Built My Herms Vessel

[AndrewQLD]

Last weekend, while wishing I was at the Qld Xmas in July swap, I put together my herms. After looking at Batz' system (sorry mate, I just couldn't wait ) and reading some of the posts between Batz and Screwtop here's what I came up with:


It's a 10 lt pot with a 2200 watt element and about 3 mt of copper pipe.
The initial testing using water showed the temperature in the herms @ 67.5 and the liquid coming out of the manifold in the mash tun was 65.4, I think a 2 degree difference is pretty good from what I have read. The temp held at 65 in the mash tun for an hour and then the temp controller was adjusted to ramp the temp up to 75 for a simulated mashout, it took about 15 minutes to raise the temp.

The controller probe is in the manifold in the mash tun where the wort exits onto the grain bed.

Flow was kept at about 2 ltr a minute, hopefully that will be slow enough to prevent the grain bed from compacting.
Any Herms Gurus out there care to comment, or let me know if I could improve on the above? Oh and the above test was done before the hoses were insulated.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Jazzafish]

I'm not a HERMS guru, but a keen observer... but one day I will be going down this road!

Just wanted to say it looks great and good on you for getting it together. Let me know how your first HERMS brews turn out.

Cheers,
Jarrad

 

[fixa]

Nice job bloke!
Tool tard eh? looks pretty good to me!

 

[Pumpy]

Nice one Andrew everything you do is with meticulous precision ,

Pumpy

 

[Pumpy]

Andrew how do you slow the flow by throttling the ball valves ?

Pumpy

 

[Doogiechap]

Andrew I look forward to you posting results on your mash temp's/ fluctuations with respect to the manifold temps. My control probe is fitted directly in my Herms vessel. I find that my mash temp is about 2 degress less than my Herms temp and stays steady but am always interested in refining the setup
Cheers
Doug

I was thinking about it, and even asked Chris White when he was in town last year. Basically, don't do it if you are making beer. If you are making yeast, no problem. Beer from a stirplate is not that nice flavourful beer that we want.
If you are making yeast for a micro, then go for the big 50 litre stirplate :beerbang:

Doc

 

[fraser_john]

Looks like a very professional build!

Are you going to add some sort of stirrer in the HLT?? They really help with heat distribution through the liquor, though with your heat coil at the bottom, it should create a fairly good circulating current anyway!

 

[Batz]

:beerbang:

Cheers
Batz

 

[kirem]

I have a HERMS system.

I control the exchanger temp by measuring the wort on the outlet of the coil, works really well. I have 3.6kW element mounted vertically up through a 50L stainless vessel. It is insulated all over as in the picture, the top vessel is the HEX. I can get better than 1degC/min, but have my controller setup to only allow 1degC/min ramp.

View attachment 14029

Your figures sound quite good Andrew. 2degC differential is very good. I would be interested to know your performance if it gets insulated and if you decide to use a stirrer.

I don't know how many liters a minute my system does, I just throttle back the pump using a ball valve until I have a good flow and occasionally check that the mash is not stuck.

 

[Tony]

looks bloody tops to me.

mine is the same....3 meters of 1/2" copper tube in the HLT

It is a bit small to hold temp in a 50 liter mash. I dont like running it out of the herms too hot as you get problems with denaturing enzymes and it seems to decrease the attenuation of the brew for me.

So i let it sit for a bit to settle, start the pump with the outlet closed. I open it slowly till i start to get flow and thats it. I let it run and set the temp in my HLT to get the desired output temp from the herms.

say if the mash has cooled 1 or 2 degrees at the bottom of the mash tun. Im mashing at 66 deg and its exiting the tun at 64. I turn up the HLT temp till i get 67 out of the HERMS.

It seems to hold the temp fairly close and i get a good balance of body and good attenuation.

what you have to work out is what temps work for you for the beer you want to make. experiment with different temps. If it doesnt attenuate down well, it may have been too warm. If its to thin, it mat have been too cool

adjust to suit like me

basicly mine holds a temerature fairly close and clears the wort while it circulates. If i didnt have the HERMS coil during circulation it would cool heaps but it holds fairly steady. and here is the wort as it goes to the kettle

clear as a bell

cheers

 

[AndrewQLD]

Thanks for the replies guys, I will be brewing sometime over the next couple of days,

Andrew how do you slow the flow by throttling the ball valves ?

Pumpy

Pumpy, I adjust the ball valve on the outlet side of the pump, the wort exits the mash tun goes through the pump and then the Herms and back into the top of the tun.

Are you going to add some sort of stirrer in the HLT?? They really help with heat distribution through the liquor, though with your heat coil at the bottom, it should create a fairly good circulating current anyway!

Fraser_john, yes I do plan a small stirrer, probably an old windscreen wiper motor.

I control the exchanger temp by measuring the wort on the outlet of the coil, works really well. I have 3.6kW element mounted vertically up through a 50L stainless vessel. It is insulated all over as in the picture, the top vessel is the HEX. I can get better than 1degC/min, but have my controller setup to only allow 1degC/min ramp.

Kirem, I have set my controller for a 1 hystersis? as well, I just hope that wort doesn't produce different results than the test run with water, well I'll soon see.

Tony, that wort is crystal clear! I am really looking forward to the first run which will by my Aussie Ale, I have brewed this beer so many times I know exactly what my outcomes normally are so this will give me a good indication of just how the herms will affect my beers.


I'll let you all know how the brewday goes.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[therook]

This looks great Andrew.

This might be a dumb question but

What happens to the Wort left in the copper coil ?

Rook

 

[AndrewQLD]

This looks great Andrew.

This might be a dumb question but

What happens to the Wort left in the copper coil ?

Rook

The Herms is connected inline with the HLT, after the mash and the wort has been tranfered to the boiler the herms will be flushed with boiling water from the HLT. There is only about 300ml or so of wort left in the coil and this can be drained out of the bottom inlet before flushing.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Ross]

Top effort as always Andrew. Looking forward to hearing your results, as I'm toying with maybe something similar - My brewery's been due an upgrade for a long time now...

Cheers Ross

 

[kirem]

My coil is wound and setup so it drains by gravity back into the mashtun. I flush through with hot water at the end of brewday and then a rinse with non corrosive sanitiser immediately prior to brewday. Copper doesn't like corrosive cleaner/santisier.

I also re-use mine with cold water and recirculate the wort post boil through it to cool the wort down, it does a great job. I can also plumb in a plate chiller to help if I need the wort to be cooled lower.

One of the best things is the very easy ability to step the temp on mashes and the clarity of the wort.

 

[Screwtop]

Andrew, are you using a FB or manifold. Wondering, as my FB lets quite a bit of flour and small grist particles through at first runnings, probably around 750ml. How does the pump cope with this?

Cheers,
Screwy

 

[AndrewQLD]

Andrew, are you using a FB or manifold. Wondering, as my FB lets quite a bit of flour and small grist particles through at first runnings, probably around 750ml. How does the pump cope with this?

Cheers,
Screwy

Screwy, I use a S/S braided hose, pump has always handled it well when I recirculate, usually the first litre has some grist particles but then it clears up ok.
One of the reasons I swapped over from false bottom to braid was the amount of grist and flour that the FB lets through, haven't had that or any other problems since changing.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[Tony]

I get a fair bit through my FB ay first. they are only little bits and the pump just pumps em up to the top of the mash.

Its not a problem unless you are sucking serious qualtities of thick mash. I had an experimental FB buckle on me once and the pump sucked a gut load of grain in. It passed it through and it all ended up blocking in the return to the mash tun.

The pump handled it fine.

I think the impella in the march pumps is actually a series of paddles so there is nothing for it all to get stuck in really.

cheers

 

[JSB]

Looks great Andrew....thinking about going down this path soon - have all the parts......would 3/16 copper be OK instead of 1/2 ??.....any thermal dynamic specialist out there ??

Cheers
JSB

 

[Justin]

I'll jump in here for you JSB.

I've tried using 1/4" copper as a herms coil as I had a 5m coil that I use in another project The flow rate is a bit too low in my opinion to be of much use really so I'd be going 3/8" minimum but more likely 1/2".

The flow from 1/4" in was just too slow to be of much use really and it just didn't deliver the flow of warmed wort to the mash tun quick enough to counter any losses in heat unless you up the heat of the exchanger water, thus increasing the temp of the exiting wort-which I did not want to do.

I was measuring temp out of the coil as it came back onto the grain bed and this was where my temp controller sampled from, so the same set up as Andrew has got going here. IMO I want that temp exiting the coil and getting back onto the mash bed to be my desired mash temp. I'll be building my new coil very soon out of 1/2" but I just tried the 1/4" as an experiment and to test out my new control panel and controllers.

Best of luck and hope the test flight goes well Andrew.
Cheers, Justin