Herms Design Advice...

[mobrien]

Hi everyone,

After a bit of a break from brewing c/o the QLD floods downgrading the brewery, its time to rebuild and get back on track.

The old brewery was a three teir manual job; 50L temp controlled electric HLT; 50L converted keg mash tun and 80L boiler.

Im thinking of upgrading to a herms system. At this stage Im leaning towards 70L temp controlled electric HLT with herms coil inside, 70L mash tun and 100L boiler (I do double batches). I would use this either as fully manual system (i.e. like the old one) or be able to use it as a herms system controlling the HLT temp to do any steps and then ramping the temp up for mash out and sparge.

The other option is to forget the herms coil in the HLT and have a separate vessel for that with much smaller volume (say 10-20L) so it can react to heat faster and the mashout/sparge water then is all ready to go in the HLT.

Advice? Which way to go?

Thanks,
Matt

 

[AndrewQLD]

Separate vessel is really the only way to go matt faster mash ramp time as there is less water to heat.
Good to hear your getting back on the wagon.

Andrew

 

[hockadays]

Hey Matt,

I would roll with a separate herms with a 3.6kw element in about 8-10L. you'll get good ramp rate with that. I've got 2.2kw in 8L and it get by but would love a larger element. This is all in a double batch brewery. You could then fill the Hlt and power that on a timer with 2.4kw. Have the mash tun full also and hooked up to the herms and pumping while the herms element heats up your mash water. Wake up and mash in. This will be the next upgrade to my system too.

hockadays

 

[Tim F]

I can't speak from experience yet but most people recommend a smaller hex for the reasons you gave. I thought it would be nice and neat to have dual hlt/hex but then i realised you potentially need 2 pids, or maybe one with an override. one measuring the coil outlet temp and one in the hlt to heat that to your strike temp or just to boil it regardless of the mash temp.

 

[cdbrown]

Separate small pot (10L) from big w with an element from a cheap kettle. I managed to do a double coil in my herms so have about 10m of copper in there. Having it in a separate pot means your not tying up your hlt and can get your water up to sparge temp as needed.

 

[mobrien]

Thanks everyone - sounds like its pretty clear cut - smaller HEX vessel it is then.

What are peoples thoughts about putting thermowells in the mashtun and HEX vessel - are they both needed?

I like the manual control of the brewery (its part of the process I enjoy), so can't see myself ever going to a fully automatic. That said, I'd like to be able to set step temperatures either in advance or more likely as I go through the brew itself - and I certainly want the system to start controlling its own temperatures.

With that in mind, I guess my thought is to have the mash tun termperature controlled with a standard thermostat with a probe in a thermowell - this worked well on the old brewery, so it'll probably be similar on the rebuild. On brew day I full the HLT up the night before, have it all on a timer and it maintaining temperature ready for mash in.

Once mashed in, the old brewery would then sit until mash out then sparge. From here on in I'm into slightly new territory with the new brewery plan. At the simplest level, a guess a thermostat with probe in a thermowell in the HEX unit would keep the HEX at the set/step temperature, and this should equalise with the wort as it flows through. And then there would be various levels of complexity from here.

I guess what I really need to work out is what to get put on/in the new HLT/Mash/Kettle vessels as far as connections, thermowells, etc.

What do people have? What should I get it with to start with to ensure I have the futureproofing I need?

At this stage I'm thinking:

HLT (70L Electric)
1 x outlet
1 x dial thermo
1 x thermowell
1 x sight glass

Mash Tun (70L)
1 x outlet (below false bottom, well duh)
1 x inlet (top)
1 x dial thermo
1 x thermowell (is this neccisary?)

HEX Vessle
1 x inlet to HERMS coil
1 x outlet from HERMS coil
1 x thermowell
1 x dial thermo

Kettle (100L)
1 x outlet at bottom
1 x inlet
1 x dial thermo
1 x sight glass

Thanks,

Matt

 

[mobrien]

How annoying am I?! And to think I used to get annoyed at people not using the search function - seems if I follow my own advice, I will find this thread:

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...1110&st=520

which
a) has tonnes of cool info and
B) is a very suitable place for this discussion...

Moving this conv. there now!

Matt