# 15l Stovetop Herms



## Tim F (9/8/11)

Hey all,

I've been thinking about getting into HERMS for a while now and started putting together the bits for a system.

I don't drink tons of beer every night but I like making it and trying new styles so a smaller system is just fine - I reckon I'll get 10-12L batches out of a 15L tun easily. I also want to use this for cooking sous vide so if it fits in the kitchen its a bonus. Also budget is important atm so it's pretty ghetto 

The plan is:

15L stock pot for mash tun. I will insulate this with a camping mat or something. Got the brass nipples for inlet/outlet and plan to attach ball valves with hose barb to them. 

False bottom - I have a few options. One would be just to buy a sheet of stainless screen and sit it on legs above the height of the outlet. But I was really thinking about grabbing a 10L stock pot, welding a couple of little legs on it and drilling holes in the bottom. If I did that, and didn't sparge, I could just lift out the grain and boil right there in the mash tun. The plan is just to boil on the stovetop, don't think ~12L boil volume will be an issue on the stove. If it is I have a 2 ring burner too.

Pump etc - tubing between vessels will be 12mm OD silicon, which is the biggest I can fit in my existing peristaltic pump. I think I can coax 2L/minute out of my pump but if that doesn't cut it I will get one of these. I plan to insulate the silicon hose as well. Haven't really thought about the return arm yet but maybe just an extended copper T sittin on the grain bed?

Heat exchanger - I bought a cheap ass kettle thinking I'd use the 1800W element in a saucepan. But then I thought why reinvent the wheel, and wound a coil to fit in the kettle itself! I got 2m of 1/2" copper pipe coiled in there and will drill holes in the side of the kettle, connecting the coil to brass nipples with compression fittings, and use silicon washers + aquarium silicon if needed to seal the brass nipples in. If that coil doesn't work in the kettle I'll go back to plan A and pull out the element for a bigger HEX and coil but I don't think I'd need to go too much bigger for such a small system?






Temperature control - I gave up on the idea of controlling the system by laptop + VBA PID for now and ordered one of the cheapy PIDs off ebay. I'll do the standard temp probe in a T piece on the HEX outlet and run the kettle via relay from the PID.

The only flow switching I might want to do is if I do boil in a separate kettle so I might just have another T on the HEX outlet with 2 ball valves, so after mashout I just swap those 2 valves, drain to kettle and boil. So yeah it's about as simple as you can get - straight loop from bottom of MT through HEX and back to the top of the MT, and then either swap outlet to drain to kettle OR lift out grain, preheat with the HEX, then plonk the MT on the stove. What do you reckon?

I'll post more of the build as parts arrive from round the world via ebay


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## Maheel (9/8/11)

i wouldn't drill the kettle . but thats me...

can you add a 90' elbow on the bottom and run the coil back out the top ?
just reckon you might get leaks (and elbow might be easy)


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## Tim F (9/8/11)

I could do that and did wonder about just dropping the coil in over the top of the kettle but end of the day I don't really mind if the kettle breaks or leaks, it was only $12 and I still get the element 

But yeah it is a real chance I will have issues with the kettle wall being curved and fragile, I won't want to do up the nuts too tight so thought maybe I'd just do it up snug and cover it in silicon.

The other option is we have a nicer stainless kettle that has a slow leak. If the plastic one is no good I might tell the missus we need a new one, silicon up the the metal one and use that.


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## Tim F (10/8/11)

Well, I went for it. No problems drilling out the holes, that plastic is less brittle than it looks. Not going to silicon the fittings in yet though as I am waiting for 1/2" female BSP to 10mm hose barb adapters to arrive off ebay and not sure how deep the threaded section will be on those - I might be able to get away without using the nuts at all there and just rely on the adapters to hold the nipples tight.

Jeez its all a bit raunchy isn't it, silicon, tight nipples, nuts, female adapters...


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## Tanga (10/8/11)

Very interesting. I look forward to seeing what happens with this. I have that exact same kettle. Another option if that hadn't worked (as it obviously did) is a cheap old aluminum kettle from an op-shop. They're usually a bit bigger too. How much are all those connections / where did you get them? Why are you going this way instead of BIAB?


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## Tim F (10/8/11)

Well there might still be a touch of biab in the final design, one idea was to put the grain in a bag in the tun and recirc through that. The reason I didn't just use an urn though is because I like the easy temperature control for step mashing with the pid and I like the idea of keeping the water recirculating to boost efficiency.


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## Acasta (10/8/11)

Genius. Looks awesome. Good work.


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## glassgrenade (10/8/11)

what is the point of this? I'm sure this will work, but i can't see where your gains are going to be over a normal stovetop biab mash. You won't get an increase of wort clarity if you use a bag. You won't be saving money on equipment (the whole point of stove top mash) if you have to buy a pump and a false bottom. And with such a small thermal mass i think that the temp of this thing is going to be shooting all over the place, so you won't be getting the smooth stable temp that is the whole point of a herms. I'm not trying to shoot you down in any way, i just really don't understand the whole pint of this brewing system you're making, to me it seems like a whole lot of expenditure for little gain. 

If its just to see if you can, then i understand that, i'm a tinkerer myself.


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## Dazza88 (10/8/11)

But it is cool.


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## Tim F (10/8/11)

glassgrenade said:


> what is the point of this? I'm sure this will work, but i can't see where your gains are going to be over a normal stovetop biab mash. You won't get an increase of wort clarity if you use a bag.



I most likely won't use a bag, that was just a vague thought if my other ideas don't work. The idea I like most so far is to use a 10L stock pot with the bottom drilled full of holes, effectively a false bottom that can be lifted out.



glassgrenade said:


> You won't be saving money on equipment (the whole point of stove top mash) if you have to buy a pump and a false bottom.



The whole cost of the system is $100 and change. I already have a peristaltic pump but if that doesn't work it will be + another $30 for one of those cheapy pumps.



glassgrenade said:


> And with such a small thermal mass i think that the temp of this thing is going to be shooting all over the place, so you won't be getting the smooth stable temp that is the whole point of a herms.



I'm not so sure about that, the thermal mass is smaller but people hold 1C in a 20L BIAB for an hour, if I insulate properly and exchange the whole mash volume in about 5-7 minutes I think it will be very stable in there. But yeah I will need to insulate everything possible. I also love the idea of step mashing without extra infusions or decoctions.



glassgrenade said:


> I'm not trying to shoot you down in any way, i just really don't understand the whole pint of this brewing system you're making, to me it seems like a whole lot of expenditure for little gain.
> 
> If its just to see if you can, then i understand that, i'm a tinkerer myself.


Well yeah a big part of it is just tinkering - I needed a new project and this was a good one. I also wanted to try cooking sous vide, in fact that was my first reason to start building this before I realised it would only need a few mods to brew in as well! I already have a traditional 40L AG setup so not relying on this as my only source of beer anyway if it doesn't work out


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## _HOME_BREW_WALLACE_ (10/8/11)

Nice work! :icon_cheers: 

What did you coil your copper around?


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## Tim F (10/8/11)

Don't laugh - a piece of firewood  I also discovered that if you fill copper pipe with damp sand, then coil it up, the wet sand is very hard to get out. The missus just rolled her eyes.


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## dent (10/8/11)

This thing looks good - 

The heat exchanger will work fine - I use a similar sized one for a 50L system. You won't have any problems with the thermal mass or temperature stability, your PID controller will establish the duty cycle required to maintain your temperature very accurately.


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## yardy (10/8/11)

Tim F said:


> *the wet sand is very hard to get out. *



try salt next time, just flush it out with hot water.

nice little project by the way, had to laugh at the _'why are you doing this'_ and _'why not BIAB'_ comments though  

cheers


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## Tim F (10/8/11)

yardy said:


> try salt next time, just flush it out with hot water.



Great idea, cheers!


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## Tanga (10/8/11)

yardy said:


> try salt next time, just flush it out with hot water.
> 
> nice little project by the way, had to laugh at the _'why are you doing this'_ and _'why not BIAB'_ comments though
> 
> cheers



Wasn't having a go, just curious about what the advantages might be. My understanding of HERMS is sketchy. I find it all very interesting though.

As an alternative to drilling holes in a pot another alternative discussed in BIAB threads is a large steaming basket from a Chinese shop.


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## pk.sax (10/8/11)

http://www.bcf.com.au/online-store/product...769#Description

This might be an easier conversion Tanga. Almost all the biab basics present in the setup, modify the crab cooker insert, maybe with a bag. There is a 22.5 L version slightly cheaper too.


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## Tim F (13/8/11)

Slowly getting more bits, got the silicon hose today.

Does anyone have opinions on the pot-in-pot design? I'm leaning that way as I found a bigger pot in the shed that my 15L just fits in to - and it even has the right size hole drilled in it already for a 1/2" nipple  The plan would be to drill the bottom of the pot full of ~2mm holes, then sit it above the bottom of the other pot on a stand or legs. I might be able to use my dads CNC router with a drill bit to drill the base of the pot so could get them pretty close and neat. I know people already do this with the old bucket in a bucket tun design, would it drain quick enough if I'm pumping from underneath the inner bucket?

Here's how the flow would go:




Also I am pretty tempted by this little pump - reckon it would do the job?


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## Tanga (13/8/11)

The head (how high it can pump) is plenty @ 1.6 m. Is 1.5 L / min enough throughput? You (probably) won't get a stuck spare at that speed, but will it be enough to ramp the temp?


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## Tim F (13/8/11)

Well if I have a 10L mash volume it will recirc the whole lot in 6 and a half minutes which seems ok, 15L in 10 minutes obviously, I think thats somewhere around the same time to recirculate as bigger systems???


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## Tanga (13/8/11)

Don't know, sorry, just going on my readings. Hopefully someone who does HERMS and has a bit more AG cred,can let you know. Looks awesome though, and affordable, unlike the 'ghetto braumeister' though that looks cool too.


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## Tim F (14/8/11)

Well I have decided on the pot in pot design for the mash tun/false bottom. There's a few advantages - the outer pot works like a grant so there's no suction on the grain bed (good as long as it flows freely enough I guess) and I can just lift the grain pot out before boil. I was going to say I don't know why everyone doesn't do the same, until I did a script to plot the holes in an offset layout and realised there was 5,497 holes to drill :icon_vomit: 
I thought I'd stuffed up the script but I checked and double checked and it looks right. Luckily the old man has agreed to drill them with his cnc router on autopilot. If it wasn't for that though I guess you could just cut slots in the bottom with an angle grinder?

Here's my hole layout, using 2.5mm holes.




And here's my vb script if anyone ever needs to plot a grid of offset holes (or point out my mistakes)  It does one quarter at a time.


```
Private Sub DrawXY()

'reset fields if you are storing values in them

Me.xyvalues.Value = ""

Me.xvalues.Value = ""

Me.yvalues.Value = ""

radius = 130 'where you want to drill holes out to

x = 0

y = 0

xoffset = 2.5 'increment x by this for each string of holes

yoffset = 4 'each hole in the string spaced this far apart

yodd = 2 'additional offset for the first hole in each alternate string

stringcounter = 0

Do While stringcounter * xoffset < radius 'repeat until the radius is reached

x = stringcounter * xoffset 'position of string

y = 0

firsthole = 1 'this is the first hole of the string, apply additional offset on alternate rows

	'generate ys for x

	Do While Sqr((x * x) + (y * y)) < radius 'set up new holes on y axis until radius of circle reached

		'increase y offset for alternate lines

		If stringcounter = 0 Then 'apply the additional offset to alternate rows

			ystart = 0

			ElseIf IIf(stringcounter Mod 2, "odd", "even") = "odd" Then

			ystart = yodd

			Else: ystart = 0

		End If

		'set y value appropriately

		If firsthole = 1 Then

			y = y + ystart

			firsthole = 0

			Else: y = y + yoffset

		End If

'Do whatever you want with x and y values here, I put them in a field in access

Me.xyvalues.Value = Me.xyvalues.Value & "(" & x & "," & y & ")" & vbNewLine

Me.xvalues.Value = Me.xvalues.Value & x & vbNewLine

Me.yvalues.Value = Me.yvalues.Value & y & vbNewLine

	Loop

'increment x

stringcounter = stringcounter + 1 'start the next string of holes

Loop

End Sub
```


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## Tanga (15/8/11)

Good to see. things are moving along. Just realised you're in SA. I'd live to see it in action when it's done. Brilliant!


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## Tim F (18/8/11)

I've got most of the bits together for the PID enclosure now. The PID controller rocked up from HK with one of the relays rattling around in the case. Luckily it worked fine after it was soldered back on. The seller offered me $3 USD back for the inconvenience.


> if in the future , you need me do something for you , pls feel freely contact with me .
> I will try my best to help you .
> Thanks in advance
> Have a nice day and happy forever.


So that was nice.

One thing to look out for if you're going the cheap PID route like I did, it turned out the one I got, a REX-C100, is just a relay itself. To switch an SSR directly, you need a control current output which some PID controllers have built in. Mine just switches internally. It actually says it is rated to switch the mains directly but I'm not game to run mains through something that came with bits falling off it so I stripped the guts out of an old AC adapter and will run 240V into my enclosure, into the AC adapter, then through the PID to switch my SSR on and off to control the mains. I'll need to put a suitable resistor between the AC adapter and the SSR.

Other stuff I got
-Biggest enclosure I could find - still be a squeeze I think
-Mains socket for the kettle to run off
-Cable grommets
-Terminal block to split the mains power inside the enclosure to go to the PID, the AC adapter and the SSR
-Sweet blue LED power switch
-Black extension cord to power the enclosure

And the SSR is also on its way from HK!

Total cost of all electrical parts was about $55.


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## dent (18/8/11)

Not sure what your idea is with the resistor. The Rex PID will switch 3A 240VAC from memory, and since you are using it to control a SSR with next to no drive current I don't see why you wouldn't use it directly, rattly bits nonwithstanding.

I have a couple of the REX units, so far I am not impressed with the temperature accuracy of the K thermocouple models. Also they seem to vary with the temperature of the PID unit itself. 

If your probe is like the one I recieved, be careful to insulate and/or earth the metal sheath of the probe wire inside your box - it would be a bit too easy for this to come into contact with the neighbouring 240V terminals.


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## Tim F (18/8/11)

The SSR I bought has control voltage 3-32V and control current 3-25mA. So if using that I needed some way to deliver the lower control current.
I wondered about using the PID to switch the kettle directly but everyone is always going on about heatsinks and SSRs - wondered if its really safe to switch mains with the PID directly since I also plan to use this for sous vide cooking & it might be on for a day at a time.

Cheers for the tip re the probe.


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## dent (19/8/11)

OK, if you have DC controlled SSR, but the resistor is not necessary. It is not like an LED or transistor where you have to limit the input current - the input impedance of the SSR is already rather high. 

Not that it would cause any problems if you put one in - your plan will work fine.


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## Tim F (25/8/11)

OK after actually reading the manual this controller can act as a relay but it also has control current on 2 other pins. So didn't end up needing the AC adapter. I got the controller all wired up with everything bar the SSR, which is still in the post. Here's my wiring, it was pretty simple so hopefully I got it right, but I will be running it past an electrician in the family before plugging it in. Once I get the SSR connected I will neaten everything up, cable ties etc, fix down the components, bling it up.



I didn't know if it was necessary to connect the ground to the AC out but figured it might not be a bad idea. But like I said I won't be trusting my wiring skills enough to turn it on without having it checked.




I put a power outlet with switch on the box so I can turn off the kettle but keep the controller on to read temp etc, if I ever want to. 




Added a ball valve to my mash tun using a silicon baking tray to cut some washers. No leaks, always nice.




Connected the coil to the kettle properly, it was a pain in the ass doing up that bottom compression fitting inside the kettle. In the end I did it up before I dropped the coil in and stretched the kettle out of shape until I could wiggle it down to the hole.




Here's the whole thing so far. Obviously the pump will sit in line between the MT and HEX and the hoses will be shorter and the whole thing insulated as much as possible. I'm using hose barbs for now but I think I might upgrade to a camlock at least on the MT outlet once it all works how I want. They are cheaper than I thought. I'm also thinking about not drilling a hole for the return to the MT and just running the hose under the lid of the pot. This will make it a lot easier to move the hose to the fermenter and just pump out the MT/kettle after the boil.




Still to do:
Add a T piece to the HEX outlet with the thermocouple mounted
Add a small valve inline on the bottom of the HEX to throttle back the pump if nec - I understand it is better to restrict pump outlet than inlet?
hook up the SSR when it arrives
Buy a better pump - I have settled on one of these but I will use my peristaltic pump until that arrives.
Get the grain pot/false bottom drilled out
Insulate everything
Brew!


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## Bizier (25/8/11)

Good work Tim, I was a little disappointed you did not get the tiny pump... I was hoping you would be the tester of that 

I like your setup and hope to do something similar one day. Please post more reports.


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## Tim F (25/8/11)

I know, I really wanted it but just don't think it will be quite big enough. I might get it anyway just because it's cool and use it for 5L batches :icon_cheers:


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## dent (25/8/11)

Those brown/beige pumps are actually surprisingly awesome for the price/size, you might end up preferring it over the peristaltic.


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## Tim F (25/8/11)

Yeah I think it will be better, the only advantage of the peristaltic is being able to come in over the top without priming, so no taps etc. But that beige one gives a much better flow rate. When I was researching pumps I actually found a whole bunch of similar even cheaper pumps on alibaba.com, different capacities but all food safe but you have to buy them in minimum lots of 200. Briefly considered a bulk buy but I'm sure a lot could go wrong with buying $2k worth of cheap pumps from China...

Does anyone see issues with this approach for mounting the thermocouple? I was thinking I'll crimp a section of thin aluminium pipe on one end, drop it through a brass bush in a T piece, and fix it into the bush with silicon. Then just drop the thermocouple into the open end of the tube with a bit of thermal compound from my PC supplies.


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## Tim F (1/9/11)

Got the SSR today and hooked it up but unfortunately I was right the first time - the REX C-100 does not have a control current out, it is just a mechanical relay. Apparently there are some models of the C-100 that do have this but the cheap ebay ones generally don't. So I could go back to using my AC adapter to switch the SSR but I just found another interesting idea on a forum. Apparently the relay in the PID is switched by 5VDC and you can just do a simple mod to the PID so instead of switching the relay, it just feeds that to the out terminals directly. So I reckon that's the go - will take pics to show how it goes.


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## Tim F (3/9/11)

OK so I have the control box working and used it to run a kettle tonight. Pretty tempted to hook the whole thing up now and see how quick it ramps, but no false bottom yet.

This was a pretty easy hack for anyone who gets a REX C-100 PID and wants it to run an SSR directly rather than just switch an external DC source to run the SSR. Now I have 13VDC on pin 4/5. Yes I got the wire colours the wrong way round.







I also made a ghetto heatsink for the SSR from some scrap ally and bolted that on with a bit of thermal goop in between them. I'll drill some air holes in the box, toying with adding a fan but I'll wait and see if it's needed first.


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## Tim F (3/9/11)

She works! That's a good feeling. I just watched the PID cycle the kettle beautifully, after about 10 minutes it was holding 65C +/- 0 

My peristaltic pump isn't going to cut the mustard though, it mustn't like all that friction upstream from the coil. I was only getting a trickle, so off to ebay for the beige pump.


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## Tanga (3/9/11)

Congrats man. It's looking good. Hope the beige beast is gonna work. Must be frustrating to have to wait on eBay again. Go you good thing. Watching this with interest.


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## Tim F (4/9/11)

Yeah I'm getting excited. Already thinking about what mash schedule to use for my first brew to maximise how much I can unnecessarily show off with it 

I ended up ordering this pump from solarproject.co.uk rather than this one from ebay. The only reason I got the UK one (which was ~$15 more) even they they look and probably are identical is the uk seller replied to me to say the one he sells is food safe and the chinese seller said the one he sells is not. Figured there's always some chance the chinese one is a knockoff made from a different material but I probably just wasted the $15


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## Tim F (6/9/11)

Just tinkering while I wait for the pump... I picked up a PT-100 temperature probe off ebay, didn't realise it would be so much more accurate. I also put in a screw down terminal block on the side of the case so I can change/remove the thermocouple/probe without having to undo the lid each time, then I attached all the components with nylon bolts. I also ordered a 40mm PC fan which I will mount when it arrives, as the SSR was feeling warm after about half an hour running the other night. I just spent the day at work perving at the Geordi catalogue too, I could change to all stainless camlocks for $90... h34r:


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## scooter_59 (6/9/11)

Only suggesting . If you are going to place the probe on the outlet side of your hex , all you need to do is buy an end cap for the ' T ' piece and drill a hole in it , then place the probe in and do up the nut using a silicone washer . I did it this way and have not had a leak at all . Very simple .

Cheers
Leachim


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## Tim F (6/9/11)

Awesome tip, cheers. I've been wondering the best way to do it. So a washer with hole just big enough for the probe so it gets squeezed shut when you do the cap up?


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## scooter_59 (6/9/11)

Make the hole big enough for the probe thread to pass through , place the silicone washer on , then the washer and nut . Works a treat easy as . If you have a thermometer check the temp coming out of the hose . My issue was the PID set temp was reading 4* higher than the wort was .


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## Tim F (6/9/11)

Cheers, I'll give it a go.


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## Tim F (8/9/11)

I'm plannin to make a whirlpool immersion chiller for this - should I look at a hop screen or angled pickup to avoid getting hops in the pump or won't it happen/matter?


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## Tim F (15/9/11)

OK more action today. The pump rocked up just in time for my day off so I plumbed it in and hooked up a spare 9V adapter I had lying around. The pump works nicely, seems to give a good stream and put about 6L/minute through the coil :beerbang: Next step is to do a dry run with the controller attached and see how quickly I can ramp up temp.

The only thing stopping me from brewing tonight is the false bottom setup which I'm waiting for my dad to drill for me. Might head round tonight to prod things along a bit h34r: I wonder if I could whip up a BIAB bag today and use that to test it out....











I also picked up the bits to make a wort return - plan to have a copper T with 2 more T's on that for a total of 4 wort exit points, and maybe a few holes drilled along the lengths of copper pipe. I'll grab a switch for the pump power supply today too and also need to pick up some hose insulation - anyone know if Bunnings have that?


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## matho (15/9/11)

Tim F said:


> If it wasn't for that though I guess you could just cut slots in the bottom with an angle grinder?





like this 

edit: forgot the add the photo


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## booargy (15/9/11)

matho said:


> View attachment 48334
> 
> like this
> 
> edit: forgot the add the photo



the 200L braumeister has a screen with slots cut in the same way as mine. only thing is my slots are full length.
I couldn't find the photo the braumeister.


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## Tim F (15/9/11)

Those look awesome, do they work well?


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## booargy (15/9/11)

Tim F said:


> Those look awesome, do they work well?


I get clear wort into the kettle from under it at bit over 75%. Just mark it before you cut it! I know cos I f#@$*d up the first.


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## Tim F (15/9/11)

booargy said:


> I get clear wort into the kettle from under it at bit over 75%. Just mark it before you cut it! I know cos I f#@$*d up the first.



Nice one. If I don't get plan A to drill the holes happening soon I might be giving that a crack 

I just hooked up the whole system albeit only full of water. 10L water went from 20 to 63C in 10 minutes measured at the coil out, and by the time the outlet was 63 the tun temp was only a couple of degrees behind, catching up 1-2 mins later. The system held 63 spot on once it got there. Very keen now to see how it performs with grain.


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## Tim F (20/9/11)

More progress today... the 2mm perforated stainless sheet rocked up from RS.




It is 0.55mm thick, which turned out to be a tiny bit more flexible than I was hoping but pretty rigid when it is sitting in the bottom of the pot.




I also cut a disc out to make a false bottom for the kettle. This will hold the malt pot above the kettle ball valve and also act as a hop screen when I remove the malt pot to start the boil. I cut 4 strips of 1mmm stainless as a frame to support the false bottom, and have some stainless bolts to go through the strips + screen and act as legs.




Next step is to get some smaller stainless bolts to hold the mesh to the bottom of the malt pot. I'm going to cut some little legs out of a chopping board to go on the bottom of the malt pot to hold it above the kettle false bottom. Bunnings tomorrow :icon_cheers:


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## ramu_gupta (21/9/11)

Great work Tim. 

I use a cheapy 8L urn as my HEX, the coil just sits in it with the tubing coming out of the top.
Got the same pump - it works an absolute treat. 
Would like to get a PID for temp control instead of my temp mate.

Looking forward to the next instalment.


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## Tim F (21/9/11)

Definitely give a PID a go, I've been heaps impressed with how well it works without needing tuning or anything and they are very cheap! Got a pic of your setup?

I got a little closer tonight. I bolted the kettle FB to its frame with stainless bolts, it works well but would be even better if the frame was more solid. I will go past my local steel shop when I can and see if they have some 2mm stainless strap. I also ordered some thicker stainless bolts off ebay last night, but it will work like it is now for a few test brews  The bolt heads hold the malt pot above the FB perfectly so I won't need to put legs under the pot. Bunnings again tomorrow for some stainless rivets, I'm just going to pop rivet the FB to the pot.







I also put together the wort return. The joints are mostly loose for now, I'll center punch them once I see if it needs adjusting. Might drill a few holes in the pipes too if they need it. Not sure if the mash will be solid enough for this to sit on top, if not I was thinking of using the hole in the pot lid to drop a wire through and hang the return at the right height.




Here's how the malt pot sits on top of the kettle FB. 




If I can get the rivets and escape from the family long enough I might even be cracking out a test brew tomorrow h34r:


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## ramu_gupta (22/9/11)

Tim F said:


> Definitely give a PID a go, I've been heaps impressed with how well it works without needing tuning or anything and they are very cheap! Got a pic of your setup?



No can do at the moment but will look into the PID. 
"Brewery" - (esky MT, keggle boiler, urn - HEX and pump) - has been dismantled and stored under the house whilst my new brewshed is being built - Yay! Will post pics of the brewshed and setup when completed.


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## Tim F (23/9/11)

I fired her up last night for a small test batch, 6L of whatever was lying around the house ale.
95% ale malt
5% choc malt
styrian goldings at 60, 10, 0 to 30IBU
S04

I did it no sparge just to test how well that worked, mashed with the full volume of water. I got 84% efficiency into the fermenter which was pretty decent I thought.

Did have some problems with the wort return temp being consistently 2-4C under the measured temp at the HEX outlet, I need to figure out how to deal with that but having said that I haven't calibrated my kitchen thermometer against the thermocouple so that could be part of the issue. Also haven't insulated the kettle.

I also had some problems with wort clarity into the kettle but I think that is due to the wort return not being set up properly so it disturbed the mash a bit and also such a small batch giving me a pretty thin grain bed.

Still, mostly fine tuning from here I reckon B)


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## Tanga (23/9/11)

Hell yes. That is truly awesome. I am following this closely. It looks like it would work really well with my 20L urn at some point down the track. Until then it is at least giving me a good basic idea about how HERMS works.


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## Tim F (23/9/11)

After i've done a few more batches I should be able to give more of an idea of what works and what could be improved, no doubt I've made some mistakes along the way


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## Tanga (23/9/11)

Looking forward to it. Would love to see it in action one of these days.


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## Tim F (26/9/11)

I gave Hermes a proper christening on the weekend with Les' Weiss. This time I boiled in a separate kettle so I could get a bigger batch, ended up with about 18L at 85% efficiency into the fermenter again. It did struggle a bit with so much wheat in there, I had to throttle the pump way back to a trickle while it recirculated. I'll be using rice gulls for any sticky mash from now on.

My design has some weaknesses compared to just using a false bottom as the pump never sucks on the grain bed, once the liquid is drained from the outer pot the pump starts to run dry if you don't throttle it back. On the plus side the grain bed doesn't compact I guess.

Having the inner grain pot meant that I could do steps more easily - after a rest, I just lifted the whole pot out, increased the set temp to my next step + some degrees, then when I hit that I changed the set temp back to the actual rest temp and dropped the pot back in and stirred it well. I hit every rest within 1C, which is more than I've managed with direct heat or infusions in the past although I wouldn't say it was easier. I did an acid rest @ 35, protein rest at 55, mash at 65 then mashout and a double batch sparge to get volume.

The weiss already looks like it's going to rock too :beerbang:


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## kymba (27/9/11)

hey tim, love your work

just a quick question - did you have to initialise that PID before it would start triggering the relay?

i have the same model and i think i'm missing something



Tim F said:


> I gave Hermes a proper christening on the weekend with Les' Weiss. This time I boiled in a separate kettle so I could get a bigger batch, ended up with about 18L at 85% efficiency into the fermenter again. It did struggle a bit with so much wheat in there, I had to throttle the pump way back to a trickle while it recirculated. I'll be using rice gulls for any sticky mash from now on.
> 
> My design has some weaknesses compared to just using a false bottom as the pump never sucks on the grain bed, once the liquid is drained from the outer pot the pump starts to run dry if you don't throttle it back. On the plus side the grain bed doesn't compact I guess.
> 
> ...


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## Tim F (27/9/11)

the problem I had with the pid is that it doesn't actually put out any voltage to control the relay off the bat, although you have to read the manual pretty closely to figure that out 
all it does is switch another current to control the relay that way so you have 3 options:
switch the mains directly through the pid if you're game, it does say it is rated for that. 
Get a phone charger or something and use the pid to switch that to control your ssr(maybe safest?).
hack the pid so that it does have a control current output - i posted pics a page or 2 back.


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## kymba (27/9/11)

yeah i have a charger in there and running the -ive through the PID View attachment BUZZ_BOX_v2.pdf

just asking about the initialising as the last time i plugged it and fiddled with the set point nothing happened, but that was ages ago so i might have a look at it again tonight



Tim F said:


> the problem I had with the pid is that it doesn't actually put out any voltage to control the relay off the bat, although you have to read the manual pretty closely to figure that out
> all it does is switch another current to control the relay that way so you have 3 options:
> switch the mains directly through the pid if you're game, it does say it is rated for that.
> Get a phone charger or something and use the pid to switch that to control your ssr(maybe safest?).
> hack the pid so that it does have a control current output - i posted pics a page or 2 back.


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## Tim F (27/9/11)

Yeah didn't have to do anything special to mine, let us know how you go!


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## Tim F (14/10/11)

I've been thinking about the best way to recirculate with this system after having pretty slow runoff with a wheat the last brew. To be expected with wheat of course but I wanted to see how underletting the grain, braumeister/miser style works 

The most ghetto 'malt pipe' I can think of is just a vessel with holes in the top and a lid that can be fixed down, and an inlet pipe leading down to the bottom of the vessel.

Here's the prototype version I made the other day just to see if it works. Obviously as someone else pointed out, compared to a malt pipe you can't just drain this out the bottom so I plan to just turn it upside down over the kettle at mashout. This should hold about 1.2kg of grain I reckon, if it works OK I plan to make a bigger version with a 5L stock pot. With a bigger version I might run the inlet pipe down the side of the pot rather than through the lid and use a little manifold to distribute the wort evenly? And I might consider bigger holes with a finer screen underneath to filter.

Anyway test brew today or tomorrow :icon_cheers:


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## matho (14/10/11)

tim,

you could work out a way to pump your sparge water thru, work out how much sparge water you need and then add the volume of the vessel and then you should be able extract most of the sugars without having to tip it upside down


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## Tim F (14/10/11)

Great idea! I'll give it a crack.


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## Tim F (16/10/11)

Haven't tried the malt pipe out yet but I thought I'd put up a few pics of brew #3 as I go tonight (late night brewing = peace & quiet  )

I'm just making an APA kinda thing with BB pale malt, bit of caramunich because I like it and Cascade to 40IBU with a fair few late additions. 

Heating the strike water now, should be ready in 10.


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## Tim F (16/10/11)

Definitely still got a few bugs to iron out I think. The tun can't drain as fast as the pump wants it to, even when I throttle right back. Must only be draining under 1L/m. Next time I might try letting it sit for 5 minutes after doughing in and then just turn on the pump for a few seconds at a time to see if it helps the grain bed set up more gently. I might also be a bit optimistic getting 3.25kg of grain into a 15L mash tun, maybe the grain bed is a bit deep?

Once the tun fills up too much it starts to drain out the return arm hole before it gets to overflowing but I'd rather it drained through the grain bed as planned.




Maybe I just need to go to the malt pipe idea instead.


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## Tim F (16/10/11)

I ended up doing a quick decoction to mashout, couldn't be assed waiting for the trickle through the coil to do anything.
FWH, mmm.... how good does Cascade smell! You can just see how fast it isn't running off though.


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## Tim F (16/10/11)

Well I'm calling that the start of the boil... hop additions at 3.20, 3.35 and flameout :blink: 

Check out my new high tech burner stand btw, I made it last weekend


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## Dazza88 (16/10/11)

Jeez, when do you go to bed mate. Without reading the last page recently, have you trialled a 2 kg mash, a2.5 kg mash etc to find the sweet spot for this system. I am no expert on herms, stirring the mash help? I want to make one of these or a braumiser one day. Very cool.


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## Tim F (16/10/11)

Yep I'm pretty buggered now, nothing some coffee won't fix though 

My first batch was 1kg and it drained like a charm, but 3 was too much maybe - think you're right, I'll try 2kg next and see how that goes. I stirred the mash heaps but that didn't make a lot of difference.


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