Brewtality 2

[Retarded_Penguin_Brewing]

uh oh.............zombie thread! since it's here I actually got a question. Couevas, you've got a setup similar to what I'm putting together and was curious how the "manual" part of your system is working out for you? I see mixed reactions on a manual herms so I was kind of curious about first hand experience. also, are you continually recirculating the entire mash time or do you just recirculate only when it drops to a certain temp? one more question as well, what temp do you have to keep your water at to maintain mash temp? thanks in advance dude!

 

[slakwhere]

+1 on interest of your manual HERMS. =)

 

[Bigscience]

+1 on interest of your manual HERMS. =)

So I do a manual HERMS and it works ok. I keep the HEX a few degrees hotter than I want the mash. I also have a coil bypass so I can control the flow through the coil. Balancing the flow to hold the temp isn't that hard to do.

My only issue with the HLT HEX is getting the large volume of water up to temp after strike and I add more water. Other than that it works fine. I should also mention that I'm building a dedicated 5 gal electric PID HEX and going away from the HLT coil.

 

[slakwhere]

can you post a pic of how your coil bypass works?

i tried manual herms but got really caught up in the idea of leaving water in the coil when the pump wasn't running/circulating... i now realize it's a very small volume that's exposed to the coil and i shouldn't fret, but constant recirc of the mash sounds like it would be cool to do, and the switch from coil to just recirc would make it so that i could leave the pump running and just control weather or not it goes through the coil.

 

[Bigscience]

can you post a pic of how your coil bypass works?

i tried manual herms but got really caught up in the idea of leaving water in the coil when the pump wasn't running/circulating... i now realize it's a very small volume that's exposed to the coil and i shouldn't fret, but constant recirc of the mash sounds like it would be cool to do, and the switch from coil to just recirc would make it so that i could leave the pump running and just control weather or not it goes through the coil.

I'm out of town now but will post a picture when I get back. For now I can tell you what I have. There is a valve at the input of the coil used to control the flow into the coil. Before that there is a tee that has another bypass valve and the pump output. The bypass valve goes to a tee that is on the output side of the coil via a short length of tube. If the mash temp is low, I'll flow fully through the coil. To maintain the temp, I'll balance the flow between the coil and the bypass. I should also mention there is a thermometer before the return.