HERMS recirculation

Hello my friends.

I heard that HERMS make clearer beer because of their recirulation. I cannot really understand the logic behind how recirulation during mashing would help, but maybe somebody could explain this to me?

Thanks for your time.

Kind regards,
Marius

It's just like vorlaufing. The recirculation gets the bigger stuff out of the liquid and puts it on top of the grain bed.

Right, so I may as well just recirculate many gallons from my cooler before beginning to fly sparge, and it will have a similar effect?

Thanks,
Marius

kingoslo said:

Right, so I may as well just recirculate many gallons from my cooler before beginning to fly sparge, and it will have a similar effect?

Thanks,
Marius

Click to expand...

Yes, I don't use a herms, but I do recirc for 5-10 minutes (pump) before sparges. I batch sparge.

Vorlauf = recirculate.

I just built my first HERMs rig and used it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. The wort was really clear going into the kettle, but for me the real benefit with HERMs was that I was able to maintain my mash temp within 1 degree and not stress as much on brew day about hitting and maintaining my temps.

For clear wort I think using irish moss and cooling very quickly (CFC) for a good break was a bigger deal than recirculating with my set up.

I built my HERMS system a few years back and really notice the clarity when doing lighter beers. I find that the gradual gain bed compaction with continuous recirculation really helps get the fine bits out of the wort. On the same note continuous recirculating is not the only method/step to get good clarification, it's just one you can employ.

It also helps to keep consistent uniform mash temps. I was mostly doing step mashes, and the HERMS system allows me to do this vary easy and consistently.

The main advantage of recirculating the wort in a RIMS or HERMS system is the ability to maintain a more uniform mash temperature. Acceptable wort clarity can be achieved by manually doing the vorlauf. IMO, wort clarity as it exits the mash tun has little bearing on the clarity of the finished beer. It will soon be muddied up when you add the hops and even more so when you pitch the yeast. My beer is never initially clear at the start of fermentation. Normally, suspended matter will drop out and the beer will clear when fermentation is complete. This is not always the case as it depends much on the recipe and beer style. You can improve/enhance the finished beer clarity by using Irish Moss, gelatin, Polyclar or isinglas. Cold conditioning will also do much for beer clarity. IMO, too much emphasis is placed on the clarity of the wort coming out of the mash tun. The important thing is to try to prevent large particulates from entering the boil kettle. These can be particles of grain husk which can lead to astringency problems when boiled. Fortunately, it's usually very easy to keep them out of the kettle by vorlaufing a gallon or two before running off the wort. Sometimes only a few quarts will do the job.

Ok. I get it.

In photographs from some commercial breweries i have seen rotating rakes in the lauter tun which rotates and moves up and down. Surly this would mess up the grain bed?

How do these work around the problem?

Thanks,

Marius

Typically those rakes, only rake a portion of the mash, leaving a solid filter bed underneath them still. Only promoting even water penetration through most of the bed.

HERMS will not equal clearer beer, as the particles that you are keeping out of the wort, are so large, they settle out easy in a fermentor anyway.

HERMS will produce extremely clear wort to the kettle, but this shouldnt have much, if any affect on your beer. Remember, you are getting clear wort, then you are pouring hops and such in there and muddying it all up anyway, right?

That being said, I love the HERMS and enjoy the repeatability that it gives. Same mash profile, every single time without fail, and without fuss.

When having such mash-stirrers, you basically just make sure that you shut the stirrer off during the last 10 minutes or so of your mashing process. That way the grain bed will settle and wort will clear up.

Mash stirrers in combination with recirculation in the HERMS gives as mentioned the possibility to quick get an even temperature throughout the the whole mash. Especially when you have a system that is bigger than let's say 5 gallons, then you otherwise will have quite some temperature fluctuations in the tun.

Additionally mash stirrers will help you not to get a stuck mash...which means that you can grind the malt finer than just crushing it and get a higher efficiency in your brewery.

There are however some that claim that constant stirring in the mash will lead to higher levels of tannins in the wort...never experienced any off taste in my brews yet regardless how much I have stirred....so my next project will be to build a mash stirrer like the one in this swedish thread (there are pictures to look at, so dont fear the swedish. ) http://www.humle.se/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=2186

Holy mash paddle, DrKarma! pictures, indeed..

Yes, amazing. I am from Norway. The sweden is our nabouring country

Marius