Tankless Water Heater for Sparge water?

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It is going to be mighty expensive to find tankless waterheater with a 90 Degree F rise in temp provided your tap water is 80 degrees.
 
Yeah, lots of expense man, you might be better off making a rims element and controlling the flow rate to control temperature.

HLT is alot simpler.
 
There's a guy here in Portland who does it, he says you just have to be sure to get a gas one instead of electric, the electrics don't go up high enough. Says he loves his, though.
 


ah yes, soudns good during the summer perhaps w/ warmer tap water, but during the cold of winter 109 degrees temp rise ( to 170) wouldn't cut it for me. W/ influent around 50, and a desired sparge temp of 185...thats 135 degrees temp rise to 185....I'm just guessing that the numers advertised wouldn't really come to fruition during a real time brew session.

70 A is a lot juice!
 
Just make an electric hlt... save yourself a ton of headache and money.


plus, if you have a tankless hlt, how are you gonna do the inevitable HERMS upgrade.
 
My flash boiler can take it from 50* to boil at about 1/2 gal per minute and cost me about $60 to build. Works great for me and I also use it to mashout on 1bbl batches.
 
The devil is in the details of course... If you flow it at .3 GPM, it will shut off. It turns back on at .4GPM. It's too fast. I also can't find if there is a max temp or selectable temp range. I don't think they'd let it get over 140F for safety.
 
FWIW, My house is using a tankless (Bosch) and they have safety features to prevent scalding. I dont know if you'd be able to override those, but the thermostat for my unit does not go above 128F
 
FWIW, My house is using a tankless (Bosch) and they have safety features to prevent scalding. I dont know if you'd be able to override those, but the thermostat for my unit does not go above 128F

That's what I was thinking about before I built the flash boiler. I was not sure if they could get hot enough of if the parts inside were rated for anything that hot.
 
I was thinking the same thing today, but instead of feeding cold water, feeding in water from my hot-water tank at about 130F. Can a smaller wattage tankless raise this to 170F? I've been looking at specs for models by Bosch and I can't seem to find the maximum operating temp.
 
I have on demand hot sparge water from my RIMS tube... it was pretty cheap and easy to do. My new rig that is in process will have the same, no wasting energy keeping a pot of hot water around. Just heat it when needed at the point of use. I figure, I already have a RIMS, why not use it for mash and sparge?? I can get .7gal/min. from 60-165F which is plenty for a fly sparge.
 
I'm not familiar with electric, as I prefer fire, however I have a tankless gas water heater in the house. Mine is adjustable and will go up to 170 before a safety shutoff occurs. This thread has me tempted to remove it and take it with me for brewing and throw a cheap tank model in the house. I would need a natural gas hookup. Adjusted right and with the outflow closer than my shower the tankless could definitely work. Don't forget about fire.
 
Electric is just cheaper to build, more versatile (RIMS for mash and sparge), more eff. (cheaper to operate) smaller and there is no CO venting.

What brand is your tankless? I have never seen one that exceeds 140F, I thought that was a safety standard.
 
I also prefer fire, electric is nice but power requirements for both sparge and boil elements operating at same time are probably more than most residential service panels and drops can support without shutting rest of house down. With a flash boiler setup like GreenMonti's you can do strike, step mash with steam, sparge, and boil with single heat source that can be direct vented to outside.
 
How do you sparge with steam?

Are you just using steam to heat a pot of water? Like you would with a burner, or element?

It does take some juice to run electric on a large scale. My 1BBL build is running on 120A to the rig itself... this allows 11,000W in the BK and 11,000W in the RIMS to run at the same time. This will get 37 gallons to a boil from sparge temps in 20 min, and allow .7gal/min on demand sparge water from 60F to 165F through the RIMS. Lots of juice, but a HBer could get by with much less on an HBing scale.

The upside is you can run a 1BBL batch for $4 in energy costs, the same as 4 pounds of propane.

Really, an HBer can get away with 9000W in a RIMS tube for OD sparge water heating, that requires a 50A circuit, the same as your range. He isnt going to be boiling while he is sparging anyway, so running both is really not even a concern. Once the sparge is complete you can run a 9000W BK and reach a boil in 13 gallons in less than 10 minutes, utilizing that same 50A circuit.

If you are running production, yes you want to be heating strike while you are boiling, this is where 120A comes in... but on an HB scale you can spend $100 on a RIMS tube and plug it into a simple 50A circuit and you are ready to go on the cheap. Just my very humbel and un-edoocatid opinion.
 
How do you sparge with steam?

Are you just using steam to heat a pot of water? Like you would with a burner, or element?

Yes, it does not take alot of steam to heat water to sparge temperatures and if you are already using steam for the RIM's why not use it. Read Greenmonti's thread where he successfully made a steam jacketed vessel out of a keggle without loosing any of the keggle's volume capacity. Also if one looks to do some step mashing with undermodified malts there is nothing faster in stepping than steam.
 
Building a jacketed MLT is cool, but I am guessing way outside the realm of a typical, mainstream HBer, using undermodified malts is probably not much of a concern either. I am just looking at it purely from a practicality standpoint... I see a guy building a RIMS to heat water long before he welds up a steam jacketed MLT and welds up a steam generator to run it.

Steam is better, but not nearly as practical from an HB standpoint I dont think anyhow.
 
Steam injected into the wort is the way to do step mashing, it can raise wort from 125 degrees to 155 degrees across mixer. Mixer is nothing more than a Swagelok tee with a diffuser screen in one end and wort in through the side. With a 7 year old R&D flash boiler system and a totally instrumented and automated flash boiler system there is no comparison between the steam and the electric systems. Construction, complexity, and operating costs for the steam are much more than the electric systems, but it is hard to match the brute force heat you can bring into the process with flash boiler. The latest boiler I have built can raise .5 gpm to boiling at full throttle, cost to build about $45 and a $10 burner.
 
Back to tankless water heaters... dont they max at 140F?? For safety reasons?

Or they are like $1000?

If all you want is OD sparge water, like the OP mentioned... a high wattage RIMS tube is probably the easiest, cheapest ($100) way to get OD sparge water. 9000W, 50A circuit and .56 gallons/min from 60F to 170F for $1.35 an hour. (that is cheap)

I know steam has more brute force for changing mash temp., but that was never the topic of discussion here... sorry we are so far OT. This is just about OD sparge water heating right?
 
I have a 069 Noritz (6.9 gpm) that came with a difital control panel and is capable of up to 176* in 5* increments.

I use it to provide strike water (from San Diego ground water, through a charcoal filter, I can fill 44 gallons of strike water at 164 in just a hair under 20 minutes.

After I fill the Mash Tun, I move the outlet hose to the HLT and fill it at 176 and then turn on my digital controller to maintain the HLT temp (it controls the burner under the HLT).

IIRC Green Flash has 3 or 4 tankless HW heaters mounted in their space for strike water.
 
I have a 069 Noritz (6.9 gpm) that came with a difital control panel and is capable of up to 176* in 5* increments.

I use it to provide strike water (from San Diego ground water, through a charcoal filter, I can fill 44 gallons of strike water at 164 in just a hair under 20 minutes.

After I fill the Mash Tun, I move the outlet hose to the HLT and fill it at 176 and then turn on my digital controller to maintain the HLT temp (it controls the burner under the HLT).

IIRC Green Flash has 3 or 4 tankless HW heaters mounted in their space for strike water.

That is sweet... how much does that Noritz cost?
 
I know steam has more brute force for changing mash temp., but that was never the topic of discussion here... sorry we are so far OT. This is just about OD sparge water heating right?


What Kladue is talking about has never left the topic of this thread.

You want OD hot water?......Do what Yuri does and blow steam into the incoming cold water and heat it OD........Just as Kladue has mentioned about the steam mixer.

On the subject of the flash boiler........all one needs to do is turn down the fire or increase the flow rate so the output is nothing more then hot water. With a flash boiler there is two ways to get hot water OD.
 
If you only want OD sparge water, what is more practical in terms of cost (build/operate)?

Maybe I need to change my 1BBL design...
 
Heating sparge water with a DIY electrical element is NOT what this topic was about (although I am intrigued by it). At the time, I was proposing the idea of an off-the-shelf OD water heater.

I now believe that it would not be capable of accurate real-time temperature regulation.
 
If you only want OD sparge water, what is more practical in terms of cost (build/operate)?

Maybe I need to change my 1BBL design...

Again, I will reference Yuri. An electric element in a sanke and some fail safes. Bang you have steam. Not to mention the fact that you get to use electric as the heat source.


On the flash boiler......I may have a bit more time in my build then a few pieces of plumbing being put together. But I bought it all local and I have 50 bucks invested.

On a practical note.......that all depends. On my last three brew sessions using the flash boiler I have only needed the use of 2.5 pounds of propane per session TO...pre-heat my MLT with steam (for 20 mins cause I can), heat my strike water OD, heat my sparge water OD, and then boil. I am still boiling via direct firing of my kettle. So the last three brews have cost me a total of $1.67 per brew session. Not bad considering I am using the dreaded propane. My days have run me in the 3-4 hour range in time for the session.

I guess it just depends on how you want to get to the finish line. As you know there are lots of ways to get there.
 
With both the R&D and automated system flash boilers you heat water at high flow rate high fire rate for strike water, low water flow and low fire for sparge, and low flow medium fire for steam. It is something that I could show SWMBO how to use in about 5 minutes so she could use R&D unit to brew high gravity beer for competition. The advantage of the R&D and automated system design is the boiler outlet flows through mixing device on way to the mash tun sparge ring where all the water is headed anyway, no hose changing or valving. When wort is pumped through mixer and boiler generates steam, the steam condenses in and heats the flowing wort without hitting high surface temperatures. Temperature control is accomplished by holding water flow steady and increasing/decreasing burner flame with needle valve while you monitor mixer exit temp. In practice you need to ramp fire down about once a minute to keep mixer temp under control as mash tun warms up from circulating wort.
 
What brand is your tankless? I have never seen one that exceeds 140F, I thought that was a safety standard.[/QUOTE]


Eco temp. Two adjustment knobs for burner and flow. Led temp display, safety shutoff at 170. Gpm is 3.5. Good for a small house.


Tankless is a possibility for brewing. I could definitely see one put to use in a gravity setup although it seems everyone is going with a multiple pump setup using electric. To each their own I guess.
 
That is awesome Monti!!

7.5 gallons of strike from 60F to 165F will take 6567 BTUs of heat
7.5 gallons of sparge from 60F to 165 will take 6567 BTUs of heat
13 gallons of wort from 160F - BOIL will take 5421 BTUs of heat
60 minute boil at 1.5gal/hour boil off will take 12,134 of heat

Grand total of 30,689 BTUs

56% Eff. is excellent from gas, that is an awesome setup!

Way out of my league, and way out of the league of the people I am building for, but awesome just the same.

I cant get propane that cheap though either, about $17 per 20 pound tank, which is only 17.5 pounds of propane, so about $1 per pound here, for me.
 
A tankless water heater would be really neat... but I hate having something that pricey that can only serve a single purpose... Id want to mash with it too :D

Steam can be used for anything, it is really versatile, but out of my realm for the time being. I have a hard enough time getting people comfortable with the idea of an 11,000W electric RIMS tube. I have found that many people, even starting small nano breweries, have never touched anything automated, period... there is a huge learning curve to just use a PID and turning on a pump, let alone steam injection.
 
Yes, the temperature rise is all-important when dealing with tankless heaters. We are on our third in about 35 years, a Bosch Aquastar propane model. It works well.....as long as you're happy with a hot water temperature of only about 140F or so....adequate for any normal household purpose.
The "Titan" unit linked wouldn't provide 170F water with our well, even on its lowest flow rate......we run around 55F year-round.
 
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