New 2.1 Tun Brew Rig

[ArnieW]

Here at the home of the HERMAN brewing rig we have celebrated brew # 180 with a new configuration that rocks, IMHO. :super:

For most of its life, HERMAN has been a HERMS rig. After lots of thinking, we've built a rims heating chamber and transformed the plumbing arrangement and now successfully tested the theory that you don't really need a hot liquor tun.

I think of this as a RIMS with heat on demand liquor. What we've done is engineered a big enough electric element in the heating chamber to heat hot water to strike/sparge temps on demand as it passes through the chamber into the mash tun. But to use the chamber to regulate recirculating temps, we have fine control of a solid state relay. We can vary the power on the heater in 2% increments, so it has both subtlety and grunt together.

Today we ran the machine for its first mash. And it worked better than I had imagined.

The other feature is that the new plumbing configuration has less ball valves, is easier to clean, and is more sanitary.

One of the keys to it being more sanitary is using a 3-way ball valve. As liquor leaves the mash tun and passes through the pump, it is heated to about 90 C in the RIMS chamber before it passes through the 3-way valve, chiller and then into the kettle. This means that ball valve and chiller are sanitised as the kettle fills. With the 3-way valve in the other position, the kettle drains via the chiller into the fermenter.

Anyway, enough of descriptions, here is a piccie. I'd be interested to know what others think.

cheers, Arnie :beer:

 

[ArnieW]

Ok, another attempt at a more readable schematic.

And some words of explanation. The solenoids are garden watering system jobbies, the black plastic thingies that work on 24VAC. The do the job well, but you could just use taps. The red line is for hot liquor in, the blue is cold water for the chiller.

The heat chamber element is 3600W and is in a copper housing not much bigger than itself.

The arrows give flow directions, with the solid lines the more common operating flows. The dotted ones show other possible flow directions, like using the 'waste' water from the chiller to clean other parts of the machine.

I hope that all makes sense, just ask if you have any questions.

cheers, Arnie

 

[Jye]

Sounds good Arnie

Just a few questions, what temp can you get your sparge water to (what is the hottest and at what flow rate)? Are you fly sparging?

Do you have any pics of your RIMS setup?

Cheers
Jye

 

[Justin]

Nice work Arnie, always the gadget man Are their photos on your site yet?

I like the idea. A question though about the pumping through the chiller part.

Ok, you pump from the mash tun, through the heat exchanger (which heats to 90C) and into the kettle. When the kettle is full you turn off the three way valve and boil your wort.

If you don't have a valve directly on the kettle outlet (you may have this valve, just didn't put it on the diagram above for simplicity) and the only valve you have is on the outlet side of the chiller then you'll end up with a chiller full of beer that isn't boiled, only heated to 90C for a short while. If you follow?

Ideally I'd want to drain that small volume of wort out of the chiller before running my boiled wort into the fermenter, not because of sanitation issues necessarily but because of protein issues. What are your thoughts? I understand it's not likely to be a large volume so it likely makes little or no difference, and it might be the fact that you do have a tap on the kettle out let so that you can drain the chiller before chilling. Another necessary step would be to break the airlock at the head of the chiller so you can drain the chiller. Do you address these issues or have you concluded they make little differences in the end.

Nice idea and well executed if you ask me. The less valves the better they are gungy little things.

Cheers, Justin

 

[Ash in Perth]

pretty spiffy! id lvoe to see some photos too if you have them

cheers ash

 

[warrenlw63]

Arnie making better beers? Scary! :lol:

I've had the pleasure of sampling his wares before. Very niced indeed. :beerbang:

Warren -

 

[Justin]

So have I Warren, although I can't remember specifically what the beer was I do recall it was a nicely constructed beer. If I remember rightly it was a belgain creation or a soured beer? Or maybe it was a pale ale with an infection perhaps

No really, it was a nice beer that I tried at Petr's.

Cheers, Justin

 

[ArnieW]

There I am, off drawing a few more schematics (I've never been real good at keeping records :huh: ) and you all ask me questions ... but I guess I did ask for it.

Hi Warren and Justin. We must share a beer together again. I'm drinking a nice hefeweissen at the moment ...

OK, Jye, the hottest temp. I can only give ball park figures at the moment because I've had some problems with my temp measuring gear today, but my hot water in starts at about 62 deg C, and without too much trouble can hit about 80-85 deg C as the mash tun fills. It took about 7 minutes to fill the mash tun, so guessing about 30 litres in that time means about 4.25 litres per minute. Now my confession is that I don't have a clear idea of the difference between fly and batch sparging, so I'll just describe what I do, and maybe you can tell me.

I fill the kettle with runnings from the mash tun until the liquor level is just covering the grain bed. I then drop a 'batch' (maybe I've answered my own question?) of liquor on top of the grain bed, do some recirculating, then continue filling the kettle... and repeat as necessary.

I have been taking piccies of the setup as I've been building, and they will eventually make their way onto the web site (did I mention I'm not real good at recording the details?). My missus has just taken off for a couple of weeks to South Africa and taken the digicamera, so I can't provide you with a photo of the heat chamber (although I might be able to give you a dodgy pic from my phone). I'll look into it.

Justin, you've raised some good points. I hadn't thought about the volume of wort that is in the chiller and not boiled. It isn't a huge amount, and I think the simplest thing would be to divert it from the fermenters if it seemed necessary. I didn't do this, and in all honesty I don't think I will worry about it as the proportion is so small. If it does turn out to be an issue, it is easy to divert a little wort before filling.

I'm not sure I understand why you suggest an airlock at the head of the chiller. One of the design ideas behind this is that the pump does the filling against gravity and does the work of underletting or blowing out any air in the line as the kettle is in process of filling. The head of the wort in the kettle provides more than enough flow via gravity back down through the chiller. I haven't experienced an airlock using this method. I have had problems in the past if I've not pumped up through the chiller to blow out airlocks though.

And as Ash as also asked for photos, I'll see what I can muster up.

cheers, and thanks for sharing my enthusiasm. My usual brew day was 7-8 hours, and today was only 4 due to heat on demand and easy cleaning etc. B)

 

[ArnieW]

OK,

with my 3-4 hours saved from the brew day, I've taken some photos with my dodgy phone camera. So sorry for the quality, but its not too bad considering.

Anyway, the heat chamber is about 35 cm tall - long enough for the element, and a temperature probe above it; below it is a water-proof box that handles the 240VAC. The solid state relay is located away from the chamber.

cheers, Arnie

 

[Justin]

Cheers Arnie.

I agree with the chiller and the volume of wort inside it probably not making a difference, but because it was not boiled I just thought the possibility existed of adding unboiled wort to the fermenter, and if for some reason you didn't hit 90C on the way through you might see a lactic infection creep in. However I have no idea what lactic bacteria might make it through an hour mash at 65+, very little I assume. Anyway, as you said if it turns out to be a problem you can drain your first running before it goes into the fermenter and hopefully eliminate any prob. Sometimes the theory rarely make that much difference in practice.

It was just something I considered because I make sure to recirculate boiling wort through my pump and hosing during the last 10mins of the boil. 1. to sterilise everything and 2. remove any wort that was trapped in the pipes/hoses and didn't get boiled. Probably not completely necessary but easier than recircing sanitizer through it.

As for the airlock thing, that was probably my poor choice of terms. What I meant was that if you had a tap on the kettle (closed) and a chiller full of wort and you then opened the tap on the bottom of the chiller (kettle tap still closed) you would likely get no flow (ie. couldn't drain it) without allowing air to be let in at the top of the chiller. You know, the same principle of when you cover one end of a hose full of water with your thumb the water in the hose won't flow until you release your thumb from the other end. Damn words, makes it all seem more complicated. I have no concerns that gravity will drain the kettle through the chiller, I was just refering to draining the chiller before you drain your boiled wort.

Cheers, Justin

 

[ArnieW]

Hi Justin,

yeah, I know what you mean, despite all the words

The system is designed to eliminate those sorts of problems by pushing up through the chiller with the pump in the first place. I've had too many 'flow' issues over the years to count. I've learnt the hard way, and rarely have any trouble now.

As for lacto bacillus, I believe 40-50 deg C for some time creates the magic there. I'll let you know if I encounter issues with the 90C wort in the chiller.

cheers, Arnie