Mash Schematic (concept)

[WilBier]

Hi gents,

Have been toying with a mashing concept, and have put together a schematic.
The idea being to flush out all the bad ideas now.

Here's how it works:

Fill mash tun via an continuous flow hot water service. I have a little commerical model that is capable of outputting 80deg water.
Obviously a couple of cartridge filters before the hotty.
Eg: Influent water 73(ish), to strike at 67. (Example only as easy to change water temp)

Then while mashing, circulate slowly through a heat exchanger back via a sparge arm.
Run water through the hotty into the hot side of the heat exchanger to:

a- keep temperature stable, and/or
b- raise or step.

Mash out can be done via a large dump of hot water, or depending on the performance of the h/ex, can raise it through this.

Here's a couple of pics.

1) Filling Process View attachment FILL.pdf

2) Mash Process View attachment MASH.pdf

Transfer to kettle is self explanatory.

So there you go. I would love to hear your ideas.

Wilbier

 

[razz]

G'day Wilbier. How will you control the temp of the wort through the hex?

 

[Adamt]

Search for HERMS... (Heat Exchanging, Recirculating Mash System)

 

[raven19]

Search for HERMS... (Heat Exchanging, Recirculating Mash System)

+1, I like the schematics, however I hope you are not just reinventing the wheel.

Also, if you are just getting into AG, best to get to know your system back to front first before adding RIMS/HERMS IMO.

 

[WilBier]

My overall consideration is to remove the need for a HLT.

With the hotty, you can have as much water as you like, at any temperature you need whenevery you need it.

And they work well as a mini boiler if you pump through them. High efficiency etc.


To control temp, thermocouple in sparge arm modulating the hotty.

 

[reg]

Dont the continuos flow hot water heaters have an upper limit that keeps them efficient.
By trying to pump out say 78 degree water doesnt the flow rate drop right down.

The gains you get might be negated by a time factor.

Just my 2c worth

 

[WilBier]

Dont the continuos flow hot water heaters have an upper limit that keeps them efficient.
By trying to pump out say 78 degree water doesnt the flow rate drop right down.

The gains you get might be negated by a time factor.

Just my 2c worth

Thanks, feedback is what I wanted

Yes they work on full flow rates of around 25deg rise per pass. If you want to go from 15 to 80deg in 1 pass, you would only achieve a low flow rate of 10l/min (my model).
I didn't think that would be too bad.
I could of course simplify this a lot by removing the H-EX entirely, just bring in strike water via the hotty, and sparge via the hotty.
Thus removing the heat exchanger, and second pump.
Any ideas?

 

[real_beer]

My overall consideration is to remove the need for a HLT.

With the hotty, you can have as much water as you like, at any temperature you need whenevery you need it.

And they work well as a mini boiler if you pump through them. High efficiency etc.


To control temp, thermocouple in sparge arm modulating the hotty.

Hi,
Don't these type of systems have to be hooked up to mains water pressure to work properly? Also recirculating systems get really good efficiencies because they compact the grain bed and force the liquid through every little nook and cranny to get all the good stuff out of the grain, because of this flow rate drops so drastically that gravity designed systems can have much better flow rates. I think the idea of using the unit to get near strike temperatures you want is a good one but I imagine it would be to hard to control all the variables of recirculating through it.

Some being:
Different size recipes will give you different size grain beds and flow rates through your pump and so hws.

Can you adjust the temp. control of the hws on the fly as you need to accurately.

If temperature gets too high what's your plan of action, these things have pilot lights you'd have to keep turning it on and off (I imagine), and bearing in mind these things for your and your family's safety are supposed to be installed outdoors, you'd have to brew outdoors or keep running outdoors to control it.

I'd do what the others have suggested and study other peoples systems and see which one you think would best suit your setup and when your happy with how it works start tweaking it with your own ideas. You'll probably find by then you'll start eliminating a lot of ideas before you even put pen to paper. Some of these people have spent hundreds even thousands of hours tweaking there designs so if you research well you won't be disappointed if you copied their design, then add your own identity to it later.

Hope these comments are helpful, I've got a instantaneous hws myself stored in the shed which I've often thought about using to pre-heat my mash water so if you do go ahead with the project I'd like to see the results.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[dicko]

Hi WilBier,

I dont think you will reach a mash out temp with the water heater only achieving 80 deg c. unless you dump a massive amount of water into the mash tun.
If you have access to Promash or similar you could do the calculation for your volumes.

Cheers and remember the KISS principle.

 

[Sammus]

...bearing in mind these things for your and your family's safety are supposed to be installed outdoors...

How sure are you about this? I've been in about 5 rental properties that all had them installed indoors, in the laundry.

 

[real_beer]

How sure are you about this? I've been in about 5 rental properties that all had them installed indoors, in the laundry.

Hi Sammus,

I'm not sure about any except the one I have which is for outdoors installation only, it's probably a different type of unit than Wilbier's.
He was asking for suggestions and I believe safety should be top of the list with flammable gases and hot liquids not to mention insurance companies who look for any excuse not to pay a claim in the event of an accident, just something for him to consider if he hasn't already.

That said I have a bent to looking into things from some ridiculous scenarios (being a renter with all the you can't do this or that on the lease), the thing about suggestions is you don't have to take any notice of them anyway Wilbier's probably dismissed mine already.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[Yorg]

I think it sounds like a good idea worth thinking about.
Its true, this is essentially a variation of HERMS.
And like any other HERMS, unless you automated the temperature control, I think it would be a pain to use.
However, the necessity for another pump that would handle high temps, and the extra complications of temperature control, makes it less preferable to a regular HERMS for me.
As a HLT replacement, I think it is a great bit of kit to have.
Is it anywhere near where you brew, though?

 

[Sammus]

Hi Sammus,

I'm not sure about any except the one I have which is for outdoors installation only, it's probably a different type of unit than Wilbier's.
He was asking for suggestions and I believe safety should be top of the list with flammable gases and hot liquids not to mention insurance companies who look for any excuse not to pay a claim in the event of an accident, just something for him to consider if he hasn't already.

That said I have a bent to looking into things from some ridiculous scenarios (being a renter with all the you can't do this or that on the lease), the thing about suggestions is you don't have to take any notice of them anyway Wilbier's probably dismissed mine already.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

Cool. Didn't meant to sound aggressive, I was curious myself, I thought you mightve been in the trade or something. I don't think any of my places have been legally rentable anyway, and for a whole host of reasons e.g. only one of them had a single fire alarm, that didn't even work with a fresh battery. That can't be legal for a rental property.

 

[WilBier]

Hi,
Don't these type of systems have to be hooked up to mains water pressure to work properly? Also recirculating systems get really good efficiencies because they compact the grain bed and force the liquid through every little nook and cranny to get all the good stuff out of the grain, because of this flow rate drops so drastically that gravity designed systems can have much better flow rates. I think the idea of using the unit to get near strike temperatures you want is a good one but I imagine it would be to hard to control all the variables of recirculating through it.

Hi Real_beer,

In regards to the hotty, they do need mains supply pressure i.e. 300kPa.
As I've drawn the schematic it fills via mains pressure but the cartridge filters could knock a bit off toward the end of their lifetime, but not enough to prevent the system heating water.

From the research I have done on RIMS and HERMS, it is quite acceptable to circulate water from under the grain bed, through a heat exchanger back to the grain as much as you'd like. This is what my schematic shows. You control flow rate of that to what is ideal/suitable for your particular grain bed size depth etc. And try to avoid bed compaction...

If you want more / less heat, you work on the heat exchanger.
With an immersion element, you can control the current - i.e. switch it on / off. With a plate exchanger, the flow rate on this (the hot side) side is irrespective of the capacity of the grain bed to tolerate high flows. So with a pump pushing water directly to the hot water service, you can maintain your required water pressure (inlet side) i.e. 300kPa, and you can use a throttling valve on the outlet side to slow down the flow rate, but it is not affecting the grain bed.

Continuous flow hotties are designed to auto ignite every time you turn the hot tap on - in a kitchen, this can be quite frequent. So to add head you start the pump, but to hold heat, you can slow the flow right down, and turn the hot water temp right down too.

I'm a registered plumber too, so I can install this wherever I like. I'd probably install it outside, and run circulating pipes flow and return. A bit of lagging should keep the water in the pipes hot, so it doesn't matter how far away the unit is. That way, simply turn hot tap on, and hot water comes out.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Wilbier

 

[MHB]

I suspect that you will run into some problems,

First one is that as the flow through an instantaneous HWS slows the temperature increases, in this case you can't use the blending valve to add lots of cold water to get the desired temperature, without huge waste.

If you haven't done much mashing, ask around and see if you can have a look at a couple of peoples systems. At least do some basic mash brews to get a feel for how wort behaves, its similar to water but there are important differences.
Another thing to think about is, when you first start recirculating a mash, there is lots of debris this may not be too good for the heat exchanger, or the 3 valves you have in the circuit, lots of opportunity for blockages. To save you a few bucks, a Grundfos hot water pump isn't any good on the wort side.



KISS is still a good rule.



MHB

 

[real_beer]

Cool. Didn't meant to sound aggressive, I was curious myself, I thought you mightve been in the trade or something. I don't think any of my places have been legally rentable anyway, and for a whole host of reasons e.g. only one of them had a single fire alarm, that didn't even work with a fresh battery. That can't be legal for a rental property.

Hi Sammus :beer: ,
The problem with this type of communication is you type away sending your thoughts & ideas into the electronic super highway for others to read and interpret on the fly, which people do in lots of different ways (deleted confused emoticon). Trying to describe a characters mood, emotion, & surroundings on paper isn't easy and takes up a lot of space on the page & I think that's why authors take so long writing a novel. I'll have to use more emoticons in future :lol: . Sh*t just tried that idea and the board wouldn't let me post because of too many emoticons, oh well I'll probably have to remain misunderstood.

I often write something down I think describes or answers a question feeling well pleased with my answer until I, or someone else reads it with a different emphasis or from a different angle, and I realize how it could be interpreted wrongly from my intentions. This happened the other day with a post I made about people with imagination using the TempMate control for different purposes other than what it was designed for. Suddenly I was chuckling (deleted smiling emoticon)away to myself (I'd seen a comedy sketch through the week about a bloke finding his girlfriends vibrator under the bed) and wrote how some of the boys on this forum being the inventive lot that they are probably already the TempMate on the job. Didn't go down well I afraid (deleted angry emoticon), and when you read the post from a different angle you can see why. Also if people read it from my angle they might see it was intended as a joke.

I'm not in the trade Sammus but did used to work for a plumbing supply shop in Brisbane years ago and the plumbers often complained about what some d*ckhead customer had tried to do themselves.

Brewing beer and making the gadgets that go with it is a great hobby and lots of fun and I only try and post here on this forum in a positive manner (often in a hurry) so don't take offence with any of my posts unless I was to say something like: "You f#@$@#@# @#$#@## @#$#@ " and named you specifically . Only joking.

Cheers :beer:

 

[real_beer]

I'm a registered plumber too, so I can install this wherever I like. I'd probably install it outside, and run circulating pipes flow and return. A bit of lagging should keep the water in the pipes hot, so it doesn't matter how far away the unit is. That way, simply turn hot tap on, and hot water comes out.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Wilbier

Hi Wilbier,

I'm even more interested in your ideas now I know your a plumber.

I use a gravity system with an A frame fitted with an electric hoist, but have recently been thinking of going over to a HERMS system (the price of the pump being the main delay). Last year I picked up an instantaneous gas HWS and the other week a 5lt on demand Zip Boiler which I've only thought about using for getting water to strike temp with so your project is very interesting.

I believe I'll get some great practical ideas to use later down the road from this thread.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[eamonnfoley]

Interesting stuff.

Since we are being technical - does anyone have info on the electrical setup of a typical microbrewery? Being an electrical engineer I'm quite interested to see what size transformers etc are required, what voltage the brewing equipment runs at, power ratings, consumption, etc.

A lot more interesting than what I'm looking at now - much rather be supplying power to a brew kettle, than a conveyor carrying iron ore!!

 

[WilBier]

Hi boys,

I've had a (considerable) re-think of my setup:

View attachment SEPERATE_LAUTER.pdf

I have done away with the heat exchanger.
Now plan to do infusion step mashes with more hot water.
I have separated the mash / lauter process.
Now plan to lauter / sparge in separate vessel.
Pump wort to mash tun to boil.
Agitator in mash tun during mash - remove for boil.

Fire away!


Wilbier

 

[MHB]

Interesting return path for the wort recirculation.



I have an old 50L Mash Mixing Tank left over from a set up that I made years ago years ago, the only valve I found that worked for draining the mash was a 50mm SS butterfly valve.

In the end the outlet from the pump was a flexible line that could be moved from the top of the Lauter Tun (for recirculation) to the Kettle, it ended in a 180 bend that just hooked over the side.

Its great fun playing with systems, still reckon that its best to keep it simple and build from a firm base of need and experience.

MHB