New HERMS first run!!! Pics coming

Fired up my new HERMS today... AWESOME!!! Heated the strike water to 177F while I was heading to the LHBS. When I got home I transferred 3.7 gallons to the MLT and mashed in. Tossed a frozen bottle of water into my HLT to get my HERMS water from 177F to 162F so that I could start the recirc.

I will be posting pics in a short while. Needless to say, it is working perfectly. I have the A419 on my HLT set at 162F with a 1F differential and my mash is recirculating at a comfy range from 157-158F. I have NEVER seen such clear wort in my life! It is a beautiful, crystal copper color (Octoberfest!).

Thanks to all who have built a HERMS and posted information here, thanks to Biermuncher for the inspiration on my OctoberFEAST brew. I will get pics up shortly, I am really just loving that I can sit here and clarify my wort, set up a nice filter bed and maintain my temp within about .5F and not have to lift a finger! (Looks and sounds cool too)

Going into the fermentor now... 4 hours to AG bliss. Pic soon...

nice, cant wait for the pics!!!!

Great brew session, here are the pics.

Grain Bill

Hop Bill

Mashout heating

Stirrer, stirring

Some buffer


Adjusting my HERMS temp... ended up with a 3 degree F differential between the HERMS and the MLT.


Mash temp SPOT ON!


Recirculating

Now that IS clear beer!


Chillin in the fridge at 65F!

A few things about this system.

1. NO LEAKS... really quite phenominal and clean to operate.
2. Heating the strike/HERMS water to strike temp +7 is about where I need to be to preheat my mash tun. (90 mins)
3. Cooling the remaining HERMS water in the HLT (from STRIKE +7 down to MASH +3) is done quite effectively with a 1qt FROZEN water bottle dropped in while running the stirrer.
4. Recirculating is easy, no issue with grain compaction.
5. Cleaning the HERMS coil, associated tubing and pump is a breeze... all of the sparge water is run through the pump and HERMS coil during the sparge to purge all of the sweet wort and clean the pipes.
6. Mashout is done simply by recirculating the mash and turning up the HERMS temp to 173F. After mashout, the HERMS water is used to sparge, and it is already the appropriate temp.
7. Sparge until the HLT runs dry, and the MLT runs dry... brewing software accurately calculates the total water volume required.
8. Boil the clearest wort you have ever seen!

Man that is a sweet setup. I love simplicity, and this is as good as it gets. Dualing coolers! Yeah baby

It is just as advanced as say a Brutus 10, as far as the HERMS capability, but it is insulated so well that there is virtually no temp loss... it runs on ONE pump and ONE electric heating element (aside from the boil). I had dreams of building a Brutus 10, but I cannot get away from the economy (both cost and efficiency) of the coolers. This is all the brew stand that I will ever need, and with the electric temp controls, it will have great repeatability as well.
My new neighbor is a SS fabricator and sayes that he has all the SS square tubing that I will need to place this on a SS stand, and will fabricate it for me. He is really impressed with my design and my brews, so he is happy to help out.. he offered!

I WILL be getting together a parts list for this thing, for all three components, the HLT, MLT and BK. Thanks for the comment, I am really pleased with how it turned out!

This is something I'd definitely consider building. Nice job!!

I estimate that it cost me about $800 to build, which is pretty reasonable with the capabilities and simplicity that are built in. I also did not waste much time finding windhshiled wiper motors and things of that sort... I sourced components that were more or less designed to work in the manner that I had intended. Added cost, but also some added reliability. McMaster Carr had everything that I could not find, or could not imagine existed... HA

During the sparge, the MLT simply connects to the BK via a "jumper" hose to the bottom ball valve on the BK and fills it from the bottom... works really well in fact! Today was my quickest brew yet... 4 hours to complete an AG! Down from 6 hours with my previous set-up.

SWEET!!!! I'm so impressed with the setup. I mean, it seems like it functions really well but I thought that you would have a longer brew day than me with all of the equipment to clean and all. But you get it done in 4 hours! That's right up there with my best. I'm incredibly impressed. You're gonna have sick consistancy.

The cleaning goes like this...

Before I brew, I take a cloth with Starsan and wipe everything down, no biggie, it is all clean when I store it in the corner after a brew day anyway.

After my recirculating mash, I have sticky wort in my lines, pump and HERMS coil... no biggie, no need to clean it... I run my entire sparge water volume (5 gallons or so at 173F) through those same hoses and pump and HERMS coil.

HLT needs no cleaning, it only holds really hot water

Pump, cleaned with sparge water

HERMS lines, cleaned with sparge water

MLT gets dumped and sprayed out during the boil.

It may look like alot of equipment, but there is no more to clean here than with any other system, and most of the plumbing is self cleaning during the sparge.

Again, thank you for the great comments and the praise... I am really proud of what I have built and how it performs. I cannot wait to get my next brew going, and buy a couple more kegs now that I am not dumping money into this thing!

The brew time breaks down like this.

1. Heating the water to 177F for strike (0 mins) this is done while I eat breakfast and get my ingredients.

2. Strike and mash in (10 mins) this includes preheating and cooling my strike water if needed to mash in. Also breaking up any doughballs and mixing the mash.

3. MASH (45-60 mins) this is pretty hands off, set and forget the temp controller and recirculation rate.

4. Sparge (20 mins) again, swap two hoses and let it run until it runs dry, mainly hands off again.

5. Boil (60 mins) other than hop additions, again, hands off.

6. Chilling (30 mins) I have a timer on my spigot on my house, I let it run until it turns off, it is 75F or less at this point and I can transfer to my fermentor.

7. Transfer to the fermentor (10 mins)... gravity feed to my awaiting carboy.

8. Clean up my keggle (10 mins)... a quick wash with some StarSan and a hose and it is ready to get stuffed in the corner, again...

This comes out to about 3:20... but you have to add in some goof off time as well. Since it runs so hands off, I can clean my MLT while I am boiling. The keggle cleaning is the only thing that takes place outside of the normal brewing regime. HLT needs no cleaning, plumbing is all cleaned during the sparge.

The brew is doing well... after 12 hours it was fermenting pretty rapidly... now30 hours in it is fermenting crazy, the krausen is really thickening up. Cant wait to get this into a keg to condition and get another brew into my new system.

Sweet set up, congrats.

Brewing on her again this weekend, it is just so damn fun to see all that stuff working!

I can, and will, but I started just going through the HLT and it is going to take alot of time for me to get that sort of thing together. I have had the flu and when I get time, I will, it is just going to be really time consuming.

Um, that thar is a NICE setup. My setup kinda looks like the Biermuncher widow maker...well not that bad but you get the idea. I look forward to the parts list. I just may have to dedicate a new space...

Isn't it awesome how much easier your brew day is with a dedicated system! My system is direct fire + recirculation, and it's not automated, but it still makes things so much easier.

Great job!

When's the next batch?

Thanks for the compliments guys!

The next batch, a couple weeks perhaps... I am thinking it will be an Irish Red Ale. I just kicked a keg of Apfelwein and only have a Blonde and an Octoberfest in the kegs now.

very impressive! love the simplification

The Pol said:

Thanks for the compliments guys!

The next batch, a couple weeks perhaps... I am thinking it will be an Irish Red Ale. I just kicked a keg of Apfelwein and only have a Blonde and an Octoberfest in the kegs now.

Click to expand...

So if you have a webcam, set it up with Mogulus and do a brewcast so we can see it in action.

I need a webcam, that would be cool!

Do you have a thread showing the heating element set up?

Nope... I dont have threads showing much of the construction. Someday when I get time, I intend to, that time is just hard to come by.

After just two weeks, my neighbors and I are tapping my keg of OctoberFEAST and it has gotten rave reviews. Mashed at 158F, finished at 1.019 and it is full, malty, chewy, beautiful, clear, red... nice rocky head. Perfect fall beer!

The Pol said:

After just two weeks, my neighbors and I are tapping my keg of OctoberFEAST and it has gotten rave reviews. Mashed at 158F, finished at 1.019 and it is full, malty, chewy, beautiful, clear, red... nice rocky head. Perfect fall beer!

Click to expand...

OK, now your just rubbing it in. But if it rocks, then: :rockin:

My neighbors actually had a friend over last night and he wanted to sample my wares... so I set him up with a sample of my Blonde and the Octoberfeast... he loved them both. Now I have been AG brewing for over three years, but it is always nice to have a completely independent review. My wife is honest, she doesnt like my beers for the most part, but that is not a surprise.

WEBCAM, I am looking into a webcam so that I can broadcast my upcoming brew sessions so that yall can see how it works and what a typical brew day is like in the Circle City brewery. It is pretty boring, so... don't get your hopes up too much

Here is the finished product. 2.5 Volumes of CO2... mmmmm malty.

why dont you go with a thermowell in the side of your hlt for your a419 rather than the dip tube in the top? mcmaster sells those too.

More of a pain in the arse to seal, also the hole in the lid doubles as the port by which I add cold water infusions to cool from my strike temp to my recirc temp. (Computer calculated)

EDIT: Also, the through the lid thermowell cost me $5 to build, McMacter Carr is much more expensive, to do the exact same thing.

Nice setup! Looking forward to seeing a parts list on this rig.

Meh... yeah I know, I will have to do it little by little. I started on it a while back and holey smoke, there are a TON of parts when you get to the HLT. Thanks for the interest...

If you have any questions or need for information on any particulars, let me know. I can walk you through it, I just dont have a COMPLETE list yet

I'm using 2 coolers and electrics for mine as well but I guess I use a RIMS set-up. The HLT Cooler has an element installed inside, drains into a march pump and gets pumped back into the cooler. This agitates the water enough to get even temps. I need to get a Love control for this but because it is in a cooler, I just unplug the cooler once it hits 185 or so.

My MLT is a cooler that drains through a manifold into a heat exchanger with a hot water element in it, the wort passes by a thermowell then gets pumped back up to the sparge ring. My Love control keeps the entire mash within 1 degree of set temp.

My next 2 projects are a Love for the HLT and a float switch for the sparge. These 2 changes will allow me to make fewer mistakes.

Linc

I have never seen a RIMS run, but I understand the concept....
The reason I leaned toward the HERMS is because I have a temp controller, mixer and a heating element in the HLT anyway, all it took was adding a coil to the HLT to make it a HERMS/Sparge Water tank... My digital thermometer in the mash reads within .5F during the mash. RIMS and HERMS are great for being able to repeat recipes to a high degree.

missing link said:

I'm using 2 coolers and electrics for mine as well but I guess I use a RIMS set-up. The HLT Cooler has an element installed inside, drains into a march pump and gets pumped back into the cooler. This agitates the water enough to get even temps. I need to get a Love control for this but because it is in a cooler, I just unplug the cooler once it hits 185 or so.

My MLT is a cooler that drains through a manifold into a heat exchanger with a hot water element in it, the wort passes by a thermowell then gets pumped back up to the sparge ring. My Love control keeps the entire mash within 1 degree of set temp.

My next 2 projects are a Love for the HLT and a float switch for the sparge. These 2 changes will allow me to make fewer mistakes.

Linc

Click to expand...

Since you heat the wort with the heat exchanger coil, you have a HERMS, just like The Pol, not a RIMS.

No, I think his wort comes into direct contact with the heating element, that is what I am reading. Seems his HLT is simply an electric HLT.