Using HERMS HLT as BK/Chiller

[jsguitar]

Hey everyone,

I currently have a three vessel electric HERMS with two pumps. I have a keg HLT with 50' of 1/2" copper tubing hard mounted with valves for my HERMS. Currently, I have a cheap CF chiller that only has 1/4" copper tubing and doesn't chill very well. I also have a hopstopper that I feel restricts the flow out of the BK too much and is a pain to clean. I was thinking after 8 years of using this mediocre chiller I'd switch to a better chiller anyway and wanted to try the whirlpool/immersion chiller concept. I also plan on trying out a hop spider instead of the hop stopper.

My thought is that I could simply use my BK as a collection vessel for my first runnings. I'd then transfer my usual single batch sparge water from HLT to MLT and then transfer all wort to the HLT so that it can be used as a BK/chiller/whirlpooler.

I believe I read this as a suggestion on here somwhere, so I'm guessing some people do it this way.

Problems or anything that I'm not considering?

 

[hillhousesawdustco]

This is not a perfect reply to your question, but might help with chilling at least. I have a similar setup to you and was annoyed that I couldn't easily drop my temps to the low 60s quickly. My solution was use the hlt as Clt. After sparging I refill the hlt with cold water. After the boil I run the hot wort back through the herms (and then through a plate chiller on my system). Mine goes directly into fermenters but this could be part of your whirlpool stage. For hop gunk I just stir post boil, let it settle, and have my dip tube positioned outside the hop pyramid. If you have whirlpool fittings then that would be even better.

Good luck!

 

[jsguitar]

Thanks for the suggestion and sorry for the late reply. I've been thinking about this a bit. One thing that concerns me is that I'd want to recirculate boiling wort through the HERMS for a few minutes to sanitize before chilling but I suppose I could do that near the end of the boil and then fill the HLT with cold water and run the wort through the HERMS and then my CFC.

I'm a little concerned about wort losses in all of that tubing too though. I'm thinking I may just buy an immersion chiller when I can spend the money on one and put some quick connects on it so I can also run ice water with a pump. Until then I'll just use what I have. At least the groundwater is starting to get cool finally.

 

[Yooper]

I'm a little concerned about wort losses in all of that tubing too though. I'm thinking I may just buy an immersion chiller when I can spend the money on one and put some quick connects on it so I can also run ice water with a pump. Until then I'll just use what I have. At least the groundwater is starting to get cool finally.

Don't worry about wort losses. First, it's not that much (maybe a quart in mine) but all you have to do is at the end switch it to your HLT or MLT and put water in it. Then pump out until the water comes out. I hope that makes sense. It's especially cool with stout wort. You're pumping black wort, and then suddenly it's clear. And you're done.

But one time I measured the wort left in the pumps/CFC/HERMS coil when I did that, and it was one quart. It sure seemed like a LOT more to me until I measured it myself.

 

[jsguitar]

Hmmm, that does makes sense. I never thought of using water to push the last bit of wort out. Thats a great idea Yooper, thanks.