EHERMS system with upside down keggles?

[bagpiperjosh]

does anyone run a EHERMS system with upside down keggles with the bottom drain? the reason i ask is because when you have the bottom drain, you need a 10"ss nipple to bring the ball valve out far enough. My concern would be that once the temp sensor is installed after the ball valve, it brings it pretty far away from the keggle (over 10 inches) i'm concerned on what effect that would have on the accuracy of the temperature of the HLT and MLT.

thanks!

 

[drkwoods]

I have all bottom drains on my propane HERMS vessels. But I remedy that problem with dedicated temp probe ports.. its pretty easy to "swage" a SS coupler in and add an adapter

 

[P-J]

???

Mount the temp probe in the side wall of the keg. It will read very accurately and your temp loss will be minimal in the run as long as the flow is reasonable.

 

[bagpiperjosh]

then why do people T them into the lines after the ball valves and such?

 

[forcabrew]

I'm in the middle of my build and what I did is installed a 4 inch rtd probe to the tee fitting of my brewhardware sightglass on my HLT. I'm only using one rtd as in using a single auber pid control box wiring diagram that PJ was nice enough to help me out with. The 2 inch rtd probe would be too short to hookup through the sightglass tee

 

[P-J]

then why do people I them into the lines after the ball valves and such?

Beats the hell out of me. I firmly believe it is way over kill.

In a recirc system, you will only lose a degree or 2 at the most in recirculation with a Herms.

(Unless I've totally mis-reading and the understanding of your mission. - IF so, I'm sorry for intruding. I should know better and will further reframe from now on..)

P-J

 

[bagpiperjosh]

Beats the hell out of me. I firmly believe it is way over kill.

In a recirc system, you will only lose a degree or 2 at the most in recirculation with a Herms.

(Unless I've totally mis-reading and the understanding of your mission. - IF so, I'm sorry for intruding. I should know better and will further reframe from now on..)

P-J

no, thats what i plan to do. yea it would be way simpler to install it into a sight glass or just do a weldless fitting on the side of the keggle. if it will work fine, i guess ill just do that

( i would like to have it all weldless fittings because i don't have a means of SS welding)

 

[P-J]

...
( i would like to have it all weldless fittings because i don't have a means of SS welding)

Just a side bit of info. You do not need to weld SS. Here is a really long thread that is well worth the read from beginning to end:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/soldering-stainless-steel-155782/#post1793589

It is absolutely amazing what you can accomplish with this method. Been doing it for many years myself.

Oh, and absolutely nothing against weldless either. It is a great method.

 

[drkwoods]

Just a side bit of info. You do not need to weld SS. Here is a really long thread that is well worth the read from beginning to end:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/soldering-stainless-steel-155782/#post1793589

It is absolutely amazing what you can accomplish with this method. Been doing it for many years myself.

Oh, and absolutely nothing against weldless either. It is a great method.

That's the exact method I used and it literally works amazing!

 

[Bobby_M]

There's a good chance the probe placement in question is on the outlet of a HERMS coil which would appear like a tee hanging off a ball valve.

 

[bagpiperjosh]

There's a good chance the probe placement in question is on the outlet of a HERMS coil which would appear like a tee hanging off a ball valve.

so there isn't one in the bottom drain of a mash tun then? or is that mounted somewhere in the middle of the keggle?

 

[bagpiperjosh]

Bump

 

[Bobby_M]

I don't see a huge benefit in monitoring the temp of the MLT wort outflow vs. having a probe pierced into the gut of the mash for "average" temp monitoring. I suppose either one will give you an idea of what temp the mash is. Perhaps the one benefit of sampling the outflow is that the probe doesn't get in the way of the mash paddle.

I've seen plenty of RIMS and HERMS rigs that don't even have a permanent mash temp probe. Once you learn your system's heat losses, you'll know how hot the HEX output needs to be to maintain a certain average mash temp. This can be discovered by using a handheld digital thermo in the learning process.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having that extra temp display in a robust, slightly overbuilt control panel if you're not trying to cut the budget.

The easiest way to implement it that I can figure is to put a Tee on the bottom drain such that the "tap" side of the tee is facing up, the RTD or thermocouple is threaded into the back of the tee, and the front of the tee leads to the front of your rig into the ball valve. IOW, it doesn't have to be cumbersome and sticking out of your rig.

 

[bagpiperjosh]

I don't see a huge benefit in monitoring the temp of the MLT wort outflow vs. having a probe pierced into the gut of the mash for "average" temp monitoring. I suppose either one will give you an idea of what temp the mash is. Perhaps the one benefit of sampling the outflow is that the probe doesn't get in the way of the mash paddle.

I've seen plenty of RIMS and HERMS rigs that don't even have a permanent mash temp probe. Once you learn your system's heat losses, you'll know how hot the HEX output needs to be to maintain a certain average mash temp. This can be discovered by using a handheld digital thermo in the learning process.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having that extra temp display in a robust, slightly overbuilt control panel if you're not trying to cut the budget.

The easiest way to implement it that I can figure is to put a Tee on the bottom drain such that the "tap" side of the tee is facing up, the RTD or thermocouple is threaded into the back of the tee, and the front of the tee leads to the front of your rig into the ball valve. IOW, it doesn't have to be cumbersome and sticking out of your rig.

That sounds reasonable enough. I'd rather start small with my eherms just to keep the prices low, then have the room later on to add the other stuff.