Kingys herms Build Thread

[MastersBrewery]

Kingy what sort of ramp times are you getting with the 3600w herms at your 92L batch size?

 

[Kingy]

First I've heard of the 5 star elements tripping, no good.
I'm unqualified to say this but you know you've matured as a brewer when you have an equipment failure halfway through and instead of freaking out, think about where it's up to and make some adjustments to suit. Well done.

I think I may have cooked my element with my last hex. As I used it in oil a few times and it got really hot.

 

[Kingy]

Kingy what sort of ramp times are you getting with the 3600w herms at your 92L batch size?

Hi mate I've only been running a 2400w untill I get the power in the shed sorted. I wouldn't bother trying to step mash with it when doing a big batch. It's good for double and triple batches tho.

 

[Adr_0]

If you had oil anywhere near your brewing equipment, make sure you do a nice hot wash with caustic, eg sodium metasilicate.

 

[Mr B]

Kingy any chance of a water volume length and diameter of the herms housing?

Thats a great rig, well done.

 

[Kingy]

Yea sorry Mr B the length is 300mm x 95mm wide the volume of water is about 1800mls. Original design I think is about 1600mls but as I used the 5 star element housing it adds abit more volume because of the 4inch-2inch reducer.

After stripping the plastic pump head last clean down I got me self a new staino one. Feels solid as now. Gotta get one for me other pump now when funds permit.

I also installed my new element and it fixed the problem of tripping the power. After many hours thinking how I could of blown the last element it dawned on me that it started tripping after I doughed in. And as I wasn't recirculating and I forgot to turn the heat off it boiled and water was squirting out the breather hole causing the element to overheat.

 

[dblunn]

I have a similar HEX with a 3kW element and every brew day at some point I forget to pause the PID controller when swapping hoses or something else that halts the flow through the HEX and yes, it starts spitting at me. My plan to combat the forgetfulness is rather than just shut the valve off is to make a better controller with pump on/off control from the panel and code it so it also pauses the heater control at the same time. Of course it wont stop me from shutting the valve off and forgetting the element but it would be a step forward.
Dave