RIMS vs HERMS vs Recirculating Direct Heating

[Gameface]

You are correct that the mash would run appx 3-5 degrees cooler than my MLT if I restrict the flow thru my Herms which could easily be compensated for. It also causes a few biggerr issues however. The ramp speeds will be VERY slow and the biggest issue for me personally is I like to not monitor the mash. If I mill tighter then I have to reduce the flow significantly otherwise I'll compact the grain bed and I have to sit around babysitting the pump. Milling looser to allow good flow means I can dough in and head out for errands etc.

To summarize

I brew 18g batches on a 3v **herms** Kal clone setup. It's works perfectly but requires a completely different process than a rims set-up. if you go check out The electric brewery site which is mostly Kal clones it's common knowledge that for the system to work correctly you need to mill looser and alot of new users battle that at first. I have tried milling at .035 a few times and it didn't make any positive difference. My efficiency was the same but my temps were all over the place. My setup works as perfectly as I could imagine is possible. I love the system and couldn't be happier. I'm not a efficiency chaser. I upgraded for consistancy and ease of use. Set it and forget it. When you say I'm not gaining anything are you speaking from experience using your Kal clone herms system or based on a different setup? I've brewed over 800 gallons to date on this setup without a hitch using this proccess. Cheers

Yeah, I've been doing 10G batches (11.5 into fermentor) for the last few years on a Kal Clone type system. I can't remember what I set my mill gap to because it was a few years ago, but I also run my pump wide open. I don't just go full open though, I gradually open the valve over a few minutes. Even with that I'm 2F different from my HLT to the Mash. I use a good amount of rice hulls and they help quite a bit. Haven't had a stuck mash in recent memory and I don't really have to babysit it. My efficiency took a small hit going to the Kal Clone, from a consistent 83% to 78%.

 

[Blazinlow86]

Yeah, I've been doing 10G batches (11.5 into fermentor) for the last few years on a Kal Clone type system. I can't remember what I set my mill gap to because it was a few years ago, but I also run my pump wide open. I don't just go full open though, I gradually open the valve over a few minutes. Even with that I'm 2F different from my HLT to the Mash. I use a good amount of rice hulls and they help quite a bit. Haven't had a stuck mash in recent memory and I don't really have to babysit it. My efficiency took a small hit going to the Kal Clone, from a consistent 83% to 78%.

Sounds like we're both doing the same thing with the same setup. I'm confused now though as why you mentioned that I'm not gaining anything running the system as designed? What's your reasoning for running yours wide open if it makes no difference? Cheers

 

[Gameface]

Sounds like we're both doing the same thing with the same setup. I'm confused now though as why you mentioned that I'm not gaining anything running the system as designed? What's your reasoning for running yours wide open if it makes no difference? Cheers

I wouldn't want to widen my gap much more and give up additional efficiency. If I had trouble running wide open I'd just slow the flow a bit.

 

[Blazinlow86]

I wouldn't want to widen my gap much more and give up additional efficiency. If I had trouble running wide open I'd just slow the flow a bit.

Same here. My mills set at about .045 and I condition everytime and mill slowly. If you also run yours at full speed your mill must be set near mine as I've never read of anyone having good results on a Herms with a fine grist. I've also noticed that people without first hand experience on a Herms setup just can't accept it. Possibly thats because with a rims I imagine you can heat the mash thru the element higher than the actual desired mash temp therefore slower works but that can't be done on a Herms without overshooting the temp and that can be a pain to correct so you need to turn the liquid over faster to compensate? Who knows. All I know is on the Kal clone it's the only way to use it as designed and it works perfectly. Cheers

 

[brewbama]

...except the temp in the RIMS tube never exceeds the SV. If it did the temp probe immediately down stream of the element would detect and display the increased temp. Oh sure, maybe .1 degree and immediately shuts off power to the element but I would not say “higher than the actual desired mash temp”. It just doesn’t happen.

I am not measuring mash temp in the MLT. I am measuring the temp of the wort less than two inches away from the heating element in a little over a cup of wort.

It takes a few minutes to bring the entire MLT full of wort thru the tube and up to temp. But when it’s there it takes very little power and cycles to maintain the temp. But it never exceeds the temp.

 

[Blazinlow86]

...except the temp in the RIMS tube never exceeds the SV. If it did the temp probe immediately down stream of the element would detect and display the increased temp. Oh sure, maybe .1 degree and immediately shuts off power to the element but I would not say “higher than the actual desired mash temp”. It just doesn’t happen.

I am not measuring mash temp in the MLT. I am measuring the temp of the wort less than two inches away from the heating element in a little over a cup of wort.

Your reply makes me think my wording may have been poor. What I meant was on a herms system your hlt can't really be set higher than your desired mlt temp as there's no real way to stop the heating without stopping recirculation. I was imagining that using a rims set-up you could set the actual rims temp higher than your desired mlt temp to give you better heating performance and still not overshooting without needing to turn the mash liquid over as frequently like you do on a Herms. Hopefully that makes sense. Cheers

 

[augiedoggy]

Your reply makes me think my wording may have been poor. What I meant was on a herms system your hlt can't really be set higher than your desired mlt temp as there's no real way to stop the heating without stopping recirculation. I was imagining that using a rims set-up you could set the actual rims temp higher than your desired mlt temp to give you better heating performance and still not overshooting without needing to turn the mash liquid over as frequently like you do on a Herms. Hopefully that makes sense. Cheers

but thats not how it normally works. normally it takes more than a couple minutes for a mashtun to drop in temp and if your recirculating at even 1.5gpm as I sometimes do with my thin walled bayou classic mashtun I still maintain the 1 degree max temp differenctial between the wort leaving my rims and the wort leaving my mash tun. and even than my pid shows a max power level of 25% to maintain a temp once its reached even at that slow flow speed. there shouldnt be a large temp differential on a properly setup rims or herms, the norm is 1 to 2 degrees. the fact that you have to recirculate at such a high speed just to maintain the same temp is what I just dont understand. if your step mashing , yes more flow with more heating power is beneficial as long as your grain is course evough or your grainbed is large enough to support that flow without the usual channeling and efficiency loss we built these systems to avoid. I mean seriously If you have to crush so course your only getting 75% efficiency and do additional steps like conditioning your grain then why not just use a cooler and not recirculate at that point and get better results? Where is the actual benefit here? Maybe Im missing something here but its just the way I see it. slower flow through a rims or herms should not increase the ouput over the setpoint, if it does your not doing it the way its intended to work. Your herms coil and flow should allow enough time on one pass for the temps to equalize with what the water in the HLT is. I have seen some people just randomy try to maintain a consistent on the fly offset and that is not as reliable.

 

[brewbama]

Ah. I understand now. You’re right. I can increase the SV on the PID and the wort would reach the SV temp. However, the couple minutes it takes to reach SV makes this unnecessary.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

This whole thing has been argued ad-nauseum for years and never has there been a clear answer

RIM's, HERMS, BIAB, Extract on wifey's stove, turkey fryer's, solar, wood burning, and any other way you can think of... All have pro's and con's and all brew perfectly good beers. Learn your system. Follow good practices and processes. Master your skills and equipment. Drink and enjoy your efforts! You're welcome.

 

[augiedoggy]

This whole thing has been argued ad-nauseum for years and never has there been a clear answer

RIM's, HERMS, BIAB, Extract on wifey's stove, turkey fryer's, solar, wood burning, and any other way you can think of... All have pro's and con's and all brew perfectly good beers. Learn your system. Follow good practices and processes. Master your skills and equipment. Drink and enjoy your efforts! You're welcome.

if there was a clear cut and dry answer to satisfy everyone there would be one less thing to discuss here. it will always be an active topic like ford vs chevy...

 

[Blazinlow86]

but thats not how it normally works. normally it takes more than a couple minutes for a mashtun to drop in temp and if your recirculating at even 1.5gpm as I sometimes do with my thin walled bayou classic mashtun I still maintain the 1 degree max temp differenctial between the wort leaving my rims and the wort leaving my mash tun. and even than my pid shows a max power level of 25% to maintain a temp once its reached even at that slow flow speed. there shouldnt be a large temp differential on a properly setup rims or herms, the norm is 1 to 2 degrees. the fact that you have to recirculate at such a high speed just to maintain the same temp is what I just dont understand. if your step mashing , yes more flow with more heating power is beneficial as long as your grain is course evough or your grainbed is large enough to support that flow without the usual channeling and efficiency loss we built these systems to avoid. I mean seriously If you have to crush so course your only getting 75% efficiency and do additional steps like conditioning your grain then why not just use a cooler and not recirculate at that point and get better results? Where is the actual benefit here? just the way I see it.

Sorry but honestly I'm not sure how to explain this any better and i don't mean that to be a smartass either. My writing isn't the best in text. I think we have different reasons we went with our systems. I wanted better temp control, repeatability, and most importantly to be able to brew indoors. I don't care at all about efficiency. As a matter of fact I don't even remember what mine is exactly. If your interested check out kals site for a better explanation as to why the full speed is required. Theres 100s of people on there using the system exactly as I am with great results. Brooklyn brewery uses one as I pilot system too if I remember correctly. Fortunately one of the founders of my old brew club is also the owner/head brewer of the largest most popular craft brewery in my city. He once gave out the recipe of a very popular beer they make for the member's to clone for a competition and I won. He said it was spot on in his opinion. My point is the system works great as do most Kal clones. My recipes aren't always the best but my beers don't have any technical faults. Cheers and I'm out of this one.

 

[augiedoggy]

I dont want to be argumentative either I respect that its your opinion and Just trying to understand your reasoning honestly since there is definitely something here I am not understanding correctly about why you do what you do to maintain temps.

I dont recall any suggestions anywhere for kals setup to recirculate with the pump at full bore and do not see how it will effect anything for the better except stepping speeds. I do see posted in many thread on this forum that the flow should be restricted to prevent channeling and compacting the bed. Many systems even sell Grants like stout to allow the liquid to drain at its own pace to prevent these problems.
On a side note I can atest that consistency as well as higher efficiency is easily obtainable with consistent temp control and lower flow. the tradeoff is I can only step the mash temps at 1.8 gpm but I rarily step mash.

 

[TVsn95]

In the for what it's worth,,I use a home-built Herms that heats 10g water for strike temp using 25ft 1/2"coil . uses a $10 dollar Chinese temp controller. 2 120v heating elements wired in series and running on 220v. It needs an aquarium power head to cirulate HLT water for quick heat up.
My system will bring 10g water plus 12lb grains in strike water up 2degrees F per minute. circulated with a single steel head pump through 1/2 poly tubing. and NO chance of scorching .
the 2 heating elements in series are 5 times faster than a single,,,,,so step mashing is no problem.

 

[Bobby_M]

2 heating elements in series are 5 times faster than a single...

This is an old thread and I hesitated to continue it but your math is off. Running two elements in series doubles the resistance. You don't mention what the rated wattage was so who knows what the actual resistance is. Let's say they are 1500 watt at 120v (12.5 amps of current). Those would be 9.6 ohms each. In series that's 19.2 ohms. Run that on 240v and you get 3000 watts (12.5 amps of current again). So, you could just run each of those elements on their own 120v circuits and get 3000 total watts. You can run them in series on 240v and get the same 3000 watts. In no configuration do you get 5 times the power. Even if you ran them in parallel to achieve 4.8 ohms, you'd make 12,000 watts at 50amp and likely burn the elements pretty quickly since they are not rated for that kind of current. If you did that it's 4x the power.

 

[TVsn95]

I am NOT going to argue with your math,,,and I am not an engineer. SO here is the plain truth. I started with 1 short Home depot $11 heating element. it would take an hour ( or longer ) to heat the water and make beer. I could not source a short 220v element, so I put 2 120v in series ,as in one hot to to each leg of the element and a jumper between the open terminals,, so the current went through both elements as if it was one......yeah that's a point that I didn't make clear.. but I assure you that this set up is 5 Times faster than a single 120v element .
I actually made a wheat beer today,,, I can count on the time so close as to heat up it allows me to walk away and have my timer on my phone remind me when to come back. It's just too easy. through trial and failure I will say you MUST be able to circulate the water in the HLT,, I do that with an aquarium power head ,, stupid cheap. Way simple

 

[TVsn95]

By the way I have been using this heater configuration for 3 years . no failures. I have had a power head fail ,,so I keep a spare

 

[Bobby_M]

Alright, the laws of physics are being broken somehow but there's not much use in trying to figure out exactly how or why.

 

[TVsn95]

Your alright,,,I built my setup a few years back, the finale set up has required very few changes,, it's very simple and way cool for brewing. I like most started on a Coleman camp stove in the garage using ice to cooldown ,,,most of my beer tasted like it had a shot of apple cider in it LOL
The hardest thing was figuring out how to effectively rercirc the wort. I believe i've got that down.
Yeah, on the math... I never understood how I could double the the apparent wattage and get such results that I get,, you like puzzles, here is one for you.....but you need to explain it to me also..in simple language please

 

[Ihop2many]

I dont recall any suggestions anywhere for kals setup to recirculate with the pump at full bore and do not see how it will effect anything for the better except stepping speeds.

I know I'm coming late to this thread and haven't read all of the trails that the posts have mentioned but I have seen a video by Kai where he mentions operating the HERMS pump at full bore.

For my particular system I let the grain bed settle for 5 minutes then 5 minutes of low GPM before opening to full bore.

 

[augiedoggy]

I know I'm coming late to this thread and haven't read all of the trails that the posts have mentioned but I have seen a video by Kai where he mentions operating the HERMS pump at full bore.

For my particular system I let the grain bed settle for 5 minutes then 5 minutes of low GPM before opening to full bore.

To my knowledge and experience with both rims and multiple herms systems, if your running a 5-7gpm mash pump at full bore with a 16" or smaller diameter false bottom you going to be compacting (or "pulling down" as they call it on probrewer) your grain bed and in most cases you will hurt your efficiency and possibly temp consistency due to the channeling that results.