Mediocre First Brew Day on the New E-HERMS Rig -- Could use some tips

[Blazinlow86]

My system is similar and I fall on the high flow recirc side of this discussion.
Is it possible that your tube between the false bottom and mlt output is getting crushed? I believe this was happening to me so I slid a short piece of 1/2" stainless tubing inside that tube and that seemed to help.

this could also be a issue and even more so if the grainbeds not flowing

 

[augiedoggy]

It's not pumping too fast your grainbed isnt flowing enough to keep up..... Don't overthink it. Not saying people aren't successfully making great beer throttling back there pumps but why settle for that if you don't have to. Mill looser next time and use rice hulls also if your using wheat. The whole reason I built my eherms system was not have to screw around with thing like stuck mash/sparge. It's supposed to be consistant and reliable

Why pump faster and have to use rice hulls every brew as a bandaid when theres no benefit? In what way am I "settling" There certainly isnt efficiency gains. Like I said I average 90% effeiciency with just 1.5 gpm this way. that was my whole point. He has a 12" false bottom, thats not a lot of surface area. the best thing he can do is slow the flow. granted with a lot of adjucts like wheat the rice hulls will still help but for a regular beer they really shouldnt be needed.

 

[augiedoggy]

this could also be a issue and even more so if the grainbeds not flowing

I believe your correct, and if your pulling hard enough to create the hydraulic effect compressing the false bottom there's a good chance your getting channeling too.

Think of how slow a coffee maker brews and liquid flows through the basket to extract the coffee from the grinds... Works pretty well right? I use a smaller pump with actual speed control vs throttling myself because it was cheaper but get the added benefit of less shear effect.
Well you dont need anything as slow as a coffee maker but my point is as long as its moving through the grainbed gently theres less sediment pushed so quickly to the bottom, the wort tends to travel more evenly when its not forced to find the fastest flowing channel through the bed and if temps are consistent this way which they will be unless your brewing outside in the dead of a blizzard you will find this will work better just as a filter works better with lower flow vs too much.

Ps if you can also start you recirulation REALLY slow and work up the speed over the first 5-10 mins by then the grain bed will be settled and it will allow more flow without as much chance as having as issue.

If you pump slower you get the benefit of crushing finer and not having to do things like condition and add rice hulls and in the end you get more efficiency with less work and headaches.

 

[ryanj]

If you pump slower you get the benefit of crushing finer and not having to do things like condition and add rice hulls and in the end you get more efficiency with less work and headaches.

Ultimately, this is what I'm doing next brew. It's not the only way, but it seems the best way given my setup (especially considering the size of my false bottom). I highly doubt that even if I crush at .050 and add rice hulls I'll be able to recirculate at full speed with my false bottom.

Keeping everything the same and pumping slower seems the best course of action. Oh...and letting the grain bed settle this time. This last batch I brewed, I mashed in, opened the valves and fired the pump on. It flowed great for the first 2-3 minutes.... then it didn't.

 

[Mindflux]

No u

 

[Blazinlow86]

Why pump faster and have to use rice hulls every brew as a bandaid when theres no benefit? In what way am I "settling" There certainly isnt efficiency gains. Like I said I average 90% effeiciency with just 1.5 gpm this way. that was my whole point. He has a 12" false bottom, thats not a lot of surface area. the best thing he can do is slow the flow. granted with a lot of adjucts like wheat the rice hulls will still help but for a regular beer they really shouldnt be needed.

This was in regards to the original posters setup not yours. He milled tight and due to his false bottom and grist his flow slowed to a trickle and caused him to have a "mediocre" brew day. Others confirmed they have the same issue. Others confirmed milling corse corrected it for them. While you may be happy with your process op wasn't and made the post looking for solutions. He's got nothing to loose milling courser and everything to gain unless all that was needed to turn a mediocre brew day to fantastic brew day was other people confirming there having the same issues. As far as bandaids go we will have to agree to disagree. If my recirculating system couldnt recirculate and required me always throttling the pumps I would consider that the bandaid. I understand in your specific situation you choose to deal with that to get better efficiency but i think the original poster needs to get a few great brewdays under his belt before worrying about saving a few dollars on grain. Cheers

 

[Blazinlow86]

Ultimately, this is what I'm doing next brew. It's not the only way, but it seems the best way given my setup (especially considering the size of my false bottom). I highly doubt that even if I crush at .050 and add rice hulls I'll be able to recirculate at full speed with my false bottom.

Keeping everything the same and pumping slower seems the best course of action. Oh...and letting the grain bed settle this time. This last batch I brewed, I mashed in, opened the valves and fired the pump on. It flowed great for the first 2-3 minutes.... then it didn't.

I give up...... Good luck with your setup. Hopefully doing everything the same works out better next time

 

[ryanj]

This was in regards to the original posters setup not yours. He milled tight and due to his false bottom and grist his flow slowed to a trickle and caused him to have a "mediocre" brew day. Others confirmed they have the same issue. Others confirmed milling corse corrected it for them. While you may be happy with your process op wasn't and made the post looking for solutions. He's got nothing to loose milling courser and everything to gain unless all that was needed to turn a mediocre brew day to fantastic brew day was other people confirming there having the same issues. As far as bandaids go we will have to agree to disagree. If my recirculating system couldnt recirculate and required me always throttling the pumps I would consider that the bandaid. I understand in your specific situation you choose to deal with that to get better efficiency but i think the original poster needs to get a few great brewdays under his belt before worrying about saving a few dollars on grain. Cheers

The point here is there's no ONE way to brew great beer. Your suggestion is absolutely correct. Many other people's suggestions are also correct. You either have to crush coarse to pump full speed or slow your pump down if you want to keep your current crush. Either would probably fix my problem...except... I have a 12" domed false bottom in a cooler. I am definitely limited by how well that can perform. It's another piece of the bigger puzzle that can't be forgotten.

Given ALL the variables in my setup, the easiest thing to change is to simply slow the pump down. I have yet to see any evidence that states "pumping faster = better beer!". If anything, pumping faster adds several requirements that I don't know my system can handle.

In the near future, I can see myself building a higher performing mash tun, but for now...with what I have to deal with...it's easier to just slow down the recirculation speed.

 

[Blazinlow86]

The point here is there's no ONE way to brew great beer. Your suggestion is absolutely correct. Many other people's suggestions are also correct. You either have to crush coarse to pump full speed or slow your pump down if you want to keep your current crush. Either would probably fix my problem...except... I have a 12" domed false bottom in a cooler. I am definitely limited by how well that can perform. It's another piece of the bigger puzzle that can't be forgotten.

Given ALL the variables in my setup, the easiest thing to change is to simply slow the pump down. I have yet to see any evidence that states "pumping faster = better beer!". If anything, pumping faster adds several requirements that I don't know my system can handle.

In the near future, I can see myself building a higher performing mash tun, but for now...with what I have to deal with...it's easier to just slow down the recirculation speed.

Ok last question. Why are you so hesitate to adjust your mill looser? If you have your own it literally takes 2 seconds. What do you have to loose? I can see settling if you get it milled and your lhbs won't adjust but otherwise it's mind boggling. Your correct you probably still won't be able to run full speeds but at least you won't have a compacted grain bed and a trickle flow. At that point you might as well not even use the herms system and have one less thing to clean. I doubt anyone will argue they would rather not be able to run a faster recirculation if possible.

 

[augiedoggy]

This was in regards to the original posters setup not yours. He milled tight and due to his false bottom and grist his flow slowed to a trickle and caused him to have a "mediocre" brew day. Others confirmed they have the same issue. Others confirmed milling corse corrected it for them. While you may be happy with your process op wasn't and made the post looking for solutions. He's got nothing to loose milling courser and everything to gain unless all that was needed to turn a mediocre brew day to fantastic brew day was other people confirming there having the same issues. As far as bandaids go we will have to agree to disagree. If my recirculating system couldnt recirculate and required me always throttling the pumps I would consider that the bandaid. I understand in your specific situation you choose to deal with that to get better efficiency but i think the original poster needs to get a few great brewdays under his belt before worrying about saving a few dollars on grain. Cheers

It would apply to any homebrewing recirculation setup with a false bottom .. I have a 15" wide false bottom on my 16 gallon non insulated mash tun and the low flow rate still has benefits
He do have efficiency to lose by milling courser! In general the larger your mill gap the lower the efficiency.

Again many others are trying to recirculate too quickly and dealing with the issues through work arounds because they think the quicker recirculation has some benefit... I ask WHAT benefit? Faster isnt better in this case. IT DOES NOTHING BETTER that the whole point! people are stuck on it because they use 5-7gpm pumps and feel if they have to choke them down they are doing something wrong but its just not true.

Sure they make great beer but they are doing a lot of stuff inefficiently and thet they simply dont have to including wasting more grain and rice hulls from the experimenting Ive done and what Ive learned

BTW if you go to my build thread in my signature you will find that I started with the same 12" false bottom in an igloo cooler and a herms before my setup evolved.
guess what? No rice hulls needed then either and Ive always set my mill gap with a credit card.

 

[augiedoggy]

Ok last question. Why are you so hesitate to adjust your mill looser? If you have your own it literally takes 2 seconds. What do you have to loose? I can see settling if you get it milled and your lhbs won't adjust but otherwise it's mind boggling. Your correct you probably still won't be able to run full speeds but at least you won't have a compacted grain bed and a trickle flow. At that point you might as well not even use the herms system and have one less thing to clean. I doubt anyone will argue they would rather not be able to run a faster recirculation if possible.

Efficiency! You lose efficiency. This is why so many people buy their own mill because their efficiency sucks when the local supply store crushes course to sell more grain and as a work around to people that would complain of stuck sparges.

 

[MX1]

@Blazinlow86

You know, maybe just changing one thing at time makes sense to him.

Changing the pump speed is a super simple change to achieve, then he can make a determination of the effect, and go from there.
Changing the gap on a mill is not that hard either, but it IS harder than adjusting a ball valve.

The OP has been given lots of options to help him out, it is up to him to choose where he thinks he will get the most bang for his buck, just because he is not re-setting his grain mill first does not mean that the idea does not have merit....unless of course, it has to be your way or the high way.......

 

[Blazinlow86]

It would apply to any homebrewing recirculation setup with a false bottom .. I have a 15" wide false bottom on my 16 gallon non insulated mash tun and the low flow rate still has benefits
He do have efficiency to lose by milling courser! In general the larger your mill gap the lower the efficiency.

Again many others are trying to recirculate too quickly and dealing with the issues through work arounds because they think the quicker recirculation has some benefit... I ask WHAT benefit? Faster isnt better in this case. IT DOES NOTHING BETTER that the whole point! people are stuck on it because they use 5-7gpm pumps and feel if they have to choke them down they are doing something wrong but its just not true.

Sure they make great beer but they are doing a lot of stuff inefficiently and thet they simply dont have to including wasting more grain and rice hulls from the experimenting Ive done and what Ive learned

BTW if you go to my build thread in my signature you will find that I started with the same 12" false bottom in an igloo cooler and a herms before my setup evolved.
guess what? No rice hulls needed then either and Ive always set my mill gap with a credit card.

So if you could run full speed you would still choose not too and if so how come? Op situation is different. His brew day was mediocre with a tricklef flow. I also started with the same false bottom and had the same issues with a compacted grain bed and inconsistent batches. After sorting that out I've made over 500 gallons of beer hitting my numbers dead on. Honestly I can't remember if I could ever run FULL speed with the domed bottom as I upgraded shortly afterwards but I definitely remember milling at .035 like I did on my non recirculating system and getting a compacted grain bed too. In my opinion repeatable consistent results are much more important than saving a few dollars on grain and having inconsistent results

 

[Blazinlow86]

@Blazinlow86

You know, maybe just changing one thing at time makes sense to him.

Changing the pump speed is a super simple change to achieve, then he can make a determination of the effect, and go from there.
Changing the gap on a mill is not that hard either, but it IS harder than adjusting a ball valve.

The OP has been given lots of options to help him out, it is up to him to choose where he thinks he will get the most bang for his buck, just because he is not re-setting his grain mill first does not mean that the idea does not have merit....unless of course, it has to be your way or the high way.......

He created a post specifically asking how to correct a slow flow on his Herms system. His solution is to continue flowing slow...... That's all I'm trying to say

 

[ryanj]

Changing the pump speed is a super simple change to achieve, then he can make a determination of the effect, and go from there.
Changing the gap on a mill is not that hard either, but it IS harder than adjusting a ball valve.

This.

 

[KevinP]

I ask WHAT benefit?

Temperature steps in less time?

0.75-3 gph recirc rates have been mentioned. With say 10 gallons in the tun, I can't wait 3 to 13 hours for my mlt to do a temperature change. So I run as fast as I can and it still takes 15-25 minutes to get to the next step.
I have the same false bottom.
I can't check my mill gap now but I do like to see flour and use rice hulls with anything other than just barley.
As I mentioned above, I would check that the hose isn't getting pinched inside the mlt. Also, as augiedoggy mentioned, the bed could be pressing the dome down to the point that the pickup fitting underneath gets pressed into the cooler floor.
Make sure the hardware isn't failing before adjusting process.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Seems this is turning into a pissing match between myself and the others with systems that can't run full speed. If doing nothing different next brew gives you the same results you had last time at least you know how to correct it. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink it. Cheers

 

[augiedoggy]

Temperature steps in less time?

0.75-3 gph recirc rates have been mentioned. With say 10 gallons in the tun, I can't wait 3 to 13 hours for my mlt to do a temperature change. So I run as fast as I can and it still takes 15-25 minutes to get to the next step.
I have the same false bottom.
I can't check my mill gap now but I do like to see flour and use rice hulls with anything other than just barley.
As I mentioned above, I would check that the hose isn't getting pinched inside the mlt. Also, as augiedoggy mentioned, the bed could be pressing the dome down to the point that the pickup fitting underneath gets pressed into the cooler floor.
Make sure the hardware isn't failing before adjusting process.

in the rare case smeone step mashes, (I do rarely)
it takes 5 minutes for all of my mash to recirculate through my rims once... because of the lower flow rate my longer rims is able to more evenly heat up the wort consistently with less power and I get about 2 degrees rise per minute according to the rims rtd (im not sure how but its what I get) the mash tun rtd lags behind that but at the same speed and that plenty for me anyway. mashout takes around 15 mins for me to accomplish with my little 1800w rims when brewing 11 gallons. (1.8gpm flow rate)I just recently started performing mashouts and that when my efficiency started consistently hitting 90% or higher.

 

[stickyfinger]

Seems this is turning into a pissing match between myself and the others with systems that can't run full speed. If doing nothing different next brew gives you the same results you had last time at least you know how to correct it. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink it. Cheers

you’re over the top my friend.

OP, let us know how it all goes and good luck.

 

[ryanj]

If doing nothing different next brew gives you the same results you had last time at least you know how to correct it.

Slowing down a pump is not "doing nothing".

 

[augiedoggy]

Seems this is turning into a pissing match between myself and the others with systems that can't run full speed. If doing nothing different next brew gives you the same results you had last time at least you know how to correct it. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink it. Cheers

I really dont understand what your problem is? if something works just as well or better and has other benefits over something else it sould be mentioned ,suggested and shared.. your the one whos appears to to have the issue with even discussing anyone doing things differently than you.. relax no one is telling you you have to change anything you do. stop telling us what we do is wrong. Ive tried it your way .. maybe you should keep an open mind and try ours before getting all worked up

 

[Smellyglove]

Why has this thread gotten so long?

OP said that he'll do some things differently next time. 1) Not run the pump right after mashing in and 2) slow the flow.

Both are good choices.

He need to dial things in, starting with simple solutions at the other end of "full bore".
He needs to find his upper limit for the flow with a decent crush. Imo this is the way to go, so he also can get a sense of how the maltbed feels when it's not compacting vs when it starts to compact. Then he can play with the crush to get a good flow and a good efficienc, because he has educated himself into being able to detect when things are going stuck, and which variable does what, from this point on it's about improving. But he needs to start a place where he can go through a brewday without getting stuck.

I read people saying that he needs to mill coarser. The gap is as important as the speed of the milling. To me the pics of the crush some posts above seemed very coarse, lots of hulls which is fine, but coarse, more like "cracked" so the efficiency with a standard 60min mash can maybe be less than if he crushed finer, but also slower, as a slow crush will keep the hulls more intact, but also crushing the interior of the grains finer, which will yield a higher efficiency. It's all variables which has to line up for his particular system. And he need to figure out one at a time.

I'm crushing my grains on a maltman 150 by Sommer. It can easily crush my stuff in 30 seconds, but I rather use the 5-6-7-8 minutes I use for a normalt batch because that's the optimal crush for me when it comes to flow and efficiency. some flour, well crushed starch, and lots of intact "half-husks".

 

[doug293cz]

Ok folks, OP has been given multiple options and opinions on how to address his problem. Everyone has had a chance to make their arguments based on what they think is best. The on-going back and forth isn't adding anything to the discussion, so I am going to lock this thread for now. I will try to remember to reopen it in a week or so, so that OP can report on progress. @ryanj if I forget to reopen the thread (high probability) PM me when you have something new you'd like to report.

doug293cz
HBT Moderator

 

[ryanj]

Results are in from my second brew day on the new rig:

1. I swapped my silicone sparge hose for a Locline adjustable hose assembly: http://a.co/7WsAFUg and it worked great. No more fighting the hose to stay in place. It really came in handy as I was fly sparging. Because it doesn't move, I was able to monitor the water level and ensure the grain bed was covered in 1-2" of water throughout the whole sparge process.
2. I decided to move the RTD sensor to my lid bulkhead (where the wort re-enters the mash tun after going through the HERMS coil). Because I'm mashing in an insulated cooler, I'm sure the temp difference is negligible, but I actually preferred monitoring the temp entering the MT.
3. After mashing in, I let the grain bed set for a few minutes while I added some cold water to my HLT to bring the temps down. I'll admit, I didn't do this on my last batch and wound up rushing it -- I think that added to my problems. Also, I decided that after dough in, I wasn't going to stir my mash anymore and just see what happens.
4. I kept the .035 mill setting and simply dialed my pump back to 1/3-1/2. It worked perfectly and still had plenty of flow to spin my mash water. The mash temperature held like a ROCK throughout the whole mash process. It was amazing.

I wound up getting the best efficiency I've ever gotten on any batch, and for the first time ever, I overshot my OG. I was brewing this Saison: http://brewgr.com/recipe/43448/blazing-saison-recipe?public=true and wound up with a pre-boil gravity of 1.042 at 8.3 gallons. Then, when it was all said and done, 1.063 at 5.5 gallons into the fermenter.

I still have a few kinks to work out with this new system -- apparently the TC flange I soldered on my HLT has a hairline crack somewhere in the solder. I tried adding more flux/solder a while back and thought I fixed it, but I think I just need to remove it and resolder it properly. Also, even though I'm recirculating throughout the whole mash process, for some reason when I went to fly sparge, I observed some grain material making it's way to the boil kettle. It wasn't a lot of material, but still... I never disturbed the grain bed, so I thought it was odd.

I wanted to thank everyone for all of their feedback, tips, and suggestions -- I felt like I was on top of the world yesterday. I'm so excited to have this system dialed in now.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Congrats. Cheers