How many people use a Keggle for HLT/HERMS for 10gallon batches?

[biggrizzly]

I just finished adding a Beautiful HERMS coil to my HLT keggle. A buddy says it won't be enough volume for bigger beers. What did I forget?
I normally do ten gallons batch sparge and heat the sparge water during the mash.

So, I guess what my friend is saying is that I need the whole volume in the HLT to properly recirculate and sparge?

 

[milldoggy]

Pollycock! I used a keggle BK and keggle hlt, but do use a 20 gallon mash tun. You may not be able to do 10 gallons of a barely wine, but you should be good for most beers.

Btw, I add my strike water to my Mlt and sparge water to my hlt and heat my strike through the herms loop. Typically 9-10 gallons in mlt, rest in hlt. I like 1.5-1.75 ratio for my mash.

 

[day_trippr]

You do want to keep the hex fully submerged when recirculating the mash, but once you start sparging you won't be recirculating, so you can literally empty the HLT to make your pre-boil volume if necessary.

If the friend was concerned about total hot liquor volume for a 10 gallon batch, you could heat the strike water in the BK...

Cheers!

 

[jcav]

I do the same as Milldoggy and heat my strike water in my mash tun at the same time as I heat my water in the HLT, through the herms coil. Trippr is correct also, I fill my HLT and cover my herms coil, and empty as I sparge. Works great! You will be fine! Many do it this way.

John

 

[Yooper]

The only issue I have with my 3 keg system is that the HLT holds a max of about 13 gallons, with the HERMS coil in there and the electric element. Most batches need 15 gallons of water to start. It wouldn't be an issue at all if I didn't use RO water, but it means drawing a couple of gallons into another vessel to refill the HLT when I pump some of the strike water into the MLT.

Adding two gallons to the HLT will lower the temperature in the HLT, so I try to do it as soon as I pump the strike water to the MLT. Then I set my PID to 156 (4 degrees above mash temp generally), and sometimes it works well. Other times, I have to wait until the water in the HLT gets up to 156 before starting the recirculation.

 

[biggrizzly]

I had to upload the obligatory bling photos!

 

[Dcpcooks]

13 gallons should be plenty for sparge volume on 10 gallon batches. Huge grain bills might push your capacity to limits but should be doable