HERMS Valving/Piping Question

I'm trying to lay out a simple HERMS setup and I want to make sure I've not missed something silly:



Let's call the three-port valve 1, the two port valve 2. Valve 1 has two states, "Recirc" and "Fill". Valve 2 has two states, on and off.


Condition "A" - Valve 1 "Fill" and valve 2 "Off" will fill the MLT from the HLT:


Condition "B" - Valve 1 "Recirc" and valve 2 "Off" will be my recirc/heating mode


Condition "C" - Valve 1 "Fill" and valve 2 "On" will sparge from the HLT into the BK

Does that make sense? Am I missing something?

Assuming your intent is to hardline everything and use valves to direct flow - under "sparge", how do you divert wort from the MLT to the BK? It seems that you're missing another three way valve.

PLOVE said:

Assuming your intent is to hardline everything and use valves to direct flow - under "sparge", how do you divert wort from the MLT to the BK? It seems that you're missing another three way valve.

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I've accounted for it I think - if I'm correct with the design under sparge valve 2 being open and valve 1 in the other position should redirect the gravity-fed wort to the kettle.

So, you'll essentially have wort dead-ending in front of your "on/off" valve then? Probably fine.


I'm probably over-thinking this, but depending upon how much flow control you have with your three-port valve, you might need to add another control valve after your pump. I have a 1/2" system (full-port), and usually have to crank the pump way back to keep it primed and pumping. You only want to restrict the output side of the pump - hence an extra valve. Also, you'll probably find that with a HERMS you will want to recirculate/mix the hot water in your HLT. My HERMS system is much more stable when I mix in the HLT during long mashes, mashout, and sparge.

Good luck!
Pete

PLOVE said:

So, you'll essentially have wort dead-ending in front of your "on/off" valve then? Probably fine.

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True, and this is a logical/functional design so "as built" can employ methods to reduce any potential issues there. It could be as simple as a valve instead of the T and straight valve. I know a valve exists that will leave AB open and open/close C as desired - just not sure what they are called. Bypass valve maybe?

PLOVE said:

I'm probably over-thinking this, but depending upon how much flow control you have with your three-port valve, you might need to add another control valve after your pump.

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I assume that as well. I was just trying to capture the major control points and any "tuning" will sit on top of this framework.

Thanks for the sanity check.

I hardlined my system (probably similar to you) because I wanted to use valves rather than moving hot hoses around. I also didn't want hoses collapsing during a stuck sparge or other clogging situation.

I heat my strike water in the boilpot, in parallel with heating the water in the pot for the heat exchanger. This saves time vs heating everything from a single tank.

I also added plumbing to fill the mash tun from the bottom, which eliminates dough balls and spreads the strike water more evenly. That means the bottom port has to do both input and output.

It will probably save time to fill the mash tun directly from the "out" port on the pump, rather than waiting for the strike water to flow thru the entire 50' of 3/8" copper coil (or whatever it is that you're using inside the heat exchanger.

$.02. Good luck.

PLOVE said:

you'll probably find that with a HERMS you will want to recirculate/mix the hot water in your HLT. My HERMS system is much more stable when I mix in the HLT during long mashes, mashout, and sparge.

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I missed this part.

I do plan to have mechanical agitation in the HLT during the process. Mechanical agitation seemed a little easier than trying to plumb something.

SagamoreAle said:

I hardlined my system (probably similar to you) because I wanted to use valves rather than moving hot hoses around. I also didn't want hoses collapsing during a stuck sparge or other clogging situation.

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Simplicity is the goal. Before my sabbatical I was an AG brewer, working with 1/2 BBL batches. This was done "by hand" with a water cooler mash tun and was perfectly acceptable. To the extent that I can simplify my brewing I would like to do so. If it requires a PhD to operate then I'd just as soon go back to doing it by hand.

SagamoreAle said:

I heat my strike water in the boilpot, in parallel with heating the water in the pot for the heat exchanger. This saves time vs heating everything from a single tank.

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I'd considered that - especially since the boil pot is at least at first going to be gas fired. However (again going with the simplicity model here) I didn't want to add more valves and/or another pump. In the previous iteration of me as a brewer I ran gravity feed out of the brew pot through a counterflow and an aeration wand and into the fermenter.

SagamoreAle said:

I also added plumbing to fill the mash tun from the bottom, which eliminates dough balls and spreads the strike water more evenly. That means the bottom port has to do both input and output.

Click to expand...

That's interesting. Does this consistently eliminate the need to manually mix in the strike water? That would be a fair trade for a little more complexity.

SagamoreAle said:

It will probably save time to fill the mash tun directly from the "out" port on the pump, rather than waiting for the strike water to flow thru the entire 50' of 3/8" copper coil (or whatever it is that you're using inside the heat exchanger.

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True, but again simplicity struck here. The idea was to use the same circuit for strike and sparge, with sparge clearing the line of the wort. There's about 40 oz of wort in a 25' long, 1/2" ID line - nothing I'd wanted to waste.

Wrt filling from from the bottom: I add the strike water then recirculate in the normal HERMS manner until the temp. on the thermometer in the mash tun is constant. My mash paddle is basically retired. I use it on the few occasions when I need to push the grain down into the strike water. But the pushing down part is easier than the flood-from-the-top process.

SagamoreAle said:

Wrt filling from from the bottom: I add the strike water then recirculate in the normal HERMS manner until the temp. on the thermometer in the mash tun is constant. My mash paddle is basically retired. I use it on the few occasions when I need to push the grain down into the strike water. But the pushing down part is easier than the flood-from-the-top process.

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I'll have to try this. I usually fill from the top and just mash-in with a paddle. I have a Jaybird false bottom in a keggle. I don't see any reason why I couldn't try pumping strike water back-up through the false bottom. SagamoreAle - Do you find that your grain bed floats "better" using this method?

Once the grain is mixed, it behaves the same as a mash that was filled from the top. The only difference is that it's an easier way to do the work.

I've had a couple of other thoughts and thought I'd pass them on. Hopefully somebody is still monitoring this thread.

In my heat exchanger, I coiled the copper tubing vertically to avoid sagging thereby enabling heat exchange with the bulk of the water content in the heat exchanger. Not sure how much more efficient this is.

I plumbed the system so I can batch sparge.

Not sure what you mean by vertical .... You mean the loops go up and down?

This basically my set-up. I have a tee exiting my MT and 2 ball valves. I recirc and at mashout, I keep recirculating and crack my kettle tube so it is sort of like flysparging. Trickles into my BK while I'm sparging. The only difference is I do it over about 20-30 minutes vs and hour and a half for 15 gallon batches. I take a little hit on eff to save some time. I recirculate my HLT with another pump from bottom to top and my HEX flows from top down, not sure if that makes a difference. Really like my HERMS. Would only change one thing, I would have used only sanitary wort side fittings. No threaded fittings, but the rest is just fine.

LBussy said:

Not sure what you mean by vertical .... You mean the loops go up and down?

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They go up and down instead of a spiral.

SagamoreAle said:

They go up and down instead of a spiral.

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What do you use for agitation? I was planning on something dropping down in between the coils form the lid ... either bubbles or a mechanical stir device.

LBussy said:

What do you use for agitation? I was planning on something dropping down in between the coils form the lid ... either bubbles or a mechanical stir device.

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I honestly don't think you need an agitator no matter what the orientation of the coils. I haven't used one and I hit and maintain temperature without a problem.

I could rationalize it like this:

There should be enough natural circulation within the tank to keep the coils exposed to an "average" temperature in the tank. Water is losing heat along the sides and top of the tank, causing a downward current along the sides, pushing water up through the middle of the tank. If you are heating the tank, then you are reinforcing this current.

I could further rationalize the vertical coiling like this:

If there is temperature stratification within the tank, a sagging horizontal coil will just do heat exchange with the bottom of the pot. Then you use the agitator to circulate the hot water and therefore you are doing heat exchange with an average water temperature.

If the coils are vertical then you are doing heat exchange over the entire temperature range within the pot, eliminating the need for the agitator. They are also more aligned with the natural current flow within the tank.

Horizontal vs vertical is most likely a nuance. Vertical is most likely something like .5% more efficient than horizontal based upon my rationalization. Agitator vs no agitator is probably the same type of nuance.

Now that I'm done rambling, the point I'd go back to is to skip the agitator. You say you want to keep things simple and this is a simplification. I'd add it in later if you find you need it.

SagamoreAle said:

I honestly don't think you need an agitator no matter what the orientation of the coils. I haven't used one and I hit and maintain temperature without a problem.

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Interesting. I guess every system is just a little different. My HLT is electric with a HERMS copper coil (horizontal). I find that I get a much more stable mash temp if I continually recirculate/mix the water in the HLT. At first I thought the +/- 2-3 deg I was observing might just be due to a bad thermocouple (measured at MT inlet), but after adding HLT recirculation this has pretty much gone away. Another thing I've noticed is that with really huge mashes (target FG 1.10+), enough heat is generated during starch conversion to increase the HLT temp. Recirc seems to help stabilize this, and colder days help as well. Most systems are designed to heat, but not cool.

Not doubting your system, I think every system is just a little different.

It's not [just] against stratification in the vessel, it's to improve heat transfer with the HEX, just like if you're cooling with an immersion chiller it goes much faster if you move it around.

I have a HERMS set-up question. I want to run a two vessel HERMS system ala BRUTUS 20. But, instead of having a heating coil in the HLT/BK, and controlling the temp of the mash in the MLT by matching the temp in the HLT/BK (the usual HERMS setup), I want to maintain 170F in the HLT/BK at all times, and provide temperature control of the mash by circulating the mash on one side of a Chillzilla, and the 170F liquor on the other side of the Chillzilla. Temperature of the mash would be controlled by connecting the HLT/BK circulating pump to a PID, with the thermocouple in the output stream of the MLT. The HLT/BK pump would then turn on/off to maintain mash temperature set point. Seems workable, except for the stress on the HLT/BK pump cycling on/off. Thoughts on this setup? The advantage I see is that temp set point in the MLT could be reached very quickly because of the delta T in the Chillzilla.

SagamoreAle said:

They go up and down instead of a spiral.

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I once pondered the same setup. Any issues getting all that sweet goodness out of the coil?
Seems like the wort would want to pool in the low part of the loops instead of riding gravity to the bottom of a spiral.

Nice simple design but I agree you will need a valve at the output of the pump. Preferably a 3-way so you can purge air out of the lines as well as control the flow. Unless you are planning on a self priming pump you will need to purge the air. Self priming, food grade, high temp pumps are big $$$.

In regards to the HERMS coil I would strongly suggest an agitator; I used to pump from the bottom of the HLT back to the top but repurposed the second pump and made an agitator. The agitator is WAY more efficient than pump recirculation or natural convection.

Here is my proposed BRUTUS 20 HERMS setup.....is it easy to set up a PID to control flow rate?

View attachment BRUTUS 20 HERMS SET-UP.pdf

MrNatural said:

I once pondered the same setup. Any issues getting all that sweet goodness out of the coil?
Seems like the wort would want to pool in the low part of the loops instead of riding gravity to the bottom of a spiral.

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The pump takes care of that. As long as the wort is flowing, it isn't pooling anywhere. I doubt there is any pooling when the pump is turned off, because at that point most or all of the air will have been pumped out of the coil.

SagamoreAle said:

The pump takes care of that. As long as the wort is flowing, it isn't pooling anywhere. I doubt there is any pooling when the pump is turned off, because at that point most or all of the air will have been pumped out of the coil.

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I understand the pump will be circulating the wort, but how are you pumping the air through the coil?
Don't have my March pumps set up yet, but have read that you will lose prime once you start sucking air. Is this incorrect?
Planning to mount my coil next week and really curious about different approaches.

MrNatural said:

I understand the pump will be circulating the wort, but how are you pumping the air through the coil?
Don't have my March pumps set up yet, but have read that you will lose prime once you start sucking air. Is this incorrect?
Planning to mount my coil next week and really curious about different approaches.

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I reread your previous post and it looks like I misunderstood what you were asking. Basically it was: how do you get the wort out of the coils and into the fermenter? My answer is that I don't chase it, either in the HERMS or the counterflow chiller. The loss figures into my brewhouse efficiency.

W/r/t the pump: they don't self-prime (at least mine doesn't). Mine is located below the lowest liquid level. You need some form of vent on the outlet side to allow the wort to fill the inlet side of the pump. If you are just moving hoses around you are all set. If you have things hardlined, then you need a bleeder somewhere.

SagamoreAle said:

Basically it was: how do you get the wort out of the coils and into the fermenter? My answer is that I don't chase it, either in the HERMS or the counterflow chiller. The loss figures into my brewhouse efficiency.

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+1. These pumps aren't air tight and won't push air. However, if you're worried about losing your worty goodness, just blow into the coil. Easy to do if you're not hard-lined