New to HERMS System

[hiking325]

Had some random questions for folks about HERMS systems. I'm coming from a RIMS system where its pretty easy to clean and I start recirculating in the last 30min of mashing. How is everyone emptying(drying) their HERMS coil? At what point do you all start the pump for the HERMS coil?

 

[day_trippr]

After I've underlet the mash with the strike water, and after a few minutes given it one good stir before lidding it, I wait another 5 minutes or so before slowly starting my recirculation pump through the hlt hex. Over the next ~5 minutes I'll gradually increase the pump flow until I'm somewhere between 2-3 gpm with a stable mlt sight gauge, and that flow rate is likely to remain for the duration of the mash.

I don't go to extraordinary effort to drain the hex, I flush it with hot tap water, drain as much as will come out easily, then call it done. I used to blow it out with my compressor, but after thinking about what collects in a compressor tank, I stopped doing that.

Every few brews I do a full recirculation cleaning with hot PBW to minimize any buildup in the whole 3v2p system. After a few years running my current rig, so far so good

Cheers!

 

[sicktght311]

My

After I've underlet the mash with the strike water, and after a few minutes given it one good stir before lidding it, I wait another 5 minutes or so before slowly starting my recirculation pump through the hlt hex. Over the next ~5 minutes I'll gradually increase the pump flow until I'm somewhere between 2-3 gpm with a stable mlt sight gauge, and that flow rate is likely to remain for the duration of the mash.

Cheers!

My mash in method is the same, except i dont underlet since i heat the strike water and the HLT water at the same time. I run my pump through the herms coil during heat up. So basically the HLT water heats up, and then that in turn heats up the strike water in the mash tun through the herms coil. Once i'm at my strike temp, i shut all the pumps and elements off, dough in, stir like crazy, then let it sit for 5 minutes before slowly turning the pump on to avoid compacting the grain bed. Once ive got a steady flow going i turn the element back on and it maintains temp.

Cleaning wise, i dont think i've really ever cleaned my HLT more than a couple times a year since it only ever has clean water in it. After the mash and sparge, when the boil is heating up, i typically clean grains out my mash tun, scrub with a brush, and give it a rinse with clean water to clean out any leftover grains. Once the boil is done, I recirculate the first runnings of hot water from my chiller into the HLT to fill it up, and then i turn my HLT element on and heat up to around 170. Once it reaches temp, i transfer all the hot water over to the MLT, put some PBW or oxiclean in and soak the MLT. I'll usually then shopvac any leftover water at the bottom of the HLT, and shop vac the water out of the herms coil. When MLT is finished draining, i transfer that hot PBW solution over to the boil kettle and i recirculate it through the pump and back into the whirlpool port. Drain that water, rinse MLT and HLT down with clean water, and then i dry everything with the shop vac until its next day.

 

[hiking325]

Thanks for all the details!!! This is super useful to hear your processes. I also thought about an air compressor but then thought about possible oil or whatever from it. Sounds like a shop vac might be the way if I really want to dry the coil out.

 

[hiking325]

My


My mash in method is the same, except i dont underlet since i heat the strike water and the HLT water at the same time. I run my pump through the herms coil during heat up. So basically the HLT water heats up, and then that in turn heats up the strike water in the mash tun through the herms coil. Once i'm at my strike temp, i shut all the pumps and elements off, dough in, stir like crazy, then let it sit for 5 minutes before slowly turning the pump on to avoid compacting the grain bed. Once ive got a steady flow going i turn the element back on and it maintains temp.

Cleaning wise, i dont think i've really ever cleaned my HLT more than a couple times a year since it only ever has clean water in it. After the mash and sparge, when the boil is heating up, i typically clean grains out my mash tun, scrub with a brush, and give it a rinse with clean water to clean out any leftover grains. Once the boil is done, I recirculate the first runnings of hot water from my chiller into the HLT to fill it up, and then i turn my HLT element on and heat up to around 170. Once it reaches temp, i transfer all the hot water over to the MLT, put some PBW or oxiclean in and soak the MLT. I'll usually then shopvac any leftover water at the bottom of the HLT, and shop vac the water out of the herms coil. When MLT is finished draining, i transfer that hot PBW solution over to the boil kettle and i recirculate it through the pump and back into the whirlpool port. Drain that water, rinse MLT and HLT down with clean water, and then i dry everything with the shop vac until its next day.

What’s the average time for being ready to dough in? Just wondering how long this way takes vs using the HLT to heat water then filling the mash tun and topping off/refilling the HLT.

 

[sicktght311]

I run a 120v system so my heat up times are much longer than a 240v higher powered, so i personally do it my way because i can set it and forget it and then just come back when everything is ready to go. I've toyed with doing above 2 different ways

1) Fill the Mash tun to the strike volume, fill the HLT to 9 gallons (10 gallon kettles), and then heat up to my desired mash temp (say 152). I dough in, the temp in the mash tun drops, but as long as i dont have a stuck mash once i start recirculating, the temp comes back up to 152 pretty quick, within 10 minutes
or
2) Fill the Mash tun to the strike volume, fill the HLT to around 7 gallons, and heat up to a predetermined strike temp (168-169ish) like you would if you were mashing in a non recirculating system. Once i hit the 168-169, i shut down the elements and pumps, top off the HLT with cold water to get it to my desired mash temp, and dough in. Then everything should stabilize at my mash temp right from the beginning. Then i reset my controller to my desired mash temp, and start my recirculation

I've ended up using number 2 a lot more just because i find it heats up slightly quicker, but more so because if i end up having an issue with a stuck mash, then i'm at least fixing it while the mash temp is holding steady right around my target, instead of at like 142 degrees and ending up with a dry final product.

 

[Deadalus]

Cleaning-After transferring wort to the boil kettle, I empty grains from the mash tun and spray out. Then I take 4-5 gallons of hot water out of the HLT and pour into the mash tun with PBW. Let sit and clean while boiling.

Once wort has been transferred to the fermenter, I take the remaining water out of the HLT and add some extra to the BK with PBW. I heat this and and connect my hoses from the BK to the pump, then to the coil, then my plate chiller back into the BK. I run it for 20-30 minutes. Then I disconnect from the BK and send a gallon of Starsan through the coil and chiller.

HLT just has hit water in it so I spray it out and scrub occasionally.

Mashing-I mash in similar to sicktght311 (#2). I run the strike water through the coil while the HLT is warming up. I keep enough water to cover the coil. A slight variation is that when mashing at lower temps (high 140s), I don't like having too high a temp in the HLT because I can't add enough cold water to get it cooled. So then I might strike early and just heat the mash some. I do prefer to hit the target temp right away if possible though.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, I heat the strike water in my boil kettle while the hlt is heating up to recirculation temperature (mash target plus 1.5°F, usually) in parallel. Not only cuts the heat up time in half, as soon as the mash is ready to start recirculation the HLT is already at its target temperature...

Cheers!

 

[Deric]

3 brews in on our new HERMS set-up. We've been heating strike water in the boil kettle while heating the HLT to recirculation temp ala @day trippr

We've been struggling to hit mash temp due to temp loss from the boil kettle to cold mash tun. What kind of temp drop are you seeing when transferring strike water?

 

[day_trippr]

I use Beersmith3 to calculate the strike temperature, based on grain temperature (I use one of these to read the middle of the grain buckets) and MLT temperature (Fluke IR gun). My equipment profile is quite well tuned after a few years (I had a great head start as there are a lot of 20 gallon G1 kettle users out there ) and if there's anything BS3 does well it's strike temperature calculations. One good post-underlet stir and then a five minute pre-recirculation rest and the mash is rarely more than a degree one side or the other of the target.

Example numbers from my last Julius clone brewday (26.25 pounds of grain for 10.5 gallons to the carboys):

- grain temp: 70.9°F
- MLT/FB average temp: 85°F
- strike water temp: 166.2°F
- strike + ~7 minutes mash temperature: 152°F. Bingo...

Cheers!

 

[Bohern]

Mine is as follows.

I fill my HLT full of water and warm it to 3 deg higher than the mash tun

The mash tun has the proper amount of strike water that I recirc through my herms coil to get to temp.
(this has ben 12 deg higher than the mash in temp due to the cool temps in my garage)

Once mashed in I let it set for 10 min for the grain to settle then I start a slow recirculation for mashing.

The herms is cleaned out with the water from the HLT when I fly sparge. Then do a full drain when done

 

[RocketBrewer]

3 brews in on our new HERMS set-up. We've been heating strike water in the boil kettle while heating the HLT to recirculation temp ala @day trippr

We've been struggling to hit mash temp due to temp loss from the boil kettle to cold mash tun. What kind of temp drop are you seeing when transferring strike water?

I do this as well, but I heat the strike water to about 5 or 6 degrees hotter than Beersmith calls for and add it to the mash tun, stirring it until it settles to the correct temp before adding grain. This preheats the tun to the perfect temp, and If you uncheck "adjust temp for equipment" and set the grain temp close to actual, you will get very accurate mash temps. Unfortunately, you cant do this if you want to underlet your grain.

 

[augiedoggy]

I do this as well, but I heat the strike water to about 5 or 6 degrees hotter than Beersmith calls for and add it to the mash tun, stirring it until it settles to the correct temp before adding grain. This preheats the tun to the perfect temp, and If you uncheck "adjust temp for equipment" and set the grain temp close to actual, you will get very accurate mash temps. Unfortunately, you cant do this if you want to underlet your grain.

I discovered (probably because im brewing on a 3bbl system now) that when underletting the water keeps cooling as it travels up the grainbed and is cooled by said grainbed.(this totally makes sense).. obviously the problem is way more pronounced the larger the grainbed but in our case I would see about a 20 degree difference in mash temps between top and bottom... It would take a while to even this 80+- gallon mash out with our rims at 5gpm flow rate so we decided to mash in the traditional way and found we have to add about 5 degrees to what beersmith tells us to heat the strike water too likey because of the additional stirring time on the larger mash.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

After I've underlet the mash with the strike water, and after a few minutes given it one good stir before lidding it, I wait another 5 minutes or so before slowly starting my recirculation pump through the hlt hex. Over the next ~5 minutes I'll gradually increase the pump flow until I'm somewhere between 2-3 gpm with a stable mlt sight gauge, and that flow rate is likely to remain for the duration of the mash.

I don't go to extraordinary effort to drain the hex, I flush it with hot tap water, drain as much as will come out easily, then call it done. I used to blow it out with my compressor, but after thinking about what collects in a compressor tank, I stopped doing that.

Every few brews I do a full recirculation cleaning with hot PBW to minimize any buildup in the whole 3v2p system. After a few years running my current rig, so far so good

Cheers!

Wow, in my experience, that's kinda scary. I had a cooler mash tun with a plastic drain hose that stayed attached. I tried a similar cleaning regimen (except I flushed with star san after) and I ended up with mold in the hose. I refuse to have beer in anything I can't open and inspect now (including my valves). That's why I love my immersion chiller too.

 

[sicktght311]

Wow, in my experience, that's kinda scary. I had a cooler mash tun with a plastic drain hose that stayed attached. I tried a similar cleaning regimen (except I flushed with star san after) and I ended up with mold in the hose. I refuse to have beer in anything I can't open and inspect now (including my valves). That's why I love my immersion chiller too.

Were you heating the PBW/Oxiclean up? Or putting it in low temp water? I've found hot water (over 160 degrees) is ultra important to get the most out of a PBW soak. I do the same as above and in over a year i've never found any mold or nasties. Might depend on where you're storing your brew gear too. If you're storing it in a hot garage theres not much thats gonna keep you from potentially growing mold in nooks and crannies. However in a dry house or basement, its much less of a concern. Humidity in my basement, especially during the winter, is 30-45%

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

Were you heating the PBW/Oxiclean up? Or putting it in low temp water? I've found hot water (over 160 degrees) is ultra important to get the most out of a PBW soak. I do the same as above and in over a year i've never found any mold or nasties. Might depend on where you're storing your brew gear too. If you're storing it in a hot garage theres not much thats gonna keep you from potentially growing mold in nooks and crannies. However in a dry house or basement, its much less of a concern. Humidity in my basement, especially during the winter, is 30-45%

He said he was flushing with hot tap water. Not washing with heated PBW.

 

[day_trippr]

He also said

Every few brews I do a full recirculation cleaning with hot PBW to minimize any buildup in the whole 3v2p system. After a few years running my current rig, so far so good

Cheers!

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

He also said

Cheers!

If you're happy, I'm happy.

 

[day_trippr]

[shrug]
16 years, hundreds of brews, zero evident infections.
Plenty to be happy about...

Cheers!

[ps: one should probably keep in mind that a 3v2p fly-sparging hex is going to spend a lot of time being cooked well above that needed for sanitation to begin the brew day, gets heated to ~170°F for mash-out, then has ~10-11 gallons of ~168°F clean water run through it for the duration of the fly sparge.

Not much is going to survive all that - and then it's going to be boiled for an hour!

 

[hiking325]

Thanks for all the useful information folks! This helps me out a lot.

 

[highland_brewer]

I have a small shop vac I use to vacuum out the coil (From the bottom) once it is relatively empty, I will spray a Starsan mix into the top inlet of the coil with the suction still running. I always flush the coil with a little bit of the strike water every time I brew as well.

For heating my strike and sparge water I will put a large volume in the BK. (Depending on the batch size) and heat it to about 10 - 15 degrees above the strike temp, when it gets transferred into the MT it cools down to the strike temp or close to it. The the remainder gets transferred into my HLT and I add some cool water to bring the temp down to the actual mash temp. I found this way is faster than using the HLT with the water running through the coil and circulating in the MT.

 

[Deadalus]

I have a small shop vac I use to vacuum out the coil (From the bottom) once it is relatively empty, I will spray a Starsan mix into the top inlet of the coil with the suction still running. I always flush the coil with a little bit of the strike water every time I brew as well.

For heating my strike and sparge water I will put a large volume in the BK. (Depending on the batch size) and heat it to about 10 - 15 degrees above the strike temp, when it gets transferred into the MT it cools down to the strike temp or close to it. The the remainder gets transferred into my HLT and I add some cool water to bring the temp down to the actual mash temp. I found this way is faster than using the HLT with the water running through the coil and circulating in the MT.

Couldn't you just skip using the BK and avoid the transfer to the HLT by heating the same volume of water in your HLT as you do the BK?

 

[highland_brewer]

Couldn't you just skip using the BK and avoid the transfer to the HLT by heating the same volume of water in your HLT as you do the BK?

Sure, either or. I just find it takes less cool water to drop the HLT temp if I transfer it to the HLT. That's why I heat in the BK.

 

[Deric]

Brewed this morning. Heated strike water in the boil kettle ~8 degrees higher than target then transferred to the mash tun. Missed target mash temp by 1 degree.

 

[day_trippr]

Pretty good shooting
If you recorded your grain and MLT temperatures you should be able to nail it dead nuts next time...

Cheers!