Cross post - plumbing help

[NoH20]

I posted this in Equipment/Sanitation, but thought it might be better suited here -

I'm trying to make my brew day a little easier. I have a single tier set up, herms coil in the HLT, and 2 pumps. I use my pumps as "water pump" and a "wort pump". While recirculating after mash in, the water pump is just circulating water in the HLT to keep temp consistent. Wort pump is recirculating through the HERMS coil. For sparging, water "out" from the water pump is replacing the wort in on the HERMS coil. That switch is a bit messy. The wort in (was connected to "in" on the HERMS coil) then moves over to "whirlpool in" on the boil kettle. I know I can go crazy with T's and valves, but looking to do that in steps maybe as my process evolves. I was thinking a T on the wort out side with 2-way ball valves (1 to HERMS, 1 to boil kettle), and maybe a 3way valve on the HERMS inlet so I can let either wort recirculation or sparge water in. Does this make sense? Attaching pic of current recirc setup.

Todd

 

[day_trippr]

Clearly your HLT is one return port shy of optimal

Anyway, folks do valve their way out of hose end swaps, and three-way valves are commonly used in that regard.
You just need to diagram out all of your flow paths to locate where to put the valves. Note that if you fly sparge and/or recirculate your BK that will affect the valve configuration for the sparge and wort pumps, respectively...

Cheers!