Herms Build Version 1.0

[JasonY]

Well I have been going to move my system to a HERMs setup for ages and I have finally taken the first step with the heat exchange unit. Pretty basic design along the lines of many others, I wanted a smaller vessel (4" pipe) rather than use the HLT. I've yet to give it a test run so I will see how it goes in about a weeks time. The heating element is about 1200W and I think the volume of the tube will be around 3 -4 litres so it should hold up alright. I have test heated it and it seemed to be able to climb in temperature at a decent rate.

For now I will just control the water temp in the tube with a dixell on/off control, the more serious automation will follow hopefully in the next couple of months. Phase II will be automatic control via an Arduino processor using SSRs but thats a whole topic of its own

Here's hoping it works without any hitches! :beer:


The coil, about a 2" - 2.5" diameter, painful to roll but amazing what a little salt can do to help things.


The vessel, 4" pipe. Bottom has a 1" threaded port to take the electric element.


Ready to rock and roll

 

[ausdb]

Looks great Jason, how much copper did you use? I have rolled up about 5m of 3/8" copper to fit in my hopback with an immersion element as a mini herms system but have not actually tried it out yet.

 

[Screwtop]

Looks great Jason, how much copper did you use? I have rolled up about 5m of 3/8" copper to fit in my hopback with an immersion element as a mini herms system but have not actually tried it out yet.

Looks good, should have quick response time with such a small amount of water to heat and lots of surface area in the coil :super:

 

[JasonY]

Looks great Jason, how much copper did you use? I have rolled up about 5m of 3/8" copper to fit in my hopback with an immersion element as a mini herms system but have not actually tried it out yet.

The coil I bought was 20' so probably about 5m or just under made it into the coil, probably very similar to what you set up.

 

[ausdb]

The coil I bought was 20' so probably about 5m or just under made it into the coil, probably very similar to what you set up.

Was it 3/8" or 1/2"? Hats off to you if you managed to roll 1/2" that tight and as neatly as you did

 

[JasonY]

Was it 3/8" or 1/2"? Hats off to you if you managed to roll 1/2" that tight and as neatly as you did

nah its 3/8" and after doing it I would want some help (or steroids) to do 1/2". Filled it up with salt to stop it kinking but I still had to use elbows for the connections as I just couldn't bend those.

 

[kirem]

My original coil is not that tight, but it was 1/2inch, I found that rolling it around a corney keg was good diameter to fit inside a sankey keg.

 

[ausdb]

Jumping on the bandwagon here is the Herms coil I wound to fit inside my hopback but havent yet implemented as part of my "Hopback Herms CIP system" due to an impending wedding and an emargo placed on brewery expansion plans by the future SWMBO.
Just a quick footnote I think I wound the 3/8" copper around a tin of goo, I knew it was useful for something apart from holding up shelves in my fridge

The theory behind the system is this:
I will use two pumps, one pump will recirc wort through the Herms coil and back to the mash lauter tun. The Hopback will contain my cleaning chemical which will be heated to maintain the herms temps via the immersion element and at the same time be pumped through my CFC wort chiller and post boil silicon hosing by the pump that I use for pumping out of my kettle. That way I can be running my cleaning cycle at the same time as I mash and using a small vessel for my Herms chamber to make it more responsive and the constant recirculation of the cleaning fluid in the hopback will promote good heat exchange with the Herms coil. I am not sure how well it will work and how I will do the temp control as there will be temp loss from the cleaning solution as it travels out of the hop back through the chiller, at the moment it will probably just be a dixell on/off temp controller on the output of the herms.

 

[JasonY]

Very neat work there mr db, I like the dual use of the hop back idea. In reality I guess you wont be using the hopback every brew so most times you wouldn't have to rip it all apart before chilling at the end. Curious to hear how the temp control goes with the extra loss from the CFC, you probably only need to run the cleaning cycle for 15 mins so if you stop the mash recirc until the temperature recovers that would work. Lots of ways to approach it i guess.

Hope the embargo ends soon

 

[ausdb]

Very neat work there mr db, I like the dual use of the hop back idea. In reality I guess you wont be using the hopback every brew so most times you wouldn't have to rip it all apart before chilling at the end. Curious to hear how the temp control goes with the extra loss from the CFC, you probably only need to run the cleaning cycle for 15 mins so if you stop the mash recirc until the temperature recovers that would work. Lots of ways to approach it i guess.

Hope the embargo ends soon

The logic of it is that I have been using my hopback as part of a mini CIP system for a while now, I dunk the element in and heat up my caustic or percarb and pump it through my chiller whilst the boil is going on. I also circulate my sanitiser that way so at end of boil I just drain the sanitiser from the hopback and chiller, take out the immersion element then connect it to the kettle tap and it is good to go. The kettle valve is a three piece number that gets torn down between brews and cleaned, sanitized separately. The hopback is still there clean and ready to go, all that will happen now is the herms coil gets pulled out as well as the element. I thought why not drop a coil in the hot liquid and start the process earlier during the mash to use the energy for a herms as well.

One can only live and hope about the embargo or some black market trading will have to be done h34r: