2 Pump Herms System

[Bigfella]

I am stiill in the middle of building my herms and I have scored another mag drive pump its no a MARCH put still a good size. I was wondering if any of you had any suggestions on the best use of 2 pumps on a herms sys.
I will be running a separate tank for the heat exchanger. I'm sure I can put it to good use but thought I may have missed a better way of using it
Thanks :beer:

 

[Doogiechap]

The times I wish I had a second pump is when I am fly sparging and would like to pump the Sparge water onto the grain bed whilst I am also pumping the wort into the Kettle. I just resort to using gravity for the sparge and pumping into the Kettle with the burner running for a faster boil time. Happy planning
Cheers
Doug

 

[Justin]

Depends on how your brewery is set up. If your using gravity in it somewhere (eg. HLT gravity to MT) then you don't really need the second pump.

If your just building it you could make a single tier if you like to fly sparge and use the two pumps. If your batch sparging you can get by with one pump just fine but a second pump would be very handy.

It's up to you really to work out what you do with it.

 

[ant]

Nice score bigfella... does this mean you're TWICE the real brewer others are? :huh:

I'm setting up a one tier AG system using two pumps, and as Justin and Doug point out, the only real advantage really is for fly sparging. With a two pump system, you can also have one pump dedicated to be HLT only (eg no wort contact) for underletting/mashing in and fly sparge, and use the other pump for everything in contact with wort (pump through HERMS, MLT to kettle, kettle to chiller). Not sure it makes much difference, but it minimises potential for sugary residue in some of your system, which I guess eliminates some bacteria potential...

I've also designed the system to (valve) isolate the kettle/"wort only pump"/chiller section with valves so you can use your "water only" pump for cleaning the HLT/MLT/HERMS/lauter/associated piping while the kettle is boiling.

They seem like two good ways to speed up an AG day to me...

I'm also using a separate vessel for the HERMS unit, but will be gravity feeding from the MLT through HERMS, then through pump back to MLT.

Cheers,
Ant

 

[ausdb]

If you use a counterflow, heres an idea

http://www.strangebrew.ca/Drew/cherms/index.html

I emailed the guy a while back and he said he had never actually implemented it so I am not sure how well it would work.

 

[BottleBitch]

The best use for the other pump would be for tht HLT, you could use it to sparge and when you are whirlpooling with the other pump, you could use the HLT pump to run HL through your chiller to sanitise it, this is a real time saver.