Advice for building a brew system

[cakey]

I've been brewing for a year now and currently use a cheap 12 gal ss brew pot with a lot of scorching problems. After looking around I decided i like stout tanks equipment and intend to buy one of their 15 gal kettles. Its expensive but i don't want to buy another kettle that is just a step up. I want a kettle that can do everything i might ever want to. This got me thinking that before buying anything I should plan out the entire system that i would like to build and buy the pieces as i go, working towards that end.

My first big hang up was manufacture, I've decided on stout tank for a number of reasons non of which relay pertain to my current conundrum. What i cant decide is wither to go HERMS or RIMS. I would like to be able to do step mashing which I know both systems are more than capable of doing however the RIMS system seems to have the advantage. I do like the idea of duel use of my HLT in HERMS though. My decision to go HERMS or RIMS will also be affected by the controller i choose.

I want a controller that has a high degree of percussion and a fair amount of automation. i do not want to take the skill out of my brew day but i want to be able to add a level of consistency in my brewing that is current out of reach with my current system.

For now I am just a hobbyist but I want a system that is of a high enough quality that it could be a pilot system in a brewery. Not that it ever will be but i like the pipe dream

Any input is welcome, i recognize my lack of experience and knowledge and am just requesting honest information and opinion from the more knowledgeable and experienced. Thank you.

 

[biertourist]

A number of items:

This goes without saying but read the primer / sticky on appropriately sizing vessels in relation to one another.

Beyond that simpler is always better; ignore those super expensive crazy featured breweries because although many of the owners won't admit it, they often end up wishing they went simplier on a lot of items as it makes for a simpler and shorter brew day (and less cleaning).

Brew Kettle
Beyond getting the volume right, focusing on hop removal and whether you're going to use whole hops or pellets is pretty important. A boil kettle / whirlpool combo is a GREAT option and Stout tanks version is particularly nice. A dished bottom (like a keggle) helps and a welded in tangental inlet is also a great feature. Triclamp out is useful if you're chilling in the kettle.

Hop separation will make the kettle a pain or a pleasure to use and needs to be very high on your priority list of things to plan for.

Temp control on a boil kettle is pointless unless you're chilling in the kettle with an immersion chiller and then you only want the ability to MONITOR the temp; not control it. --Don't buy temp control for the kettle; huge waste. Also if you go electric don't bother with a PID for the kettle; get a simple rheostat / dial controller more complicated than that makes brewing harder and wastes time and money. -I speak from experience; PID controlled boil is way overthinking it.

Mashtun
ESPECIALLY if you plan to recirculation mash (HERMS or RIMS) you want to pay attention to the %open area of your false bottom material to mitigate the risk of stuck sparges or stuck mashes.

Height to width is important the US brewing tradition is tending towards 1.5:1 height to width but the English tradition focuses on 1:1 and a German lautertun can be 2:1 - 3:1, but that's a dedicated lautering vessel. Personally I'm a huge fan of 1:1.

Think about your typical batch size because you really can't appropriately size a mashtun for two mash sizes despite internet lore; If you go with a mash tun that's going to be 1.5:1 height to width on a 10 gallon batch when you go with a 5 gallon batch you're going to be just under 1:1 which might making getting clear runoff difficult but you won't have to worry about stuck sparges or slow runoff so that's not a bad way to go.

Insulation is a big deal in a mashtun unless you'll have a temp controlled recirculation setup. If you want to infusion mash sometimes then plan how to insulate the vessels. (I've got a double walled insulated stainless mashtun as I want to be able to infusion mash although I rarely ever do.)

Also plan your sparge setup and your plumbing to support sparging; plan how "Grain out" is going to work on your system.
-I didn't plan the pluming on my system at all and my brew day is really suffering for it; I get why so many of the old timers on HBT have permanently plumbed setups; not only does it make things dead simple and easy to clean but it's actually cheaper after you buy tons of quick disconnects or cam locks or tri clamps.

Also look at the dead space in your mash tun, ESPECIALLY if you're infusion mashing, your efficiency will suffer if you have huge dead spaces below the FB; if you're recirculating this arguably isn't such a big deal.


HLT
Insulation is nice.
Bigger is better, ESPECIALLY if you want to go HERMS; plan for 2x your planned brew length. (Doing multiple HLT fills for a single brew is a waste of your time.)

Recirculate or stir the HLT somehow to prevent some SERIOUS temperature stratification.

Calibrated PID control makes sense in the HLT; many controllers are super accurate but only when used with accurate thermometers and only when calibrated and used with a common method and common quantities of water -as you switch from 5 gallon to 10 gallon batches you'll confuse a PID; you switch from stirred to unstirred and the same will happen.

Get a large thermo probe and install it half way up the side of the HLT; NOT in the bottom of the site glass (sorry Bobby, but that's just a bad idea for accuracy).

Oh yea: Install a site glass in your HLT and calibrate it. Brewershwardware.com has your site glass and the decals to use when calibrating it; it makes filling OOH so easy.

-Put a small rubber band over your HLT site glass to delineate the level that the site glass should be after striking in. (I find myself putting the total volume of liquor: strike + sparge in the HLT and then when I mash in I forget where I'm supposed to stop at. A small rubber band around the site glass allows you to set and then forget this level.)


HERMS / RIMS
Both have some pretty big cons and complications.
RIMS come with safety concerns and can be very difficult to get clean; yes if you go with a really good and really well thought out and planned RIMS you can over come many of those challenges, but HERMS are simple and easy to clean beasts.

Personally, I LOVE systems that use counter flow chillers for the heat exchange duties in a HERMS; there's then no coil in your HLT to worry about and you have a very clog free and compact, high performance heat exchanger that can be used both for the recirculation mashing AND chilling in one system as long as you sanitize with boiling wort for a few minutes prior to chilling.

HERMS with convoluted counter flow chillers also have GREAT response times and it means that you don't need to worry about agitating the liquid in the HLT to get great PERF. This setup DOES require running 2 pumps simultaneously while recirculation mashing but it's not that big of a deal; if you're going with a single tier 3 vessel system 2 pumps are required anyway.

I also like knowing that I'm not ever raising the mash liquid to enzyme killing temps with HERMS.

-Also if you already have the convoluted counter flow chiller, it will allow enough liquid throughput / speed that you can recirculate back into the kettle while chilling and filter out your cold break and keep it out of your fermenter (you can whirlpool through this setup if planned well).

If you DO go the HERMS route using an immersion chiller don't forget to replace that vinyl hose that most come with with silicone tubing that's actually rated for high temps; vinyl flavor in your beer is NOT pleasant.


Adam

 

[biertourist]

Also makes sure that you have dip tubes that will get all of the liquid out of your HLT and Kettle.

-You're good with Stout tanks; I went with Glacier Tanks triclamp kettle and they don't make a dip tube for it so getting a well fitting and appropriately sized dip tube was impossible.

Tri clamps are dangerous as there aren't great options for whirlpool fittings; weldless has way more options here.
A tri clamp kettle that doesn't come with a dip tube designed specifically for it and a built-in whilrpool fitting is a mistake, IMHO. (But the Stout tanks have both so no issue there.)

I wouldn't bother with triclamps in the HLT or MLT, though. They're just too much of a pain to take on and off; even Camlocks are two handed and take a good 30 seconds to remove sometimes; the standard quick disconnects make sense for HLTs / MLTs for me.


You should also know that the Stout tanks dip tube has a VERY narrow inside diameter; personally it's a pretty terrible design as a single whole hop cone will instantly plug it; the dip tube also goes towards the middle of the tank, which is exactly where the whirlpool will be depositing hop sludge and cold break if you use an immersion chiller (or recirculate back to the kettle through a counter flow or plate chiller). The dip tube is just a terrible design as the super small inside diameter limits the flow through the whole system and makes getting a good whirlpool difficult (so why bother buying a whirlpool inlet kettle in the first place, then?).

Honestly if I could find a domed bottom kettle with a welded in 1/2" NPT tangental inlet kettle it would be about perfect as you could use normal threaded cheap ball valves and whirlpool fittings that don't have restrictions and pickup tubes that pickup from the outside of the kettle instead of the middle.

I'm probably just have someone weld a couple of triclamp fittings to my specification so that I can add keggle-style dip tubes and whirlpool fittings; yes that means it's not threadless / sanitary but they're in the boil so it doesn't really matter.

I'm slowly starting to feel that tri-clamps belong in professional breweries and on fermenters only and that they just don't belong on home brewery brew houses. (They make things slower, more difficult, and expensive and limit your modification options; they DON'T make the brew day easier or better at all.)




Adam

 

[cakey]

Thank you very much for the info biertourist, i appreciate it. I was looking to use a 15 gal brew kettle, i have yet to size out the mash tun and HLT. I intend to do 10 Gal batches. I get the impression it might be a good idea to look at a 20 gal HLT? I'm going stout tank because of the whirlpool set up their kettles have. I will be using mostly pellet hops and am under the impression that the whirlpool will be able to remove most of the hop mass on transfer. I'm not doing any sort of temp control on my kettle as their is not realy any reason to.

I will be setting up a HERMS or RIMS system and you make a very good case for HERMS. i like the idea of it pulling double duty. If i understand it right i could whirlpool in the kettle, transfer the wort to the mash tun and use the HERMS system as a work chiller?

 

[cakey]

The pick up tube is something i could modify though isn't it? At least where it picks up from if no its diameter. As for as tri clamps and sanitary fittings go i plan on using them only one the cold side. it doesn't make sense to me to spend the money on the hot side if your boiling it anyways.

 

[biertourist]

Thank you very much for the info biertourist, i appreciate it. I was looking to use a 15 gal brew kettle, i have yet to size out the mash tun and HLT. I intend to do 10 Gal batches. I get the impression it might be a good idea to look at a 20 gal HLT? I'm going stout tank because of the whirlpool set up their kettles have. I will be using mostly pellet hops and am under the impression that the whirlpool will be able to remove most of the hop mass on transfer. I'm not doing any sort of temp control on my kettle as their is not realy any reason to.

I will be setting up a HERMS or RIMS system and you make a very good case for HERMS. i like the idea of it pulling double duty. If i understand it right i could whirlpool in the kettle, transfer the wort to the mash tun and use the HERMS system as a work chiller?

Yep 20 gallon HLT ,15 gallon kettle and 10 gallon or slightly larger MLT will let you do 10 gallon batches perfectly. A 15 ga MLT will help ensure yto ou can make really high gravity 10 gallon batches without resorting to adding extract too; so MLT size also needs to balance max size + max gravity concerns.


The Stout kettle would be PERFECT if it weren't for that stupid dip tube! -If you know a good stainless welder just have them cut off the piece that sticks off of the inside of the dip tube assembly's TC fitting, then drill it out and weld a 1/2" compression fitting in it. -Then you can just insert a length of soft copper tubing into it and route the pickup tube to the OUTSIDE wall of the kettle AND you won't be limiting your throughput for your whirlpool.

Stupid pickup tube! *GRR!* It's just so sad that it ruins what is almost home brewing's perfect kettle...

 

[biertourist]

I will be setting up a HERMS or RIMS system and you make a very good case for HERMS. i like the idea of it pulling double duty. If i understand it right i could whirlpool in the kettle, transfer the wort to the mash tun and use the HERMS system as a work chiller?

Yes... But... Whirlpooling in the kettle is an enormous challenge as hop crud combined with cold break makes what I call "hop concrete" and it can clog almost any single stage filter unless it has huge surface area.

So if you whirlpool without going through the counterflow chiller FIRST and you're using hop pellets you'll get the pellets to settle in the cone in the center, then because you've got a hacked dip tube you can pull clear wort from the outside of the kettle (if you use a teflon Triclamp gasket on the dip tube you can rotate it up for when you start transferring to keep more crud out of it) and THEN switch the flow of the whirlpool so it goes through your chiller, now it's going to be picking up the cold trub and dropping it back into the kettle. You need a trub filter, hop spider, or hop back to help filter out the trub in this configuration.

The Stout kettle, with the modified diptube seems ideal for a pure pellet system. If you want to use whole hops and recirculate I'd recommend a spider for really hoppy brews.

Adam

 

[biertourist]

The pick up tube is something i could modify though isn't it? At least where it picks up from if no its diameter. As for as tri clamps and sanitary fittings go i plan on using them only one the cold side. it doesn't make sense to me to spend the money on the hot side if your boiling it anyways.

The ID is a big concern. I certainly don't have the equipment to bend a stainless dip tube; I think you'll find it far more difficult than you think.



Adam

 

[cakey]

This is very good information biertourist, thanks again. Luckily where i work we have a well equipped metal working shop so bending a ss tube should be doable.

I'm still a little confused as to what you think might be the optimum way to filter out trub and hop matter via the whirl pool. Lets say i modify my dip tube to a larger diameter SS tube positioned close to the wall of the kettle. I use a pump to create the whirlpool, than kill the pump, let settle and drain to chiller via a different pump. Am i missing something? Will this still cause trub/hop pick up problems?

 

[Dog House Brew]

I normally brew 13 gallon batches. I have 15g HLT, 30g MT, and 25gl BK. I have my HEX in the HLT that was a modified stainless 50' IM chiller. I have 2 pumps, one for recirc of the mash. The other is to recirc the water in the HLT. If I had it to over I would go all electric with RIMS. There is no way to step mash with HERMS IMO. It takes too long (at least mine does) and it changes the dynamics of the mash. I have had attenuation issues when I've tried to step with the HERMS. I have all 1/2" and can recirc the mash at nearly wide open and still only get about 1 degree in 4 min. I do not have a burner on the MLT. Now if you heat the MT and recirc the mash through the HERMS it might be the ticket. I'm not sold on HERMS, but I have it, so I'm using it. I've never used RIMS, wish I were all electric.
As for the hops and crud, I made me a stainless screen basket, much like the ones at Stainless Brewing. I love it! Mine is 10" in Diameter and I can't imagine anything being any better. If you don't go that route I would have to incorporate some type of grant/hopback. I do like the Stout designs.

 

[biertourist]

I normally brew 13 gallon batches. I have 15g HLT, 30g MT, and 25gl BK. I have my HEX in the HLT that was a modified stainless 50' IM chiller. I have 2 pumps, one for recirc of the mash. The other is to recirc the water in the HLT. If I had it to over I would go all electric with RIMS. There is no way to step mash with HERMS IMO. It takes too long (at least mine does) and it changes the dynamics of the mash. I have had attenuation issues when I've tried to step with the HERMS. I have all 1/2" and can recirc the mash at nearly wide open and still only get about 1 degree in 4 min. I do not have a burner on the MLT. Now if you heat the MT and recirc the mash through the HERMS it might be the ticket. I'm not sold on HERMS, but I have it, so I'm using it. I've never used RIMS, wish I were all electric.
As for the hops and crud, I made me a stainless screen basket, much like the ones at Stainless Brewing. I love it! Mine is 10" in Diameter and I can't imagine anything being any better. If you don't go that route I would have to incorporate some type of grant/hopback. I do like the Stout designs.

An uninsulated 30 gallon mash tun WILL require a lot of energy to step mash.
Good advice on planning to NOT step mash with a HERMS system that utilizes a coil in the HLT -the folks that I've seen use it have REALLY slow temp rises and ultimately keep the enzymes active for far longer than they should be; this is why I recommended a counterflow chiller as the heat exchanger for a HERMS you get WAY faster temp rises and can step mash like a champ. (I've also got an insulated MLT and only do 6 gallon batches but you can see some of the numbers from Vossey (I think it was Vossey) on his experiments with a convoluted counterflow chiller used as a HERMS HEX to get all the nitty gritty details and data points.)

I'd love for some engineer-type to tell us how much many BTUs/ Watts of heat we should have for a temp rise of x degrees per minute given a mash size of Z. -I think we'd find that once you get to a pretty large mash size you need the extra heat capacity that RIMS can provide. (I do NOT want to clean a RIMS element, though; the HLT and boil elements are enough for me.)

If I were building a large system, direct fired and stirred mash or steam injection would be about all i'd look at if I wanted to be able to step mash.

(I designed my system with HERMS step mashing in mind so it's good to get Dog House Brew's perspective on where HERMS definitely won't work. I've got small batch sizes, a 1:1 height to width mashtun with a large % open space, an insulated mashtun, and soon a convoluted copper counter flow HEX so it probably represents a near ideal for HERMS mashing; I'd say Dog House Brew's system is far on the other end of the spectrum where it's NOT very well suited to HERMS.)


Adam

 

[biertourist]

I'm still a little confused as to what you think might be the optimum way to filter out trub and hop matter via the whirl pool. Lets say i modify my dip tube to a larger diameter SS tube positioned close to the wall of the kettle. I use a pump to create the whirlpool, than kill the pump, let settle and drain to chiller via a different pump. Am i missing something? Will this still cause trub/hop pick up problems?

That would probably be good IN the kettle. The problem is with the cold break that forms after the chiller; do you just pass it to your fermenter? -If you have a conical you can let it settle for a few hours and dump it out of the bottom dump valve and then pitch your yeast, but if you don't have a conical, then what?

The other problem with running a large volume out of the kettle and through your chiller and onto your fermenter is that you're chilling the main volume in the kettle very slowly so you're continuing to isomerize hop oils and drive off aroma; you're also allowing DMS to reform if you're brewing with lager malt that hasn't had a long enough boil.

-A solution for people who like high hop aroma but lower bitterness hoppy beers is to recirculate through your chiller and back into your kettle but this will result in having cold break and hops in your kettle which will clog pretty much anything if you don't have a big hop spider / filter in the kettle.

Another solution (and maybe the easier one) is to use a hop back / grant; traditionally this would be immediately after the kettle and before the chiller and then don't recirculate; this will help with hop aroma and some trub but not the cold break which you'd still need to deal with. So you could go Kettle -> grant / hop back -> pump -> chiller -> trub filter -> fermenter; also a weird arrangement but the trub filter would be dedicated to cold break-induced trub. This config is recommended only if you have a counterflow chiller that's NOT a plate chiller as you'd possibly clog the plate chiller and definitely get cold break in it.


Adam

 

[Dog House Brew]

I just start my whirlpool with 15 min to go to sanitize my CFC. When the boil ends I turn on the chiller water and continue the cooling whirlpool. When I get to about 150 I cut it off to settle the trub cone. I switch over to my small pump that is in a small kiddie pool full of ice water. A few minutes have passed during the switch, then I fire up the pump and chill straight into the fermenter at almost full go. Slower of course if I'm do lager. My pick-up tube is against the side wall. So there is some break left in the kettle and whatever cold break makes it into primary, no big deal. It doesn't cause any problems IMO. I know some people absolutely want it left in the BK. This is why many like the IM chiller. I would like to have a conical to dump the break though.

Biertourist hit some good points about HERMS and batch sizes. My 30 gallon is an insulated Igloo. I also have a 30 gallon stainless kettle w false bottom. Maybe using my new set-up with burner for MT and HERMS will create faster temp rises. I use the HERMS mainly to help get the same temp through out the mash by recirculating. When I do do any step mashing I just use infusions. Takes larger MT, but it works.

 

[cakey]

My thoughts were to attach my chiller just before the whirl pool pump. Chill the entire mass down than drain into my fermenter. If i have a SS screen on my pick up tube in the kettle that should be able to deal with the cold break right? I'm not that worried about a little trub in the fermenter but i would like to leave out as much as possible