Got a great deal on a brew sculpture... old HERMS system but I have process questions

[Firenze]

it is a 3 tier sculpture, the HLT contains the copper coil and there is a pump that pulls from the bottom of the mash tun up the the coil ports in the HLT. The HLT is direct fire with propane burners and the mash tun has no direct heating, just the coil in the HLT.

I have several questions about my new process since I am going from a batch sparging process in cooler to this but mostly I am concerned about the process.

What is my mashing process going to look like? I heat up my strike water to proper temps, transfer all the water to the mash tun, dough in. I will need to be heating my room temp sparge water in the HLT but it will take 30-45 minutes to get up to temp. In the meantime I am sure my uninsulated mash tun will be losing heat. The only way I can think of to combat this a little bit would be to heat up the max volume of water that the HLT can hold and heat it up to strike water temps or maybe even higher. That way when I transfer the strike water to the MT I can just top off the remaining water and the temp will be a bit higher.

How long do you think it will be before the MT starts dropping in temp with a 15 gallon keggle and a standard grain bill for a 10 gallon batch?
What temperature do people typically hold the HLT at to maintain temps for the MT? Mash temp? 5, 10, 20 degrees higher than mash temps?

Any advice you can give me would be great. Like I said, I got the system for a steal of a price so wouldn't be terrible if I had to modify it.

 

[brick_haus]

I add my strike water to the MT, fill my HLT, fire the burner (electric element in my case) and start the pump. Both vessels will heat up to temp simultaneously.
There are many other options also, this works for me because I have my system set up to turn on via timer very early in the morning and when I wake up everything is up to temp and ready to mash in.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

I fill my HLT and heat it to a little over my strike temp, while this is happening i'm getting all my ducks in a row for brewing and making sure the coffee pot is going. I then transfer my strike water volume to the MLT and mix in any water chemistry that I may need. If needed, I bring the HLT volume back to a level that assures the coils are submerged and I have ample sparge water. Once everything is at strike temp and stable, I mash in.

Every system is different. Your HLT will need to be a little hotter than what you want to hold your mash temp at. My system is 2 to 3 degrees. Yours may be different.

Play with it using just water. Get it stable and recirculating at say 125F. Then bring your pretend wort to 150F by trying 155 on the HLT. See what happens. Learn what you need to hold a temp. Now kill the flame on the HLT and while recirculating, see how long it takes to drop to maybe 140. Grain will act a little different, but you will get a feel for how your system acts and reacts, before you go "live".

 

[auburntsts]

Spike Brewing just recently posted a video of basically the process described by brick_haus. https://spikebrewing.com/collections/spike-systems

Kal has a step-by-step brew day process on his website that pretty much describes what SoCal-Doug does in detail: http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/brew-day-step-by-step

 

[ontum]

Hello,

I have a single tier electric herms set up with keggles and I do 10 gallon batches. So my heat loss and process should be similar. I brew in a temperature controlled room between 65-75 degrees.

I use beersmith to estimate my initial mash in temperature. I have wrapped my MLT in two layers of that silver bubble wrap stuff found on water heaters. My temperature stays pretty consistent with this setup and I probably only lose a degree every 10 minutes. However I usually am circulating through my herms coil to increase efficiency and reduce temperature stratification.

How I keep my MLT temperature and heat sparge water:
I use my boil kettle to heat my initial mash-in water. This allows me to have my HLT heated up and waiting before I mash in with water from the boil kettle. Not sure if this is an option for you to heat two vessels at the same time or not. You could heat one vessel up above your mash temp and let it sit while you are heating the second.

I keep my HLT about 2-4 degrees above my mash temp while recirculating and this keeps the MLT right on temp. I also stir my mash a couple times throughout the time to help mix it up and get all that grain sugar out.

Once I'm done with my mash, I heat the HLT to about 175 and increase my re-circulation speed to bring the temperature of the MLT to mash out temp. Then dump the HLT water onto the mash to fly sparge.

Hope this helps,
Craig