Drop-in herms coil?

[kevreh]

I have an electric kettle and GOTT cooler/MT. I would like to both control my mash temps better and be able to do step mashes. On my last batch I did a step mash by pumping the wort out of the MT, heating, and recirculating back to the MT. Problem is I saw some scorching with the element.

I don't necessarily want to make a HLT kettle with an element and all the parts that go with that (wiring, plugs, thermowell, ss fittings, ...). What I was thinking was to have a coil I drop into my main kettle. While the mash is going, I would fill the kettle with my sparge water and heat to the desired mash temp. Then I could drop in the coil and recirc the wort through it as needed during the mash.

Anyone see any issues with this?

BTW, here's a thread showing my setup. When I took the pics I wasn't using the GOTT as a MT yet, so thats not shown. I added it to help maintain mash temps.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/kevrehs-4500w-basement-brewery-487760/

 

[iijakii]

I've seen a few builds on here like that. You can plumb the HERMS coil to your lid and just drop that on when mashing. I've also seen people simply use their immersion chillers.

 

[Owly055]

Consider using a heat stick made with a 220V element, and running it on 110 volts during mash. At the reduced voltage / wattage, it isn't going to scorch anything. The same element can be used on both 220 and 110. The higher voltage for reaching mash temp, and the lower voltage for maintaining it............. simple.

 

[kevreh]

I actually happen to have a 120v heat stick. There is some scorching, which maybe wouldn't happen with the 240v/120v approach you mention. But the thing with heat sticks is you need to keep moving them.

 

[JoshuaW]

I actually happen to have a 120v heat stick. There is some scorching, which maybe wouldn't happen with the 240v/120v approach you mention. But the thing with heat sticks is you need to keep moving them.

What density is going to matter. With the heatstick approach, you are basically doing RIMS though. Recirculation and low watt density (physically larger element with lower wattage) will give better results. There might still be scorching though, I dont know as Im not using that approach.

 

[Owly055]

I actually happen to have a 120v heat stick. There is some scorching, which maybe wouldn't happen with the 240v/120v approach you mention. But the thing with heat sticks is you need to keep moving them.

I don't have a heatstick........ I have a 2500 watt floating heater ( my own build ), but that's not really relevant here........ A suitably element operated at a reduced voltage , and properly located in a recirculating system is not going to scorch the mash.

Scorching is a function of "contact temperature", which in this case is based on the watt density of the element..... How many watts are dissipated over how many square inches of surface, and the ability of the liquid to dissipate the heat. The higher the temperature of the liquid, the less it's ability to absorb and dissipate heat, so circulation is very important also... It must move away from the heat source to allow cooler liquid to replace it............ But isn't this what RIMS does? We can't have a static situation and depend on convection... we want to hold thermal gain down to a few degrees during the contact period.





H.W.