HLT DIY stirrer

[Humuleneman]

I am working on a stirrer to keep the temperature even in my HLT. Im planing on a e HERMS setup. My dual copper coil has an inside diameter of about 7 inch. So that gives me enought space to put in a water stirrer. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1458617455.857741.jpg ive use a geared DC motor from ebay. A 400 rpm one. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1458617535.175324.jpg. There was six little treaded holes on the top. Some HDD screws did just fine in there. I cutted a round plate that was just big enought to stand in the middle of a 2" ABS coupler. After drilling and securing the motor in place i used a 6mm to 8 mm aluminum coupler to attach a stainless steel lab stirrer. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1458617848.771846.jpg. All is left is to solder some wires and use some 2" ABS pipes and caps to attach it to my HLT cover . View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1458617968.194209.jpg. The only questions left are if i need to silicone every screws to keep this water tight or if i enclose the motor in a ABS tube will some holes be needed to dissipate the heat? Getting close to my first brewday!

 

[dmcman73]

Why not just recirculate the water? That's what I do and the water stays evenly heated. I pump from the drain port up to a circulation port that's at the top of the kettle so the hot water mixes in with the cold water at the top.

 

[dmcman73]

Also, just a suggestion, for your HERMS coil, you should have the ports over and under. The top port wold be the inlet the bottom the outlet, it helps with draining. The way you have it now, you'll need to turn the kettle upside down and on its side in order to get all that water/wort out of the coil.

You can reuse one top port for the re-circulation port and punch another hole in the kettle right below the HERMS inlet

EDIT: I just looked at the picture again and you would need to redo your coil as well in order to get proper draining. The coil should descend from top port to bottom. Since you made a double coil it loks like in the picture that it descends but then ascends again to get to the top port. To me, that just looks like a draining nightmare. Immersion Chillers with that same design need to be rotated around in order to drain fresh clean water out of it properly.

EDIT 2: If you have an air compressor, you could use that to blow all liquid out of coil if you'd like to keep it as is.

 

[Humuleneman]

Why not just recirculate the water? That's what I do and the water stays evenly heated. I pump from the drain port up to a circulation port that's at the top of the kettle so the hot water mixes in with the cold water at the top.

The basic idea was that i only have one pump. I'm planning on getting a second one. For the recirculation and the sparging of my grain.

 

[Humuleneman]

Thanks for the suggestions. The stirrer was made because i only have one pump. For the HERMS coil. You are probably right for the nightmare! After the build i was holding my head thinking about it. The double coil was to minimize the space of a 50' copper tube. In the end im starting to see the additionnal problem that this desing will give me. I was thinking of pushing my sparge water through the coil to get the wort out. For the draining i'm aiming for a compressor as you said or a shop vac. I also have a small venturi lab vacuum hooked to my sink. I will try some of those and if the pain is too deep! Il consider to change the coil configuration.