it to operate. I used some old speaker mount to get some height away from the motor, and a mini cd to glue the magnets to. After getting it all centered and balanced it did a really great job of attracting and spinning the bar, and the PWM controller gave nice speed control.





Unfortunately, once water was in the kettle, the motor did not have nearly enough oomph to compete with the drag, and it would just spin very slowly at full speed. So it was back to the think tank. I had another little fan lying around that much to my surprise has quite a beefy little motor. At full power it feels like its going to fly off and has plenty of gusto to put up with drag. I transferred the magnets to it and mounted it using some left over tiling trim.




With the kettle full of water, this new motor has no problem getting the bar to spin quite quickly. At about 50% on the PWM controller, a nice little vortex starts to form. However, trying to up the speed any seems to be causing the motor to spin faster than the bar can, allowing the magnets beneath to skip ahead of the bar at which point the polarities now clash, and the motor slows way down and has trouble catching up. I am wondering if maybe these magnets are too strong? Would weaker magnets allow this skipped rotation to pass by and catch the bar again on the return without bogging the motor down when the matching polarities meet? Also, if the magnets are placed very close to the kettle bottom (< 1cm from the insulation) the attraction seems to be too strong, and the motor cannot get started. This little hiccup is driving me bananas. Has anyone had issues with magnets being too strong in a stir plate model? I suppose it makes sense, just a little disheartening and frustrating.

After playing around with different stir bars and magnet spacing, a 2.5" egg shaped stir bar and a 2" standard stir bar seem to work fine. Neither of them can take much over about 50% from the PWM, which was the same for the 3" bar, but they both get a pretty good vortex going at that power or less. I guess the drag created by the big bar was just too much for the motor to take.

I finally managed to get off my lazy holiday-butt and did some system testing. All of the below tests were done with 19L in the pot (~5 gal) and the stir bar going.

After futzing around with the Auber manual my trusty brewing partner and I set out to do an auto tune. (Cord management to come at a later date )




Never to miss a chance to collect some data, I decided to log the time/temperature of all the tests! The below graph shows the temperature rising during the Auto Tune (set at 70C, but going to 60C because of the 10 degree offset in the PID auto tune settings). You can see the slope between the 10 and 15 minute points is not as high. At ~13 minutes I learned that our refrigerator is on the same breaker that I was planning to brew on! When the compressor flipped on it tripped the breaker. A quick relocation of outlets (luckily there are two in the kitchen) and we were back in action. The PID reached 60C at just about 27 minutes, gaining only 0.2 degrees above SV. It took about 5 minutes to cool to 58.8, at which point the element heated once again. The Auto Tune process finished at about 44 minutes and then proceeded to the actual set point of 70C. It overshot by about a 1.5 degrees; might need a little playing with. No temperature gradients were noted with a secondary RTD.




Next up was the boil test. I set the PID to 100% in manual mode. At just under 20 minutes the kettle reached a boil. At about 4,700 ft elevation I get a slight break on boiling temperature. I did a little bit of playing around with the output percentage once at a boil. It seemed to maintain the boil quite well at 90% power, but was slightly stronger at 100%. No stir bar was used during the boil, but it remained in the pot for later use.




Satisfied with the boil, we moved on to cooling. With the HERMS coil attached to the faucet, cooling begins at 10 minutes in the below figure. We reached the target temperature of 20C in just under 19 minutes without ever having to lift the lid of the kettle, stick any new objects in, or transfer the fluid to any secondary cooling unit. I'm quite happy with the results.





All in all this system is performing exactly as I had wished. The stir bar has done a great job of keeping temperatures equal throughout during heating, and really helps the cooling efficiency. Last thing to do is hook up the mash tun and do a little bit of pump rate/heat transfer testing for the HERMS.

Did some HERMS testing with the mash tun and pump hooked up. The kettle was filled with 15.25L of water, just above the HERMS coil, and the cooler was filled with about 14L of water. The temperature measured 10.8C and 10.6C, respectively. I'm not sure if there really was a difference or the two RTDs are just a little off from one another. Whatever the case, they're close enough for me.

Here are some photos of the unit all hooked up. I would kind of like to mount the panel off to the left,but I don't really have anything on hand to do it well and am having trouble convincing myself to spend more money. I would like to do a little wire management as well. Since the stir motor never moves I can tie its cord up, but I haven't come up with a good temporary management system for the power cords and RTD cords that wont be a hassle when the system is taken apart for cleaning.





For the first test I decided to heat the mash tun water simply by recirculating while the kettle is heated to the set point of the PID. In a normal brewing scenario I imagine I would probably heat the mash water, transfer it to the cooler and let the cooler equilibrate while another batch of water is added to the kettle (maybe preheated on the stove). This test just gave me a good idea of the response time of the HERMS and another chance to see how well the PID landed at its set point. In the photos above you can see the coil valve is open part way, restricting the flow of the recirculation. I'm not sure how much flow can be achieved with grain in the mash tun, but it was my best guess at a near reasonable replication.


The graph above shows the kettle (BK) and mash tun (MT) temperatures going to the set point of 74C. The MT maintained a pretty uniform offset throughout heating, taking about an hour and a half to get to the set point. Just like in the last test, the BK overshot its set point by about two degrees. I was surprised by this since the kettle was suffering heat loss from the coil that it had not seen during the previous auto tune. Once things has settled, I decided to retry the auto tuning of the PID. I bumped it up only slightly to 76.7 and left the recirculation running. It completed the auto tune very quickly, and did a much better job of maintaining set temperature.


You can see in the above graph that the kettle had a tight tolerance, and the mash tun slowly creeped up to the set point over the twenty minute test.

I am still really happy with the performance of the system and can't wait to do a real batch on it. I have to go out of town for a little over a week, but hopefully I can jump on it right when I get back!

Here is one more photo of the system all packed up and ready for slumber in its closet lair.

What kind of insulation did you use on the kettle? I'm looking to insulate my BIAB keggle that I use for both mashing and boiling, and was planning on using the Reflectix insulation from Lowes, but your self-stick black foam insulation looks much nicer.

Whats it called? Where did you get it? How expensive is it? Thanks in advance, and nice looking kettle!

Sorry for the delay.

The insulation is from McMaster. They sell it in bulk sheets by the foot for a really reasonable price. I just ordered 2' so I would have plenty for the kettle wall, bottom, and lid. They cut it quite generously too, I probably got closer to 3' so I probably would have gotten away with only ordering 1', but who knew. When the kettle is at boil the insulation is just warm to the touch.

BrothOfVigor said:

1/2" thick adhesive backed polyurethane foam insulation (http://www.mcmaster.com/#9385K61)

Click to expand...

I'm brewing up an IPA for the system's maiden voyage this weekend, so photos and notes to come!

Question on this build, I'm looking to do something similar. How well does the second batch of water come up to temperature. What I mean is as follows.

1. Heat up mash water, push it to the mash tun and dough in.
2. You now want to use your HERMS coil, so you add new water, normal tap water back to boil kettle enough to cover the HERMS coil, but that water has to come up to temp before it can be used for HERMS.

How long does step 2 take? I'm curious because if it takes 15-20 minutes, that's 1/4 to 1/3 of your mash time.

I'm trying to understand how well a 120V HERMS works.

-Josh

Really well thought out build, congratulations.

Really nice set up. Have you done any brewing on it yet?

Can you describe how you generated the temperature graphs?

Thanks for the build.

CalypsoCowboy said:

Question on this build, I'm looking to do something similar. How well does the second batch of water come up to temperature. What I mean is as follows.

1. Heat up mash water, push it to the mash tun and dough in.
2. You now want to use your HERMS coil, so you add new water, normal tap water back to boil kettle enough to cover the HERMS coil, but that water has to come up to temp before it can be used for HERMS.

How long does step 2 take? I'm curious because if it takes 15-20 minutes, that's 1/4 to 1/3 of your mash time.

I'm trying to understand how well a 120V HERMS works.

-Josh

Click to expand...

Hi Josh,

Pretty close. I had a stock pot of extra water on the stove heating up while the kettle heated. Once the set point was reached I transferred the right volume to the cooler. Using the hot water from the stove I topped off the kettle to cover the coil and turned the PID back on to heat it up (it was pretty close and didn't take long). I know that is kind-of cheating, had I not used the stove, it probably would have added another 20-25 minutes. I would not add the grain before the kettle was ready for the recirculation.

Once the kettle and mash tun were at the same temperature, then I added the grain, fine tuned the flow and let it go. Perfectly stable the whole time.

Here is a photo of the heat exchange water in the kettle spinning away, and a shot of the recirculation fluid in the drop leg to the mash tun.




After 60 minutes, set the PID to 10C above mash-out temp to create a greater temperature gradient. I didn't record how long it took the mash to make the rise, but it wasn't memorably long. Once the mash got near temperature I lowered the kettle to actual mash-out. After 10 minutes, the element was turned off and the kettle was drained. A flip of the valve assembly and the fluid was pumped into the kettle. I used a little bit of the water from the kettle to sparge, mainly for a better fluid recovery than for sugar retrieval.



At 100% power the kettle had no problem boiling the 19.5L yielded (hair over 5 gal). After 60 minutes of boiling I lost exactly 3 liters.



I'm super happy with the performance. I'm not shattering any speed records, but when a large part of the brewday turns into "push button, walk away, and get perfect temperatures", I'm content to let it takes it time.

The cleanup process needs some optimization. My first strategy took way longer than it needed to. Lesson learned, hopefully better next time.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

alien said:

Really well thought out build, congratulations.

Click to expand...

Marquez said:

Really nice set up. Have you done any brewing on it yet?

Can you describe how you generated the temperature graphs?

Thanks for the build.

Click to expand...

Thanks guys I appreciate it!

The graphs were made with pen, paper, and patience. A good opportunity to read. For science!

That is an AWESOME build! I really like how clean, efficient, and professional it all looks.

If you didn&#8217;t have the stove to augment heating, I would suggest that you just fill up your MLT with desired strike water, fill up your HLT as high as possible, then turn the whole system on with PID set to your desired mash temp. It would of course take a bit longer to get up to temp, but you wouldn&#8217;t have to watch it. You could just turn the whole system on 2 hours or so before you were ready to brew, and it would all be waiting for you.

Of course you would have to adjust slightly for grain temperature, but that shouldn&#8217;t take much.

One of the tips I have learned in using a HERMS system is that it is nearly always to your advantage to have a full HLT.

That&#8217;s the process I use on my 15 gallon sanke setup. Sometimes I even turn the system on the night before since it&#8217;s in my garage and a little extra heat doesn&#8217;t hurt especially during the winter! A couple times I even filled both vessels all the way up then drained my MLT to the desired strike volume. That way I had some additional sparge water that was already at a higher temperature than tap water.

kpr121 said:

That is an AWESOME build! I really like how clean, efficient, and professional it all looks.

If you didn&rsquo;t have the stove to augment heating, I would suggest that you just fill up your MLT with desired strike water, fill up your HLT as high as possible, then turn the whole system on with PID set to your desired mash temp. It would of course take a bit longer to get up to temp, but you wouldn&rsquo;t have to watch it. You could just turn the whole system on 2 hours or so before you were ready to brew, and it would all be waiting for you.

Click to expand...

Thanks kpr!

You're right that the "set it and forget it" mode would work just fine. In one of the above figures I heated the MT by recirculating. Based off of that it would only take a little over one hour to get the HLT(BK) and MT to mash temp, not too bad and it sure is easier!

I decided to run a batch with passive heating of the mash tun water. Below is a figure of the temperature trace from start up to drain out. I really liked this method. While the initial temperatures were rising I got my grain ready and had breakfast. I streamlined the clean-up process, so in total the brew day is just under six hours from taking the system out of the closet to putting it back in.