Dedicated Herms Guide, Problems And Solution Thread

[QldKev]

The main reason I find is once you exceed 80% by too much you get a less grainy/malty flavor.

 

[Beerisyummy]

Nice one QK!
I wonder if that could be alleviated by adding a little fresh grist to the mash towards the end? Also, what sort of beers are you finding less grainy? Is it the lager variety?

Edit: Could it be that the ramp times and mash schedules are favouring the beta amylase?

 

[mb-squared]

The main reason I find is once you exceed 80% by too much you get a less grainy/malty flavor.

I could be wrong, but a thin mouthfeel in the final product is better addressed by upping your mash temp and/or your gravity (bigger grain bill or longer boil times), or by using a less attenuating yeast. I don't think the answer to better mouthfeel is to lower the efficiency of your rig.

 

[QldKev]

I find it pretty much across the board, but it shows a lot more in lower alcohol beers that are not slammed with hops. So if you are making a 5.5% APA with a hop rate of 200g/liter late additions (ok a bit over the top, but you get the idea) it's not as much an issue. It's not a mash temperature issue, although that will change how dextrinous the wort is. I'm not talking mouth feel. Even mashing for a thicker sweeter beer can result in less grainy flavor than desired.

Think of it this way, the higher the efficiency aka more sugar you extract from a given grain, the less malt you use. Hence less malt for flavor as there is more than just the starch component within the grain for flavor. I've tried substituting heavier malts to up the level, but there is a certain graininess that I like from lower efficiency mashes. This is also my personal preference, and the next 100 brewers may not be able to taste what I'm talking about.

 

[Beerisyummy]

QK has quite a few brews under his belt. If his perceived result from higher mash efficiencies is a less grainy flavour, I'm willing to take him on his word......and then the man himself posted.

Have you tried adding more grain towards the end of the mash yet? I'm itching to crack open the bag of grain I picked up yesterday and try it out.

 

[dent]

It makes some kind of sense - if the solubility for the grainy flavours is different (say, higher) to that of the saccharine matter, then all that will be sucked out of your mash first. So then additional efficiency yields more sugars, but not more "grainy flavour".

 

[QldKev]

I think dent has worded it clearer than I have. There are many flavor compounds that make up a gain of malt.

I haven't tried adding more grain towards the end of the mash, I should give it a go.

 

[surly]

Hey all, I have been slowly reading through this, but nearly 60 pages takes a while!

I was originally planning to build myself a single vessel recirculating brewery, but when I looked at all the parts and cost, building a separate heat exchange and HERMS'ing it seemed pretty easy.
So, I am leaning towards using a small vessel, element from a kettle, copper pipe etc HEX. In a small vessel (<10L), would I need to stir/agitate the water in the HEX? or would convection etc be good enough?
I have noticed that people use pumps or similar when they use their MLT's for HERMS'ing, but these seem to be very large vessels.

Thanks for the assistance,

Tim.

 

[Beerisyummy]

IME, don't even bother with a coil unless you have sufficient surface interaction on both sides of the coil. Inside and out.

Building a single vessel recirculating brewery is not as expensive as a 3v.

 

[mb-squared]

It makes some kind of sense - if the solubility for the grainy flavours is different (say, higher) to that of the saccharine matter, then all that will be sucked out of your mash first. So then additional efficiency yields more sugars, but not more "grainy flavour".

ah, yes, I could see how that might be the case. neat!

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

Greater efficiency from over sparging results in extraction of less favorable compounds.
I can achieve 90% plus efficiency but choose to set my sparge efficiency to 76% ** just for this reason.(**Same as adding more malt to grain bill )
If your last runnings are under 1.010 then you are heading into over sparged flavors.
Nev

 

[surly]

IME, don't even bother with a coil unless you have sufficient surface interaction on both sides of the coil. Inside and out.

Building a single vessel recirculating brewery is not as expensive as a 3v.

Hi mate,
I was not really going to go full 3v. Was thinking of creating a mash tun and recirculating through that via the HEX, then just going straight to boil kettle. This would allow me to more easily play with step mashing and I like the idea of recirculating.
If I felt the need to sparge, I can always use my BigW pot. No added expense.
Only talking 20L batches here or less.

What would you consider sufficient surface interaction for the coil? Assuming 1/2' copper.

If it works out to be too much of a pain, I can drop it.

 

[idzy]

Hey all, I have been slowly reading through this, but nearly 60 pages takes a while!

I was originally planning to build myself a single vessel recirculating brewery, but when I looked at all the parts and cost, building a separate heat exchange and HERMS'ing it seemed pretty easy.
So, I am leaning towards using a small vessel, element from a kettle, copper pipe etc HEX. In a small vessel (<10L), would I need to stir/agitate the water in the HEX? or would convection etc be good enough?
I have noticed that people use pumps or similar when they use their MLT's for HERMS'ing, but these seem to be very large vessels.

Thanks for the assistance,

Tim.

10 litres is about the size of mine. You probably want as much copper as you can cram in to allow minimum water and maximum wort ratio in the HEX. Your proposal will work for batches up to 60 litres as mine does (subject to your design).

Cheers,
Idzy

 

[Beerisyummy]

Hi mate,
I was not really going to go full 3v. Was thinking of creating a mash tun and recirculating through that via the HEX, then just going straight to boil kettle. This would allow me to more easily play with step mashing and I like the idea of recirculating.
If I felt the need to sparge, I can always use my BigW pot. No added expense.
Only talking 20L batches here or less.

What would you consider sufficient surface interaction for the coil? Assuming 1/2' copper.

If it works out to be too much of a pain, I can drop it.

Hi Surly,
If you're using a coil in a small pot I wouldn't stress too much about agitating the fluid around the coil. The convection currents in the water will do a fairly good job once it gets a bit of heat into it. Of course, there are obvious considerations to take into account, such as making sure the heating fluid can flow around the entire coil. Apart from that the coil in the kettle is pretty fool proof. As a bonus they are pretty simple to build out of annealed copper.

+ what Idzy said.

 

[boybrewer]

I have a 7lt pot with just over 3mt of copper in a 2v plus HX and it works extremely well . When sparging I use the LBP from the MT to the HLT and the HLT to the MT which is run by a march pump . I end up with around 75% mash efficiency and am very happy with it . If you read any books by Jamil Zainasheff I think that is how you spell his name he says that higher efficiency can produce flavours and mouth feel that is detremental to the production of a beer more so on the homebrewer side than the commercial brewers .

 

[surly]

Thanks for the responses guys.
Reckon this will be a fun little project that might actually be within my capabilities

 

[Beerisyummy]

Greater efficiency from over sparging results in extraction of less favorable compounds.
I can achieve 90% plus efficiency but choose to set my sparge efficiency to 76% ** just for this reason.(**Same as adding more malt to grain bill )
If your last runnings are under 1.010 then you are heading into over sparged flavors.
Nev

76% seems very low if we're talking about the same thing. Is the 76% the mash efficiency as calculated in BS2?
The bloke who gave me a good rundown about mashing told me to taste the spent grains. Residual sweetness is good and astringency is bad as far as that chat went. It makes sense.

My last brew came in just shy of 88% and had the second runnings well above 1.010. Not that I'm saying this is better, I'm just trying to work out why it should be worse?
Of course I'll have to wait a while to see if there are any off flavours due to the mash, but I can't say I've noticed much in the past. The lagers I've been making came in at mid 90s on average and tasted very clean.

Do you have any advice on the over sparging flavours one should be looking out for Nev?

Edit: Also, how fine are you grinding your grain? Are your husks all ground up?

 

[Donske]

I'm sure this has been asked and answered previously but this thread is a bit too long to read every page for one bit of info.

I'm currently upgrading my brewery in stages looking to have a double batch HERMs set up by the end of the year, next up is a mash tun upgrade and I want to make sure I get it right for when I get around to adding the herms unit.

I have an 80L Techni Ice esky sitting around I'd like to repurpose, just got a couple of questions;

Are there any issues with having a long shallow grain bed with a herms set up?

What would be the best option for a FB, copper manifold, stainless braid or one of the Beer Belly false bottoms?

 

[idzy]

Donske. There are two types of techiice esky, long and deep. In my opinion long is not suitable to the 2:1 1:2 ratio suggested by howtobrew.com

I believe the guys with esky set ups use either the triangle beer belly one or a copper manifold, both with success. The beer belly one would have to be assessed against the size of your esky I'm guessing.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Idzy

 

[coopsomulous]

Donske.

use a 40L Technie Ice esky with a beer belly falsie and have been getting good results since i installed my HERMS. I only do single batches at the moment.

The beer belly falsie takes up a fair bit of the bottom of the esky, however Im not convinced that the corners of the mash tun are rinsed properly during a sparge and have recently returned to batch sparging to ensure those areas are rinsed properly during sparging. This probably has more to do with my sparge return being a silicon tube that i adjust its height using some string. Probably will end up building a better sparge return into the mash tun to distribute the water better.

With a longer esky I would assume that issue would be more pronounced. Somethign for you to consider i guess.

Cheers

TommyC