eHLT: Recirulation Pump or Stir Motor?

[mikeal]

What about this motor? It looks small, but it is 115V, .43 amps and 220 rpm. The shaft is only 1/2" long, but at $4.99 I'll figure out a way to jam a coupler on there.

 

[adam01]

220 RPM is 3.6 revolutions per second - quite quick.

When I was looking at these motors, I was looking at under 100rpm.
I ended up picking a ice cream maker and using that motor and the paddle.
It does a fine job of stirring the water. I had barley grains in the water and could
see where the water was being mixed.

 

[Maltose]

Anyone have suggestions on a gear motor and propeller to agitate a 30 gallon HERMS HLT?

 

[P-J]

Anyone have suggestions on a gear motor and propeller to agitate a 30 gallon HERMS HLT?

I'd strongly suggest this motor:
63 RPM Rotation CCW, Torque 10 lb-in

It is fairly cheap and will do the job very well. You just need to fabricate a prop to do the job.

This is what I did. Yea, a little over kill, but...

 

[AnOldUR]

P-J, I've been thinking about upgrading my stirrer. I don't see a capacitor in the pictures of your installation. I use a different gear motor that calls for one, but will start without it. Is that the case with yours? It would be a cleaner set-up without it.

 

[P-J]

The motor I referenced does require a capacitor (it ships with the motor). The cap must be wired as it provides the motor start torque and sets the direction of rotation.

 

[Windsors]

I was all set to use a stirrer for my HLT.

But then, I found a 2.5 gallon SS heat exchanger with a 25 ft SS coil on the inside of it. So I added a heating element to the bottom that sticks up vertically. I recirculate the HLT through the cylinder and the mash through the coil. I turn the element on and off with a PID connected to a RTD measuring the mash temp.

It's a combo RIMS / Herms unit. I realize this is getting off topic, but my point is that I ended up going with a pump that recirculates the HLT water and it serves another purpose. Other than water testing the system, I have not finished it yet to brew after these changes.

Now the off topic part....I was using the a conventional HERMS coil in the HLT, but I think this will be more efficient since I am only heating a small amount of water to transfer heat to the wort instead of heating up the entire HLT water.

In my older HERMS system, when I heated up the HLT water to keep the mash temps where they needed to be, I was heating up the entire HLT to temps that were higher than what I wanted for sparging, so I had to cool the HLT water before sparging and it was pretty inefficient. I have always liked the herms system since i never wanted to deal with the potential to scorch the wort.

Any thoughts ? I will be glad to start a separate post if the OP would like.

Bill

 

[Rbeckett]

PJ,
I know this is a nold thread, but I have been doing research and came across this thread. I like the propeller on a gear motor idea. How close does it come to your chiller coil? Just trying to figure out the optimum clearance. Thanks.
Bob

 

[Rbeckett]

Bill,
I would like to see the pics of your hybrid unit. Please start a new thread and show us you design. I am gathering gear and info so I would like to consider as many alternatives as possible before spending my hard earned dollars. Thanks for a great idea, but please put up some pics.
Bob

 

[P-J]

PJ,
I know this is a nold thread, but I have been doing research and came across this thread. I like the propeller on a gear motor idea. How close does it come to your chiller coil? Just trying to figure out the optimum clearance. Thanks.
Bob

It's about 3/4" on each side.

 

[haeffnkr]

The motor I referenced does require a capacitor (it ships with the motor). The cap must be wired as it provides the motor start torque and sets the direction of rotation.

Hi Pj,
I just received the motor you used.
Is the capacitor inside the motor? I assume not?

I did not receive a capacitor with the motor thus I am not sure how to wire this.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks Kevin

 

[P-J]

Hi Pj,
I just received the motor you used.
Is the capacitor inside the motor? I assume not?

I did not receive a capacitor with the motor thus I am not sure how to wire this.

Any help would be appreciated.

thanks Kevin

Kevin,

The capacitor should have shipped with the motor. You might want to contact the vendor (Herbach & Rademan) and ask them about it. The other option is to buy one locally. It is 5 MFD - 370V cap. Also, there is a wiring diagram on the motor label.

I hope this helps you.

P-J

 

[myhotrod]

P-J what keeps your top from turning when the motor is on? What Are you using for your shaft that goes on the motor and the propeller.

 

[haeffnkr]

Hi,
I am not PJ but here is what I just came up with for this motor.

I welded a short 1/2" iron nipple to one of the gears that came with the motor.
Then I used a copper for the rest and screwed the 2 together.
1/2 copper female - 1/2 pipe adapter, then a short piece of pipe then made a propeller contraption from a old cheap stainless bowl.
I cut it out with a tin snips and soldered it to the pipe.

I just sat the motor on a piece of plywood with some holes in it for the mounting bolts and shaft... not even bolted tight.
I just hand tightened the copper shaft to the motor assembly for easy cleaning ... it ran for an hour and did not fall off or get loose.

My efficiency went up 3% also.

It worked GREAT.
My ebiab setup never worked better than today.
FINALLY no stratification... my temps were the same all through out my kettle.

thanks PJ for posting this !!!

enjoy the pics

 

[P-J]

???
Just plain - excellent & very well done.
Congrats.

P-J

 

[nealm]

It would seem from the above posts that the answer to the OP original question is that most people prefer a stirring motor to a recirculating pump. The question is why. Better control, cheaper to implement, easier to implement or none /all of the above?

 

[sennister]

It would seem from the above posts that the answer to the OP original question is that most people prefer a stirring motor to a recirculating pump. The question is why. Better control, cheaper to implement, easier to implement or none /all of the above?

You are right that the original question is which is better. One of the earlier posts mentioned that he lost a few degrees while the water went from the output on the HLT to the pump and back to the top of the HLT. Of course if you used a stir motor like what P-J uses and the others, the water never leaves the tank and if insulated you may find that it holds the temp better and requires less heat to be applied.

For the money $20-30 you have the stir motor that P-J did or if you want a pump you could go with one of those cheap solar pumps. I was thinking about a solar pump or saying the heck with it an getting another March or Chugger pump. The more I look at what P-J did I am now looking at a stir pump. The stir pump can be controlled from my panel just like a traditional pump. The benefit is that you don't have the heat loss in the lines and pump with that route.

I need to sit down with my drawings and notes again to go over my process. If there is a stage where you need two pumps to accomplish what you want, that makes the stir motor less appealing as you need two pumps anyhow. If the second pump in your process was only for HLT re-circulation then maybe you are better off with a stir motor.

 

[ryanhope]

It seems to have been skipped over by most of you but I think the idea of agitating the water at the bottom of the HLT with air bubbles from an aquarium pump to be pretty ingenious and cheap.

 

[PLOVE]

I use a recirc pump with HERMS and like it a lot. I continuously recirc throughout mashing, measure the temp of the returning wort, and use this temp to regulate HLT temp.

An added advantage of recirc over stirring is you get a very nice vorlauf. The result is very clear wort that after hot break contributes very little trub. I save yeast from most batches and don't even bothering with yeast washing. There's very little post ferm trub to worry about.

PLOVE

 

[sennister]

I use a recirc pump with HERMS and like it a lot. I continuously recirc throughout mashing, measure the temp of the returning wort, and use this temp to regulate HLT temp.

An added advantage of recirc over stirring is you get a very nice vorlauf. The result is very clear wort that after hot break contributes very little trub. I save yeast from most batches and don't even bothering with yeast washing. There's very little post ferm trub to worry about.

PLOVE

I think you misread what is being discussed. I would imagine that everyone doing either a HERMS configuration would be using a pump to recirculate the wort as you mentioned. This isn't where the stir motor is being used. It is a discussion on the best way to keep the water in the HLT not the wort, agitated via bubbles, stirring or pumping (with a 2nd pump). The idea behind this is if you don't agitate the water in the HLT that temperature variations in the water of the HLT can develop. By creating movement of this HLT water, it creates a more uniform heat of all water in the HLT and what is being transferred to the wort as it is being recirculated through the coils of the HLT.

So it is more a question of is it better to add a second pump for this, a stir motor or some other means of agitating the water.