Dear Double_D , i like the look and simplicity of your copper coil. If i may return your question !! How long is your coil? And is this 1/2 OD? Do you get quick mash heating if you need to bring up temperature really fast? What is you element wattage? Thanks again.
It is half inch OD. It's only 25' long though.
I was talking to the owner of my LHBS regarding wort chillers and all that. He referenced surface area vs distance as his reason for a 25' chiller (he told me where he read it but that was years ago). What he said was that the liquid has already come up to temperature within the first 15 - 20 feet so the extra length is superfluous. The only way to increase cooling is through put of liquid or increase surface area. Herms is basically a chiller in reverse. We were also talking about 3/8" vs 1/2". With a march pump there is no way to increase throughput plus, you wouldn't want to draw wort too fast or you could compact the mash. At least that's what they say... never had that specific problem. Stuck sparge from rye and corn yes but that's a separate conversation.
Originally, i had 50' of stainless because I thought that was what Kal had done. Sadly, recoiling it was a nightmare and I kinked it. In several places. So.... I went with my local guy and it has been amazing.
I have a 25 gallon HLT from brewers hardware (the pot and fittings). I recoiled the herms around a standard 15.5 gallon keg. Obviously I haven't done any actual testing regarding the effects of 50 vs 25 but the math sounded good.
As far as mash heating is concerned, I've found it's more dependent on the temp in the HLT. The closer it is to my actual mash temp the slower it is to reach a higher temp. I want to say going from 150 to a mash out at 168 probably takes 20-30 minutes, depending on what I have in my mash tun. I usually start heating my HLT up about the last 15 minutes of my mash so it's ready to go. I haven't run into a situation that heating really fast was necessary. I've been trusting beersmith with my mash temp calculations for a long time. I did find out that it's always 5 degrees off though and I can't figure out where to compensate for that but not really a big deal.
4500 watt elements are what I'm using. I figured if it really bothered me I could just pull them out and replace them. The elements are easy enough to rebuild. I couldn't find the 5500 watt Ripp elements locally and I got impatient.
Here's my set up.