Herms Alternative

[vlbaby]

I just thought i would share my latest brew setup improvement with you guys. I was previously running a fairly normal herms setup (copper coil inside the HLT), but i found a number limitations that have prompted me to make some changes.

The concept is still pretty much the same except that i have moved the heat exchanger coil to a seperate, much smaller hot water chamber ( a stainless steel electric kettle).
The advantage i find with this is, I can regulate my mash temperature independant of the HLT temperature. This means that when the time comes for sparging, I dont have to readjust my Hot Liquor. Secondly it allows me to step mash without having to raise the temperature of a whole heap of hot liquor and the mash volume.
So far I have been able to a 30L mash volume at about 1 degC per 90secs, which may be a little slow, but with some further changes in insulation etc I think i could acheive a little better.

I suppose the down side is the need for an additional temperature controller, which wasnt a big problem for me as I already had a duel channel controller anyway.
Anyhow this is it..



vl.

 

[Jye]

That is awesome :beerbang:

Does the kettle boil?

 

[Linz]

Ive had the set up you've mentioned, although I have used a 10lt urn for the heat exchanger. Novel idea to use a kettle..cool!

 

[vlbaby]

That is awesome :beerbang:

Does the kettle boil?

[post="124809"][/post]​

The Water in the HERMS never gets anywhere close to boiling because the circulating wort absorbs its heat too quickly.
I took temperature measurements of the water in the herms. the mash temp and the returning wort temp and it goes like this.

at full steam...returning wort = mash temp + 6degC

herms water = returning wort + 6 degC.

When the HERMS is just idling. ( ie. maintaining the present temp.) . All three temperatures are roughly the same, give or take a degree.

vl.

 

[Justin]

Nice work VL. And that system looks cool as Linz.

I was just going to add VL that if you insulate your lines/hoses to and from your mash tun to HE and back again you'll see an improvement in temperature efficiencies as well-just as I notices Linz has done.

I'm going to be building a separate heat exhanger very soon similar to yours, I've seen a number of breweries that use it. I have a 7L SS stock pot that I will probably sacrifice but I also have an 8L plastic urn that would work exceptionally well too.

Cheers, Justin