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BrunDog said:
Yessir, they are sealed for submersion.
Click to expand...

Nice! Seems like a very effective solution to control mash temps and sparge temps with the same heater. I've always thought that the two functions were different enough to require two different solutions, but BruControl and this heating element looks like it will cover both very effectively!

On a side topic, any chance you are planning to offer your custom stainless wort chiller? Among my many upgrade wish list items is a counterflow wort chiller. With LODO pushing for the elimination of copper, I would like a good stainless option that doesn't clog easily, but there isn't much on the market. KegCo's Stainless CFC just isn't enough surface area to be effective. I would think there are many others out there that would like something like yours...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Fair question... I am waiting for some parts to upgrade (I hope its 'up') a few things on my rig: platform, volume sensors, and the custom chiller. It worked well enough in my initial tests, but I would like to run it for a real brew and see what it does. Since I live in FL, I need two stages: first one chill with flush water and second one chills with an ice bath. This is one pass to the fermenter. Currently I only need ~10 lbs ice for an ale and 20 for a lager to reach pitching temps into the fermenter. Since the new chiller is one piece, I will need to first chill back into the BK during whirlpool, then switch to ice bath on the way to the fermenter. Stay tuned!

BTW I didn't know that KegCo one existed. It looks to be a nice unit but agree that 12' isn't enough. I suppose you could run a few in parallel but that's painfully $$!
 
I hear you on the water temps. Mine are 50-55F year round so I don’t have the chilling challenges you have. I do plan to retire somewhere warm though, so a good chiller is worth getting.

On the flip side, that cold water isn’t so good for on demand sparging. 5500w isn’t enough to get to 170F unless it’s painfully slow. I could store it in jugs like you do, but my current process is to heat the water in my boil kettle and gently transfer the entire sparge volume into the top of the mash tun. I’ve done it like that for several brews now and my mash efficiency is the same as when I did traditional fly sparging.
 
True batch sparging pretty much as good as fly. A hair less efficient but who cares at the HB scale as grain is cheap.

At 1 qt/min, you can easily heat 50 deg F water to 170 with 5500W. Fly sparging certainly takes more time than batch, but 1 qt/min means 4 mins per gal, so 15-20 mins for a 5 gal batch. Then another bit of time for draining. So it’s around 35-40 mins for the total sparge which isn’t too bad. When automated it obviously has no real time impact. That time is gained back in other places like mashout, which takes about 4 minutes at 5500W.
 
swimIan said:
Do you have any anecdotal observations or empirical evidence from using the quadzilla?
Click to expand...

Great question. Here is a look at a test. With source water at around 78 degrees, at 1 qt/min, it required 56% power to heat to sparge temp of 170.
IMG_3673.jpg


I was able to get the output temp to about 200 degrees before seeing any local boiling at that flow rate, which is really good. And that’s without baffles - once those are added it would be better, but I don’t really think they are even necessary. Without baffles you can flow at full bore. I imagine they will slow the flow a bit, not that you need to flow that fast for brewing.

Here is the same test above at 90% power to get to 207 degrees.
IMG_3674.jpg


Hope that provides some clarity.
 
Also here is a look at the QZ and the standard LWD 5500W side by side. You can see the overall mass/surface are difference. I wrapped SS wire around the LWD a while back to improve turbulence and reduce local boiling which can occur even at sparge temps.

IMG_3678.jpg
 
BrunDog said:
True batch sparging pretty much as good as fly. A hair less efficient but who cares at the HB scale as grain is cheap.

At 1 qt/min, you can easily heat 50 deg F water to 170 with 5500W. Fly sparging certainly takes more time than batch, but 1 qt/min means 4 mins per gal, so 15-20 mins for a 5 gal batch. Then another bit of time for draining. So it’s around 35-40 mins for the total sparge which isn’t too bad. When automated it obviously has no real time impact. That time is gained back in other places like mashout, which takes about 4 minutes at 5500W.
Click to expand...

That’s assuming you are getting 100% efficiency on your heater. I’ve never been able to do that, but I also didn’t have a heater like you’ve come up with! I also think my hoses and piping are too long and I’m losing about two degrees through ambient losses when I recirc.

From the data you’ve shown,it looks like almost every btu (or watt, if you prefer metric) of that heater is going into the wort. Are you insulating the rims tube and piping?
 
As long as there is no local boiling (right off the element), long thin heaters submerged in liquid do transfer 100% of the heat. Else their temperature would keep climbing, causing local boiling at some point. Energy can’t just be stored there unless there is a temperature increase. So efficiency isn’t really a concern, no matter the element.

Now you have a valid point about insulation, tubing losses, etc. They do shed heat. It’s usually good to have some sort of draw on a control system else the PID tuning gets difficult and overshooting and instability are more easily induced. I don’t have any insulation on the tube but if it were cold it might be a worthwhile idea.
 
BrunDog said:
Also here is a look at the QZ and the standard LWD 5500W side by side. You can see the overall mass/surface are difference. I wrapped SS wire around the LWD a while back to improve turbulence and reduce local boiling which can occur even at sparge temps.

View attachment 566107
Click to expand...

Where are you placing your temp probe with the new element? The brewhardware runs tube is 18” and the temp port would be on the top middle, would this work?
 
Yes I use BrewHardware’s tube and would recommend it. I have an Auber TC cap probe that is about 1.5 inches in (guessing - would have to look it up). No changes with the new element.

They key, as always, is the have the probe extend below the exit port so the temp leaving is accurately measured. I do wish the side ports were closer to the ends on this tube to maximize this opportunity and heating effect, but it’s close enough to work.
 
BrunDog said:
As long as there is no local boiling (right off the element), long thin heaters submerged in liquid do transfer 100% of the heat. Else their temperature would keep climbing, causing local boiling at some point. Energy can’t just be stored there unless there is a temperature increase. So efficiency isn’t really a concern, no matter the element.
Click to expand...

Well...we are saying the same thing but I would argue that isn’t the whole story. Heat flows through different substances at different rates - thermal conductivity is how we define this for different substances. Physical state of the substance is a big part of that - heat moves well through a liquid but poorly through a vapor. Heat flows faster when the temperature difference is higher unless something changes to alter the thermal conductivity of the system.

So...heat is generated inside the heating element by resistive heating. That heat escapes the element at a rate which depends on the thermal conductivity of the metal and the surrounding fluid as well as the temperature difference between the two. The total surface area matters as well, since it provides more space for that heat to move through (this is why longer elements/plates/tubes are more effective).

As the heat is generated, the metal element warms up until the rate of heat leaving equals the rate of heat being generated. If that temperature gets too high, it causes film boiling, which really reduces the heat transfer, which causes the element to heat up even more.

As the metal gets hotter, the electrical resistance increases, which reduces the wattage of the element. Actual delivered power goes down as the metal element heats up. Measure the resistance of a heating element when it’s cold vs. hot and you will see a difference.

So...when I say heat exchange efficiency, I mean the rated power of your element vs. the actual heat transferred to your wort, which isn’t 100%. This also takes ambient losses into account, since that heat loss is part of the whole system.

Sorry about getting so deep in thermal dynamics; it’s all a fancy way of saying your heating element should be very good, since it spreads out the generated heat over a large surface area.
 
Sorry more questions: (I don’t think these are on your website)
What is the length of the heating surfaces?
How much space is in the center of the cartridge heaters?
 
swimIan said:
Sorry more questions: (I don’t think these are on your website)
What is the length of the heating surfaces?
How much space is in the center of the cartridge heaters?
Click to expand...

Good questions. I should have included the dimensions. The heaters are 380mm long from the TC cap inside surface and are 12mm diameter. I can’t easily define the space in between but they are in a 21mm diameter circle. Hope that helps.
 
No takers on the "let's squash three-vessel HERMs" talk. I'll bite [emoji3]. But first, I really like that heating element.

I'll go ahead and admit something that influences my take on the issue. I'm a believer in the impacts of oxygen on wort production. That means I pre-boil all my water to drive off oxygen and I underlet strike water into the MT. This is doable with two vessels if you don't sparge, and that is my current configuration. But one of the reasons I would like a three-vessel system is so that I can do back-to-back batches and so I can sparge easily if I wanted. The need to boil this water before usage would require me to have a third vessel for preparation.

Concerning direct heat of the wort, my current stance is to minimize the time the wort spends bring heated directly to minimize color pick up. I'll admit this stance is based on logic, or a hunch. I haven't done any tests to compare two batches between direct heat and heating with a tempered water system, nor have I attempted any calculations to compare heat flux numbers between direct heat and tempered water.

However, what I have found is that the traditional HERMs approach, heating a whole bunch of water to passively heat a whole bunch of water, doesn't make a lot of sense. Instead, I like the counter flow HERMs approach of using an external heat exchanger with copious surface area, coupled with just enough water in the HLT to cover the elements.

Some day I hope I can sit down with pen and paper and do some calculations on heat flux and density. It'll be a fun exercise.
 
Thanks brundog but I must give credit to "alphaomega" for the cartridge idea from his "budget rims build" thread using a small copper rims and 1000w element. I just built on that by going withlarger, longer (lower watt density) elements through a series of different ones till I found one that met my needs and wants.
That quadzilla element is pretty sweet definitely something I would consider for a future build.
 
@augiedoggy, thank you... properly crediting @alphaomega then!

Regarding @Wizard_of_Frobozz's comments ...
Many valid points and I agree with your assessment of thermal dynamics. The bottom line is this element system was created to not get "that hot" and be as gentle to wort as possible. At mash maintenance levels, it is a very incremental amount of heat (just offsetting the heat leakage of the system into the environment through the kettle, fittings, tubing, pump, etc.) Raising the temp of the wort ~1 degrees is all that is needed (at least in my ambient environment - colder would certainly need more).

Regarding @TexasWine's comments...
True regarding LODO. But I think the 2 vessel lends itself well to it actually. In fact, I will make this transition myself at some point. Boil and treat the water in the BK, then transfer it to the MLT via an underlet port. The boiled and treated remaining water for sparge, should you want to do it, would either need to be put in another vessel (though it need not be a kettle but should be O2 free) or just put the whole volume of water on top of the grain, which has proven to be nearly identical in terms of fly sparge efficiency (warmer, less dense liquid will not have inclination to mix so will rinse properly). Now, if you want to do B2B, you are correct that it would be difficult with 2VDS.

Regarding color pickup - I know nothing of the science so certainly can't add anything. I have heard boiling hard makes the wort darker. But with respect to mash heating, I am confident there is no difference to the wort between direct vs. HEX heating. The determining factors will only be differences in surface area and flow rate. To maintain system temperature, a certain amount of heat energy must be put back into the wort. That amount is indifferent to the heating system and is fixed. At a given flow rate, if you do that with a small surface area, which results in high heat density (flux), then you are raising a small volume of wort to a "much" higher temperature. If the density (flux) is low, then the volume of wort sees no significant temperature difference. So the only thing that matters is the surface area. Which becomes less important with increasing flow rates (and flow turbulence). But whether there is hot water or an electric coil on the other side of that tube makes absolutely no difference.

BTW if you know the general dimensions of your HEX, you can easily calculate the SA of it. Assuming it is a coil, quick google says SA=N*PI^2*D*d*sqrt(1+(P/PI*D))^2) where P=pitch, N=# turns, D=diameter of helix (center of the pipe), d=pipe outer diameter.
 
FWIW. Nearly all professional brewing systems (larger systems) are using steam which is much more gentle on the wort. Also professional literature states to heat no faster than 1c/min because of heat stress. TBI (thiobarbituric acid) is real and measurable, and most of if not all macros follow the guidelines quite strictly. TBI not only measures heat stress but the degradation of the quality of the wort. High TBI wort stales magnitudes faster then lower. Not to mention tastes worse as well. If you boil off more than 10%, or pick up more than ~1srm, you will be above TBI guidelines. But I digress, my comment is more about how HERMS is “generally” much more gentle on wort since you are using a super low density heating medium. Also due to HERMS nature husk material will not touch an element. Which can lead to a little more bitter product( decoctions are known to have this as well, which is why the kubessa method was developed ). I personally don’t like the small centralized heating that rims systems have. I can even pick up the TBI increase, well decrease in my case from going from a 5500ulwd element to a 3750 boil coil. The wort tastes better, is brighter and is more stable.

I ran a 2 vessel LODO HERMS for quite a bit, then went 3 and finally 4! So it can be done quite easily, but I find the traditional 3 vessel leaves the most options for brewing styles, and suites me personally the best.
 
Im going to point out the obvious fact that not all rims configurations are the same by a longshot. ( I suppose the same should be said about a herms)
When brewing 11 gallons of beer my mere 1800w 36" long rims element fires a max of 20% on time per second on my brucontrol my pid to maintain mash temps with my uninsulated tun... When I step mash its only raising temps 2 degrees per minute or so and being 5/8" in diameter and 36" long the watt density is likely very close to a herms in the surface and the fact that my element stays completely clean is an indication that its heating very gently.
As brundog also pointed out someone using an element like the quadzilla with brucontrol could easily dial down the max power in brucontrol and reduce the effective watt density for wort heating applications and turn it up to full power for heating water having superior flexibility and performance.
I am actually incorporating 2 28" long 2200w cartridge heaters on my 3bbl rims for the simple fact that the longer travel time and contact time translates into gentler consistent heating with less power but more efficiency and convenience than a herms.
 
I think you are asking if the heat will be pulsing, as in getting hot then cooling down. Electrically speaking the heat does turn on and off, but mechanically speaking the element holds a nearly consistent temperature since it has a lot of mass aka thermal mass.

If you still didn’t want to have this, you could use a proportional SSR, which BruControl supports, and get consistent but reduced percentage heating.

Is that what you meant?
 
One of the really great things about our hobby/passion/obsession is how there are many different ways to make good beer. HERMS, RIMS, BIAB, 3V (ok, maybe there are a few too many acronyms...) all can be used to great results. There is no one "right way" to do it.

Design really follows function, and each brewer has different needs/wants that affect design. Do you need a compact system that doesn't take up a lot of room? - BIAB is a good choice. Do you want the ability to do back to back sessions? - 3V works well for that.

I really love all the different solutions people have come up with - that diversity drives even more innovation and inspiration in others, and it's one of the things that makes this forum so powerful. BruControl is another one of those great innovations that has come out of this community. It allows you to build/control your system to do exactly what you want it to do, and fosters even more of that creativity.

Bru on! :D
 
Well then to the lab we go. I would like to see TBI levels of:

5500 watt ULWD
3700 watt boil coil
RIMS
HERMS

Against the constant Steam.

That would put all "hearsay" to rest (mine included).


Who's down!??!

I am (and have always been) in the pursuit of the best beer possible. The lowest TBI number gets my vote... whatever it may be!
 
I agree an experiment is worthwhile, and I love the science, just not sure how we would control this. Different systems by different brewers, with different ingredients and environments add a lot of variability. We would need to do pre-boil wort for sure.
 
Well, if you can design the experiment and constrain as much as possible, I am down for sending a sample of wort, mashed by the QuadZilla to a lab.

BTW I would not accept that steam alone is more gentle on wort. Steam can get downright hot - hundreds of degrees if you want. But the combo of stream and a large area (e.g. jacketed vessel) causes low heat density. Steam is also probably chosen for its transfer ability and other process considerations.
 
Yea its gonna be down right impossible to get reliable numbers from multiple samples across multiple brewers. You need some constants, like same system, and change 1 variable at a time, say heating source. Maybe I will pick up a rims tube, and a QZ and give it a go! I already have the 5500, 3750, herms, that would be the last piece.
 
Talking out loud some more... there has to be a threshold to where heat stress begins to become an issue and the TBI increases significantly. No doubt we are heating much less during mashing than during boiling. As @augiedoggy mentioned, the net power is about 200W max to maintain mash temps. Insulating the system could cause this to drop as well.

But in boiling, we put a lot more heat in. Prior to my condenser I needed 55% duty at 5500W to get the rolling soft boil. That’s 3000W net. Now I am down to less that 30% which is still 1600+ W.

This is way more impactful than the mash application. Perhaps we need to focus much more on the boil than the mash? What say you @Die_Beerery?
 
BrunDog said:
Talking out loud some more... there has to be a threshold to where heat stress begins to become an issue and the TBI increases significantly. No doubt we are heating much less during mashing than during boiling. As @augiedoggy mentioned, the net power is about 200W max to maintain mash temps. Insulating the system could cause this to drop as well.

But in boiling, we put a lot more heat in. Prior to my condenser I needed 55% duty at 5500W to get the rolling soft boil. That’s 3000W net. Now I am down to less that 30% which is still 1600+ W.

This is way more impactful than the mash application. Perhaps we need to focus much more on the boil than the mash? What say you @Die_Beerery?
Click to expand...

Oh god yea, your best bang for your buck is in the BK. However, since anytime wort is heated thermal stress is placed upon it and since beer is the sum of all parts it all matters. In fact here is where the single infuser no pump gravity folks whoop us. They have no heat stress or sheer stress from pumps. So they will have the least abused wort preboil. THAT should actually be the constant. Will it test lower, than ours for sure. Can we see or taste the difference, thats the question.

I was able to see/taste the difference quite easily when I went from a 5500 ULWD, to a 3750 boil coil that I run at 47%. So there is quantifiable data to be had.
 
How long are the power cables on this QuadZilla?


BrunDog said:
OK HBT,

Warning... this will be a controversial post! Opinions are mine - take with a grain of salt!

One of the home brewery configurations still used in new builds is HERMs to perform mash temperature control. Conceptually, it doesn't make much sense to me: in order to heat liquid, you need to first heat other liquid. Why not just heat the liquid you want and be done? I believe in the "old days", an HLT was needed to heat water, and that HLT required a power circuit (element, SSR, contactor, PID, wiring, plugs, etc.). 30A breweries cannot run multiple elements simultaneously, and since that HLT was already there, the builder could just re-use that power circuit, hence running the mash liquid back through the HLT volume via HERMs coils.

This is of course why RIMs was created - but RIMs gets a bad reputation. If the brewer wants to run one, they need an additional power circuit to the HLT one, which adds cost, complexity, etc. That's where high power RIMs can come in... a full-power RIMs element can replace the HLT altogether and serve the function of heating strike water, maintaining mash temp, mashing out, and direct heat sparging. My personal rig uses a 5500 W element in the RIMs tube and employs a high/low relay to adjust its power between 1350 and 5500 W. It uses full power for strike water heating, mashing out, and direct heat fly-sparging and low power for mash temp steps and maintenance. Low power is used to protect the mash from the evil but mostly mythical "scorching" devil. I think that a simpler implementation of this can be used: either via software or hardware, or both.

Using software: all PIDs I am aware of have an option to limit the PID maximum output of an element. Theoretically, capping the max output of the PID to 25% during mashing will serve the same net function as a high/low relay. This can be done manually, or in BruControl, can be changed on the fly with a script command (e.g. "RIMs" MaxOutput = 25).

But what about hardware? There is no doubt that a 5500 W straight LWD (Low Wattage Density) element at 120 watts per square inch does not offer the same scorching protection as a ULWD (Ultra Low Wattage Density) element. I have personally not had any scorching in 25+ brews using this element, having applied full power to wort during mash out. But understandably many would be apprehensive.

All this said, I think a two-vessel RIMs direct heat fly-sparge system (aka 2VDS) is the best possible configuration. The hardware, space, and cost of the HLT and HERMs hardware is eliminated, accessory hardware like valves and tubing is reduced, 3 vessel benefits such as efficiency and clear wort are maintained, mash steps occur quickly and accurately independent of batch size, the brew day is faster and simplified, and control panels are no more complex than HERMs. The only complexity to implementing direct heat fly-sparging is the need to fix the incoming water rate. Here is a simple flow diagram:

View attachment 566055

I am so convinced the world needs to move past HERMs, I am putting my money where my mouth is! I have had a custom RIMs tube element made, purpose suited for this application, which we are fondly calling "QuadZilla". This is a ULWD element assembly, especially made for high-power RIMs applications in brewing. The QuadZilla is an assembled four-pack of 304 stainless steel sheathed cartridge heaters welded in a 1.5" tri-clamp cap. Each heater provides 1375 W @ 240 VAC for a total power of 5500 W and the heat density is 61 watts per square inch (9.5 W/cm^2), which is equivalent to the 5500 W ripple elements used in home brew boil kettles. Now, brewers can build a RIMs tube and run it at full power without concern of scorching. Used vertically, there is no need for RIMs flow switches or flowmeters to halt power in case of a stuck mash. In addition, they can heat strike water, mashout, and direct heat fly-sparge very easily. See more here: http://brucontrol.com/buy/quadzilla/

View attachment 566056

I have no intentions of offending lovers of HERMs here - one of the great aspects of our hobby is the different ways we approach making beer. But I strongly feel it is time to advance past the ways of old, in the same way I believe automation greatly improves our beer. I look forward to a healthy discussion and hope many others will see the benefits of a 2VDS configuration and this RIMs element. Special thanks to @augiedoggy for the general concept of cartridge heaters in RIMs applications.
Click to expand...
 
Dang it! I thought I included all the specs. I will update the site... sorry!

Jacketed cables are 1 meter (~3 ft long). Thinking a junction box could be used to make it longer if needed. Otherwise, if you wanted longer, let us know and perhaps we can have one made to suit.
 
No worries!
Thanks for the length.
Now I just have to convince myself spending a bit more money to build a prettier RIMS tube than my stainless steel pipe version is worth it :).
 

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