New 10 Gallon Herms! Pics!

[Mirage]

I was thinking too, if you live in CT, I have some PT 2x10 from when I built my deck that you can have. Not sure what the diameter of your coolers are, but maybe that would work. That stuff lasts a LONG time.

 

[The Pol]

I live in IN... I could get some pressure treated lumber or something, but if I am going to make it better, I want to get what I WANT, which is the plastic sheeting.

As for the HLT "timer"... the heating element is actually connected to the JC A419 temp controller, so I just set it for 165F and then run to my LHBS and buy my ingredients after breakfast, when I get home, it is up to temp and the controller has the heating element off. Transfer 4.5 gallons to my MLT, dough in (drop a couple ice cubes in the HLT to get my HLT down to say 155F) and start the recirc. It should be pretty sweet... I am looking for more repeatability and more precise control of my mash environment.

I am glad that I have sparked an interest in some of you to go thise route too, it is pretty easy and I think will add more repeatability in my brewing.

 

[The Pol]

FOUND my solution for my water stirrer... it is not cheap, but it will work well. McMaster has an AC geared motor that turns at 100rpm... it is fan cooled, so it should hold up. The shaft DIA is .3125", I also found a mixing impeller that is 2.5" in dia, plenty long, and it has a .3125" shaft... I will attach the two with a shaft coupling that has a .3125" ID and JB weld them together. Hopefully it arrives tomorrow for installation!

 

[The Pol]

Here is my recent McMaster Carr order... this may be a little over the top for a stirrer, but after two failed attempts, I am tired of wasting time and money. This is a geared motor, 100RPM, plenty to mix water, an impeller on a shaft, and a SS coupler to marry up the motor shaft and the impeller shaft.

6142K49 Ac Gearmotor W/fan, Face Mnt, 100 Rpm, 7 In-lbs Torque, 115 Vac

34935K66 Polypropylene Propeller With Shaft U-shaped Blade, 2-1/2" DIA.

6099K22 Stainless Steel One-piece Set-screw Coupling 5/16" Bore, 1" Length, 5/8" Od, Without Keyway

 

[The Pol]

Here are the components!

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

That's clear. The HLT with HERMS coil is on the left, the MLT on the right. You pump out of the mash and into the HERMS coil inlet at the top of the HLT, then back out the top of the HLT via the other end of the coil and into the top of the MLT to the blue knobby hose return. You use gravity to drain the MLT into the BK.

OK, either I no longer understand English, but to ME that was not really crystal clear, more like hazy shades of "MUD". Mostly because a HERMS system is still alien to me.

Pol - Seriously that does look really cool, now do I understand that moving from 3/8th to 1/2 ID made a massive difference? My MLT is 3/8 so this is interesting to me.

I have looked at making a heat stick to help with my low BTU electric stove top brewing, but it seemed that they all cited 220, does 120 really provide you enough BTU conversion to heat the water levels you need?
Please share if you don't mind, eager brewers await.

 

[The Pol]

Kauai...

Friend, HERMS is pretty simple... take a little of the mash water out, pump it through a coil that is immersed in water that is at your target mash temp (to warm it up) then return it back to the mash.

Now, there is a HUGE difference in flow rates when using the March pump when you move from 3/8" tubing to 1/2" tubing and fittings. I also brought my pump UP about 2.5 feet. It was previously connected at the bottom of my stand, now it is just below my HLT and MLT vessels. These pumps have a limited head head pressure, and the higher you have to pump something, the lower the flow rates will be. 7 gal/min is pretty respectable in my case, and I will only be able to use that when I am filling my MLT for dough in.

I use a 120v 1500W water heater element. For my purposes, it will raise 9 gallons of 70F tap water to 170F in 90 minutes in a cooler that is insulated and covered, and where the water is stirred. Not super fast, but I have time, and it uses alot less gas. After I pump out 4-5 gallons to dough in my grains, I am left with 4-5 gallons in my HLT to be used to heat the heat exchanger coil... with half the volume, I get twice the temp rise. I can obtain about 2F per minute increase in my water temp at this point, which I would primarily use for mashout and sparge water.

I am not familiar with heat sticks and boiling on a stove, but I would think that an additional 1500W of power in a pot that already has heat being applied would help significantly. Again, I have no experience with that sort of setup.

I am happy to field all questions, I should be able to get some more detailed pics up here soon. Thanks for the inquiries!

 

[ScubaSteve]

I'm probably gonna build a new rig here shortly....I think I might go with one of those bucket heaters; essentially a well-made heat stick with an auto off for safety. I guess using the temp controller would be safer, as it would cut the element once it reaches temp. You could potentially over/undershoot with a timer.

What about a timer to switch the thing on at say, 0400, then power would reach the temp controller, which would take over and get the water to 170? Hands free, baby!

Just to play devil's advocate, have you thought about what you'll do if the HERMS doesn't work as well as you'd like? I know a lot of people have put all the bells and whistles together and find out it takes forever to step up your temps......

FWIW, how will you measure your mash temp? At the MT output, or the HERMS coil output, right before it goes into the mash?

 

[The Pol]

It will take some tweaking, I only take my temp in the HLT with the A419 to control the heating element. I have a through the wall digital therm in my MLT to monitor the temp in the mash. Between the two temp readings, I should be able to figure out how many degrees F I lose between the HLT water and the return line in the MLT. Keepin it simple... if it is off a couple degrees on my first couple brews, I dont care. I just want to be able to HOLD a temperature... if I have to set my HLT at 155F to maintain 152F in my MLT, so be it. It will be nice to set the A419 to say 173F and let it recirculate to raise my temps to mashout (concurrently heating my sparge water to 173F! It will be fun to mess with it and see how well it works. I will work better than simply striking at one temp and letting it sot for an hour, I am pretty sure of that! It will also be nice to do all of this without burning propane.

 

[ScubaSteve]

It will work better than simply striking at one temp and letting it sot for an hour, I am pretty sure of that! It will also be nice to do all of this without burning propane.

I agree to that! Especially with the IN and IL winter.....can you say "heat loss"? Part of the fun is the tweaking!

 

[The Pol]

Shouldnt be too hard to dial it in... beer is beer and it is good, even if it is mashed a degree to high or low!

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

The Pol - Thanks, that is something I'm going to have to take a hard look into.

 

[The Pol]

NO problem, if you need any help, have any questions, I am not a professional, but I have learned alot through $$$$$ trial and error $$$$$, and I would be glad to help in order to save you time, money, agony, tears...!

 

[The Pol]

Here are my final pics! I have the water stirrer installed, perfect fit from McMaster Carr. Just kicked a keg today, so it is a good thing that I have this thing operational so that I can brew again! ENJOY!

THE BEAST

HLT secondary thermometer

MLT Mash thermometer

Sealed heating element compartment

 

[The Pol]

HLT inside... Secondary therm and heating element

HLT Lid and parts... Water stirrer and HERMS coil

HLT Lid... AC Gear motor with fan and HERMS connections, OH and thermowell

HLT HERMS with the A419 attached

 

[beerthirty]

Is it all wired into the laptop or is that just for recipe info?

 

[The Pol]

I had HBT up... I was downloading these pics to my pc... the only thing that controls anything is the A419, brewing tomorrow, we will see how she runs!

 

[DaleJ]

Pol,

Can you provide a materials list at some point?
In particular, I'm interested in the coolant tubing you're using for the return flow in the mash tun.

 

[The Pol]

Yeah, I am actually in the middle of my inaugural brew on this thing, so far, so great... no leaks, temps have only fluctuated by .5F in the mash... ramping up to mashout now! Id be happy to get a materials list up, most of this was trial and alot of error on my part, alot of headaches are paying off today! Pics to come later!

 

[The Pol]

The brew session turned out great, not a drop of lost wort or water... I am planning a Duvel Clone and I will be using this setup to perform a ramp mash that will continually heat from 99F to 168F over a 2 hour period, per the clone recipe. I will have a couple sets of batteries on hand to do this, as I know how much homebrewers like pics!

I can heat my HERMS water, without the recirculation process, at 2F per minute, while recirculating the mash, it is closer to .5F per minute as it heats the mash. This should allow for a nice gradual and even heating of the mash for the Duvel.

 

[RockfordWhite]

Did you add your thermometer to the mash tun the same way with a stopper? Do you ever notice any leaks?

 

[The Pol]

The mash tun thermometer is the same as the HLT secondary therm. It is a solid stopper with a probe thermometer shoved through it. There is not a single leak in my entire system. I took great care in using some good o-rings and using teflon tape on all the fittings, the probe thermometers are almost impossible to remove from the stoppers, therefore no leaks.

 

[Bobby_M]

A couple questions for you...

You seem to be controlling your mash temp by measuring the HLT temp with your controller. Is that right? Do you find that setting that temp to your desired mash temp actually gives you the ultimate mash temp you want or do you need to go +1 or so?

Using a cooler based mashtun is usually enough to hold temp so what is your motivation for HERMS? It seems that running the pump, stirrer and element during the entire mash is fixing a problem that doesn't exist. Is suppose if you triggered the pump off a mash-based controller and probe, it would only kick on when necessary (probably once during the entire mash).

When you're done mashing and ready to start sparging, do you ramp up your HLT temp via the controller to 168 and continue the HERMS recirc to mash out? I would imagine this is where a slightly stronger element would help because it probably doesn't do 1F rise per minute when heating the sparge water and mash itself from 150-168.

What is that flex MLT return doohicky and where did you get it? I've seen that kind of thing on machining tools for coolant delivery but don't know what to search for to find it.

 

[The Pol]

A couple questions for you...

You seem to be controlling your mash temp by measuring the HLT temp with your controller. Is that right? Do you find that setting that temp to your desired mash temp actually gives you the ultimate mash temp you want or do you need to go +1 or so?

Using a cooler based mashtun is usually enough to hold temp so what is your motivation for HERMS? It seems that running the pump, stirrer and element during the entire mash is fixing a problem that doesn't exist. Is suppose if you triggered the pump off a mash-based controller and probe, it would only kick on when necessary (probably once during the entire mash).

When you're done mashing and ready to start sparging, do you ramp up your HLT temp via the controller to 168 and continue the HERMS recirc to mash out? I would imagine this is where a slightly stronger element would help because it probably doesn't do 1F rise per minute when heating the sparge water and mash itself from 150-168.

What is that flex MLT return doohicky and where did you get it? I've seen that kind of thing on machining tools for coolant delivery but don't know what to search for to find it.

The differential between the HLT and the MLT temp on my first brew last week was 2-3F... that was it. There is a fair ammount of hose, the pump etc... 2-3F seemed to work really well over the course of the mash.


Using these coolers over the past several years I have lost from 3-5F over the course of an hour mash, along with hot and cold spots. This was not good enough for me. Also, if my strike water was a little off, there was no easy way of adjusting my mash temp. Also, there was really no mashout because the ammount of boiling water that I needed to add to my already cold mash was too large for the cooler in alot of cases. I also did not have clear wort. There was a problem as far as I was concerned with the straight cooler MLT. I see no real issue in recirculating the mash water during the entire mash, other than the $.05 that it costs me to do so. Adding another switch to control the March pump would just add more complexity when it is simply not needed IMHO. By constantly recirculating my mash water through the HERMS coil I maintain a precise temp, within 1F as measured during my last session, during the entire mash, and the water is constantly being filtered through the grain, so I do not get hot and cold spots.

I ramp up the HLT water to 173F when I mash out, I get about 1F/min rise in my MLT while doing so. Without any recirc. my HLT water will rise at 2F/min. So I simply ramp up my temp in my MLT to 173F, let it recirculate for 20 mins and then swap a hose and start my sparge.

The doohicky in the MLT I saw on another brew rig, it is a coolant hose from McMaster Carr... it works really well and holds whatever shape you bend it too, even with 175F water flowing through it.

Basically I wanted something that would allow me to efficiently hold a precise temp, make small temp adjustments when necessary, clear my wort and save propane. To make an electric HLT it seemed only logical to go ahead and drop a coil in there and build a HERMS since I already had the pump.

 

[ScubaSteve]

What's on the inside of the coolant hose? Is it copper or something? I think that'd be awesome hooked up to a qd and attached to the inner upper wall of the MT....or to a lid like you did in your build. You could even put one in the BK too if you're into recircing before chilling. Good find!

 

[The Pol]

There is nothing metallic at all in the coolant hose, look it up on McMaster Carr, it is simply a segmented coolant line. The segments fit TIIIGHT so they do not move unless you move them. It is a great find.

 

[Bobby_M]

Ah, with a little digging... it's called Loc-Line

 

[The Pol]

Yah, saw it used on a rig somewhere on the net... bought (2) lengths of 1/2" ID line from McMaster, it is awesome stuff! The same stuff we used to use on our machines back in the tool and die days.

 

[brewjunky]

How do you adjust the rpm of the motor

 

[The Pol]

Which one? The March pump runs at 100% all the time, the water stir motor runs at 100RPM all the time...