herms question

[mwawrzyniec]

Is there a distinct advantage to circulating the wort through the hot instead of recirculation hot water through a coil in the mash tun?

 

[jekeane]

Yes. As you were circulate the water from the mash through the coil you are recirculating the entire volume of water therefore evenly distributing your heat. If you just ran a coil through your mash you would unevenly heat the grain closest to the coil would be x temp while the grain near the kettle walls would be another cooler temp.

Also cleaning a herms could that say it
You mash would get old quick.

 

[jrcrilly]

He is right. If you aren't going to recirculate the wort you may as well skip the heat exchanger and use a blanket instead. The heat exchanger is there to compensate for heat loss due to recirculation. If you don't recirculate, you don't need the HEX - but you are losing out on the benefits of wort recirculation. More even wort temperatures, as mentioned above, is a big one. It is worth adding the HEX to just gain that feature.

 

[mwawrzyniec]

The concept came from commercial setups whith jacketed mash tuns. A boiler is not feasable but having the heat exchanger in the mash tun seemed like a viable alternative for the smaller scale.

 

[mwawrzyniec]

I guess the question I should be asking is: if you were designing a 4bbl mash tun, what would you pick for the temperature regulation. For my home brew setup I currently use a rims tube with a heating element, a wireless micro controller and a pid algorithm. I'm just not convinced with the scalability of the setup.

 

[jmark]

With a 4 bbl mash tun, you don't really need much temp regulation as the thermal mass should keep that mash stable for the entire mash cycle.

 

[day_trippr]

The concept came from commercial setups whith jacketed mash tuns. A boiler is not feasable but having the heat exchanger in the mash tun seemed like a viable alternative for the smaller scale.

Don't those jacketed mash tuns come with rake systems?

The problem is the same as using an immersion chiller: if you just leave the hot wort sitting there it'll take forever to cool, but if you stir it the time can be literally minutes.

Gotta have the wort in motion one way or the other...

Cheers!

 

[mwawrzyniec]

My goal is to have a rake and a plow with a front access door for cleaning.