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:
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: