2-vessel HERMS or 3 vessels?

[augiedoggy]

There is actually a good bit of literature that shows that slower/more gentle heating has minor flavor benefits for your finished beer.

This is one reason myself (and I believe postal bunny ) use a long low wattage ulwd cartridge heater... best of both words as it does in fact heat much more gently than you will be heating in the boil kettle with the 5500w element, otherwise you can denature enzymes which is not an issue with my rims since I average 91% efficiency with no attenuation issues one would get with denatured enzymes. Much of what I read about heating the beer seems to indicated a less vigorous boil and more heat surface area (Lower watt density) does help with achieving lighter color and lighter flavor profiles and this is one reason steam jacketed vessels shine for brewery use.

 

[augiedoggy]

A decoction by definition is boiled (usually 20+ minutes of boiling) and the volume is typically 1/3rd of the mash at a time - so it's a very significant amount of denaturing and this still leaves plenty of enzymes to fully convert.

I'm not planning to try that initially, but I may give it a shot down the road just out of curiosity. A simple iodine test will tell me whether or not I've denatured my entire mash if there's still unconverted starch after 60 minutes.

You also have to keep in mind that the MT will remove heat from the HLT rapidly and I would think that the HLT water would drop from 200 back below 160 within 2-3 minutes if my plate chiller is any indication. Which I still think would leave plenty of enzymes available. - It'll be a curiosity brew

whenever I did a decoction I did it after the mash had been going for at least 15 minutes... I found with iodine and gravity testing that most of my conversion is in fact done in the first 20 mins... Therefore my brew house efficiency didnt take any real hit.

So while methods like Blazinlow used above may work, in fact he is going to effectively have the body and strength of beer he would get from mashing at a higher timp than his lower setpoint he allows it to drop to.

At the same time (similiar to what blazinlow is doing), on my 3 bbl system we have a hard time doughing in the whole mash without loosing a lot of temp so we heat our strike water in the winter as high as 172 and dough in. the result is the mash at the top is below our desired setpoint while the mash at the bottom and liquid under the FB is still higher (even after lots of stirring).. I turn the rims on and things even out in the first 10 minutes or so and thus far its not effected our attenuation one bit. in fact we got just over 88% efficiency on sundays brew session. We just transferred a belgian strong yesterday which finished at 1.007 and Ive had beers finish at 1.002 on this system.

 

[augiedoggy]

Just fwiw it did take about 15 mins to drop my 20gal hlt 5-10 degree with the lid off, constant stirring and not circulating the mash. It would definitely drop faster if recirculating but I imagine it would also increase you mash temp considerably.

This is where a benefit of a rims comes in as I recirc and the rims doesnt turn on any heat until its actually needed.. also no worries of overshooting in the HLT and having to add more water to bring temps down.

 

[augiedoggy]

If you look at it from a pure energy efficiency standpoint I agree with you. But the point of making beer isn't to do it with as few Jules/gallon as possible.

I think that at the end of the day they are two different methods for accomplishing the same result. One is not the natural successor to the other.

I really think it depends on how the rims and herms are designed and implemented but I totally see many benefits with my longer super ULWD rims vs herms... thats if the rims is designed to not have the shortcoming that cause the scorching issues and denatured enzymes and the operator knows how to use it.

Is one the successor to the other, no, just as BIAB is no successor to multi vessel systems, at the end of the day its about what the people using this stuff are comfortable with and best understand.
and in a brewery it very much is about cost and saving as much energy as possible... cost is such a big factor that adjuncts like corn and rice are used to save $$ and C02 is harvested and reused..

 

[postalbunny]

Yeah, that was the one thing that i struggled with. If you have a immersion coil or plate chiller you could drop your HLT quicker that way.

Guess it just depends on your process at the end of the day. For my setup literally all I would gain going with a rims set-up is more cost and equipment and for that reason i look at it as a downgrade. Cheers


More im thinking about it are the people doing a traditional mash setup with a rims just omitting the hlt all together? Im guessing you could just omit the element in the hlt and heat the mash and sparge water with the rims if using a 3v with the hlt just holding cold sparge water? Cheers

You'll see this as a 2vessel setup. You save on cost, but you give the advantage of having an HLT. The issue with using RIMs element to heat your mash water is you're usually using a lower wattage element in the RIMs tube to prevent scorching (1500-2500watt). Where in the HLT you can slap a 5500 or dual 5500's in there to get up to temp quicker. You can combat this by heating your strike water in the "boil kettle" then transferring it back over.

Anyway you set it up... going RIMs will bring extra cost over HERMs. That's one of the draw backs of a RIMs setup is the extra complication and cost. The HERMs coil is just cheaper than a tube + element + electric parts in the panel.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Yeah, that was the one thing that i struggled with. If you have a immersion coil or plate chiller you could drop your HLT quicker that way.


You'll see this as a 2vessel setup. You save on cost, but you give the advantage of having an HLT. The issue with using RIMs element to heat your mash water is you're usually using a lower wattage element in the RIMs tube to prevent scorching (1500-2500watt). Where in the HLT you can slap a 5500 or dual 5500's in there to get up to temp quicker. You can combat this by heating your strike water in the "boil kettle" then transferring it back over.

Anyway you set it up... going RIMs will bring extra cost over HERMs. That's one of the draw backs of a RIMs setup is the extra complication and cost. The HERMs coil is just cheaper than a tube + element + electric parts in the panel.

Cost wise if you omit the hlt I don't think it's really that much different as the Herms coil is probably the same or more as $ as the extras needed to build the rims tube assembly and it's still only 2 heating circuits. I'm super happy with my Kal clone and currently I don't see anything I can't do on it that I could with a rims besides saving a few minutes heating possiblity. That being said if I was building a new setup I would definitely consider the 2 vessel rims. How would you deal with the sparge acidification/salts/chlorime on a 2v? Cheers

 

[BrunDog]

I use RO... so no sparge acidification or Cl management needed. I add all my salts to the mash, which is a setting in Bru'N Water. Can also add to boil if needed.

 

[Blazinlow86]

I use RO... so no sparge acidification or Cl management needed. I add all my salts to the mash, which is a setting in Bru'N Water. Can also add to boil if needed.

Ah ok that makes more sense. I use our tap water because it's so close to ro (15ppm) . I typically add my salts to the mash also however I do acidifying my sparge slightly and add campden tablets so I don't think a 2v setup would work well for me. Hauling 30+ gallons of ro home from the store every 2 weeks would be a deal breaker as would adding a ro system. Cheers

 

[BrunDog]

Why would adding an RO system be a deal breaker? I have an under sink unit for drinking water and refrigerator ice. I full jugs with it for brewing... super easy.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Why would adding an RO system be a deal breaker? I have an under sink unit for drinking water and refrigerator ice. I full jugs with it for brewing... super easy.

Well currently because my Herms system works perfectly and I have no issues with tap water it would be fixing a problem i currently don't have. Also admittedly I have no experience with ro systems but I'm under the impression that they take alot of time for larger volumes of water (30-40 gallons) and require some pre planning. I'd need a big container to store the water and some way to turn it off prior to overfilling said container. Just too much to save a few minutes for me. As everything brewing it all comes down to your specific needs. Time savings isn't much a deal for me. I don't have kids and brew on a day with no other plans. Really all I care about is repeatability and end product.

All that said now that my big system has paid for itself I'm considering just brewing 5 gallon batches for myself and retiring the current system as it's not really configured for small batch sizes and I won't need it if I'm no longer brewing for others. I have most of the stuff to do a ebiab 5 gallon setup but thought maybe a small rims might work too. Cheers

 

[ba-brewer]

Well currently because my Herms system works perfectly and I have no issues with tap water it would be fixing a problem i currently don't have. Also admittedly I have no experience with ro systems but I'm under the impression that they take alot of time for larger volumes of water (30-40 gallons) and require some pre planning. I'd need a big container to store the water and some way to turn it off prior to overfilling said container. Just too much to save a few minutes for me. As everything brewing it all comes down to your specific needs. Time savings isn't much a deal for me. I don't have kids and brew on a day with no other plans. Really all I care about is repeatability and end product.

All that said now that my big system has paid for itself I'm considering just brewing 5 gallon batches for myself and retiring the current system as it's not really configured for small batch sizes and I won't need it if I'm no longer brewing for others. I have most of the stuff to do a ebiab 5 gallon setup but thought maybe a small rims might work too. Cheers

I use RO water for repeatability, my tap water comes from surface water and multiple sources so it changes seasonally or sooner. I drink the tap water unfiltered and it seems sometimes it may change for a few days at a time.

You are correct it does take some planning. There are ways to do an auto shut off but I fill buckets on brew day for the next one, something else to do to stay busy while mashing and waiting for the boil to end. If my water was more consistent I would probably use it too.

 

[Blazinlow86]

I use RO water for repeatability, my tap water comes from surface water and multiple sources so it changes seasonally or sooner. I drink the tap water unfiltered and it seems sometimes it may change for a few days at a time.

You are correct it does take some planning. There are ways to do an auto shut off but I fill buckets on brew day for the next one, something else to do to stay busy while mashing and waiting for the boil to end. If my water was more consistent I would probably use it too.

Don't get me wrong if I was brewing smaller batches I'd probably use store bought ro also for consistency but it's just too much hassle and im fortunate that our tap water is very consistent so it works well. I'm also extremely lucky that my club was founded by arguably the most successful craft brewery in my city and we have a few other professionals that also make very popular beers so water reports are easy to get. Cheers

 

[TheMadKing]

It arrived! The most gorgeous part of my garage

 

[postalbunny]

Sweet... i like how they can put the handles on the front/back now... i had requested that for my MLT but they were unable to accommodate.

 

[Ahks]

Sweet... i like how they can put the handles on the front/back now... i had requested that for my MLT but they were unable to accommodate.

It's gotta be more complicated than I'm thinking... But they couldn't rotate a kettle 90*? I specifically built my small system so I could carry a kettle by the handles without stabbing myself.

 

[augiedoggy]

It's gotta be more complicated than I'm thinking... But they couldn't rotate a kettle 90*? I specifically built my small system so I could carry a kettle by the handles without stabbing myself.

they may have had a large inventory of these already decaled or ports already added at the time im guessing..

 

[TheMadKing]

they may have had a large inventory of these already decaled or ports already added at the time im guessing..

Yeah, and thus is standard now, I didn't request any special handle configuration

 

[postalbunny]

Exactly.. my only option at time of doing a custom kettle was to get the logo on the side; looking back, i should have just done that, it's silly having side-by-side handles and the logo will probably eventually wear off anyway.

I really wish they had a bottom drain option too... for us electric guys that don't need the bottom tri-clad whatever, but would love 0 deadspace.

 

[cswant88]

View attachment 626353View attachment 626354View attachment 626355

It arrived! The most gorgeous part of my garage

Very sexy. I'm jealous.

 

[johnwpowell]

Since you will be recirculating during mash why would you vorlauf?

I do a no-sparge single electric vessel with recirculating mash using a bag. I always get crystal clear wort even using with lots of flaked adjuncts. What I don't do is disturb the bag like typical BIAB until I drain the clear wort into a stainless bucket to get my preboil volume, then I remove the bag. All of the remaining wort with gunk (~0.5gal) from disturbed grain bed gets dumped. I clean the vessel and then put the wort back from the stainless bucket. The "lautering" and cleaning takes less than 15min on 10gal batches. Forget sparging - I did the math with Beersmith it costs $1.50 more for base malt on average 10gal batch to hit numbers no sparge / no bag squeeze for BIAB.

This doesn't solve the underletting but maybe can help you visualize your options better.

Very interested in how you calculated this in Beersmith. Can you share details? Just a matter of selecting BIAB equipment and BIAB mash profile then adjusting the recipe? I took the same recipe for 3 different profiles (Grainfather, BIAB, HERMS) and BeerSmith calculated BIAB as highest efficiency, followed by Grainfather, then HERMS)

 

[ttuato]

Very interested in how you calculated this in Beersmith. Can you share details? Just a matter of selecting BIAB equipment and BIAB mash profile then adjusting the recipe? I took the same recipe for 3 different profiles (Grainfather, BIAB, HERMS) and BeerSmith calculated BIAB as highest efficiency, followed by Grainfather, then HERMS)

It is a function of grain absorption and deadspace. I dont recall my settings at the moment, but go into the profiles and look at these values. (I think I have 0.5gal of deadspace and grain absorption at 0.8) BIAB default profile assumes no deadspace and has the lowest grain absorption due to the "squeeze" (0.58 vs 0.96 for 3vessel) - both of which contribute to the efficiency. Also, make sure you use a more open weave 400micron - drains faster and helps with the grain absorption. I am consistently at 75% brewhouse efficiency when brewing anything below 7.5% ABV - closer to 80% when below 5%.