Brew Sculpture - HERMS - Using HLT to Chill Wort?

[the75]

I'm getting ready to build my brew stand & have decided on a HERMS system. The question I have is this: After I've mashed & brewed my wort, my hot liquor tank should be available to use right? Inside my HLT is a (convoluted) heat exchanger that was used to keep my mash temp at the right temp (hot). Why can't I fill my HLT with water & ice & recirculate my wort through the inside of my copper heat exchanger much like an immersion chiller, just inside out? I'm new, so if I'm missing something, go easy on blasting me.

 

[FATC1TY]

I'm getting ready to build my brew stand & have decided on a HERMS system. The question I have is this: After I've mashed & brewed my wort, my hot liquor tank should be available to use right? Inside my HLT is a (convoluted) heat exchanger that was used to keep my mash temp at the right temp (hot). Why can't I fill my HLT with water & ice & recirculate my wort through the inside of my copper heat exchanger much like an immersion chiller, just inside out? I'm new, so if I'm missing something, go easy on blasting me.

You could, but there are a few problems. One, you'll end up needing to strain or filter any hot break, hops, etc out because you'll get that stuff stuck in the coils and whatnot. Also, you will have previously used that to pump water through, that isn't exactly sanitary to the level it needs to be for the wort.

You'd end up needing to flush and sanitize that whole system after you mash, and you'll need to keep from getting anything in there. Once you get past that hurdle, you'll need to clean it immediately after use, to get any of that junk out of there.

I don't use a HERMS system, so someone else that does, could chime in on it.

It's not a bad idea at all if it were something easy to clean and sanitize.

 

[fork]

Those are the same concerns that you have with a cfc or plate chiller. You need to sanitize it first, no big deal

 

[ChandlerBang]

I think I'm missing something in what FATC1TY said....
To the OP - My understanding of HERMS is you recirc the mash through the inside of a heat exchanger coil in the HLT to maintain mash temp. In this case you could add a couple valves and a bit of line to get your BK to that same heat exchanger. Just recirc for the last ten minutes of the boil with no water in the HLT to sanitize then kill the boil add water and ice and have at it.
Search around, I've read about guys doing this.

 

[Yooper]

Yes, you certainly can!

I did that with my system when I got it. Here's the thing, though- it took 42 pounds of ice in the HLT to chill 5 gallons of wort!

So I did it once. The idea for me getting a stand and pumps is to avoid the heavy lifting I was doing in the kitchen. Well, hauling 42 pounds of ice from the basement and filling the darn HLT with it wasn't something I enjoyed.

The cleaning/sanitizing is nothing. I mean, you run wort through it anyway when you run the HERMS so just run boiling wort through it to sanitize. When you're done, you clean it anyway, so it's no different than any CFC that way.

 

[FATC1TY]

Good deal. I learned something in this too.

Like I said, you could do it, I'd just think that you'd want to weight out the extra steps, and if it's less than what you do already, then try it out.

 

[the75]

Thank you everyone for the input. I couldn't figure out why more people weren't doing it, but I guess Yooper's point about the ice makes sense. I was actually thinking about just freezing a bunch of empty milk bottles with tap & utilizing those blocks of ice. I'll be whirlpooling as well, so not sure if that will make a big difference with cooling or not. I'm just really struggling with deciding on a chilling method. I've only used an immersion chiller so far. I was going to go with a plate chiller, but am worried about sanitation.

 

[tally350z]

I just tried mine for the first time last week to see if this was possible. I don't know how much Ice I used but it was a lot more than I could have anticipated. I just purchased a plate chiller and will use that next time.

 

[Thomsen1287]

What you could do is use it as a prechiller if you need one

 

[CJBrewVT]

I am having a hard time understanding why this wouldn't work as well as I think it should. (Perception is reality right?) Regardless of the device employed, they are all based around heat exchange. It should take the exact same amount of water in a plate chiller as a coil using water the same temp. But it seems real world tests suggest otherwise.

 

[aquenne]

see this thread
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f170/e-herms-chiller-322258/

 

[Yooper]

I am having a hard time understanding why this wouldn't work as well as I think it should. (Perception is reality right?) Regardless of the device employed, they are all based around heat exchange. It should take the exact same amount of water in a plate chiller as a coil using water the same temp. But it seems real world tests suggest otherwise.

Sure it would. But using a plate chiller has running water, while in the HLT the water is standing. So the ice melts, but the entire water bath gets warmer in the HLT. The whole counterflow/plate chiller concept works by cold water flowing in one direction while hot wort flows in the other, so the cold water sucks out the heat.

One of my friends calculated it out for me (love those engineers!) after I complained of using 42 pounds of ice to chill 5 gallons of wort. And he showed me that it takes like 40 pounds of ice, mathematically, to chill the wort.