Stainless Bottom draining AIO HERMS with TC fittings?

[Unslaven]

I'm sorry in advance. I've done my best to scour this forum and the wider internet, but most of the posts on this are years old, links are broken and offerings have changed.

I am looking for a compact inline turnkey (or close to) solution to raise mash temp to above conversion temps during Vorlauf, and to stabilise sparge water temperatures inline during sparge.

Instantly everybody will say RIMS or HERMS. I know... But, I have not found a suitable product yet.

I don't want to chance scorched wort with direct contact RIMS. I do triple brew days whilst running a wood fired smoker in the background. Vorlauf and sparging is often happening during another batch's knockout. There is a lot going on. Maybe 1 day I'll hard pipe all the fermenters and put temp controlled VFD's on the knockout pump, and automate the smoker, but for now, its constant vigilance.
So RIMS is a no. I am happy to be convinced otherwise, but if I do, there are 1000 suitable RIMS products, so that's easy.

So ignoring RIMS:

I CAN NOT get a coil into my HLT. Also, my HLT temperatures often fluctuate as I reclaim water from my chiller. Temps have been known to drop below suitable mash out temps. So internal HLT HERMS is a no. Whatever solution I choose should help bring up HLT water temps during sparge.

I CIP with caustic. Because of this:
The solution HAS to be 100% stainless, ideally 316 with native threadless TC fittings. No brass, plastic, copper etc.
Whatever I choose will have non negotiable bottom draining.

Power usage can be up to 15A 240v (3600w).

So what I've looked at:

• All RIMS (unless somebody convinces me otherwise)
• Hermit coil (not bottom draining)
• Cheeky peak HERMS kit (not bottom draining)
• Any poke in from the top of your vessel HERMS coil (not bottom draining)
• Any through the side of the HLT HERMS coil (can't get it in and no temp consistency)
• Stainless CFC heat exchanger using an extra pump and HLT water (no temp consistency)
• Stainless CFC heat exchanger using an extra pump, HLT water and RIMS on the water side. (possible, but CFC's are bulky and would not fit in proposed position. Otherwise ok option)
• Plate heat exchanger as above (plates get clogged easily. Not suitable during Vorlauf. Also most affordable versions are brazed with copper.)
• Adding another vessel and pump to my brewery just for HERMS recirc...where exactly??
  
  If anybody knows of a solution I would love to hear it.
  Thanks

 

[sp0rk]

A pic of your setup may help, just for layout ideas
I'm considering getting back into brewing equipment fabrication, post up some pics and I'll get the thinking cap on

 

[Unslaven]

Here is a not quite finished render of the original plan, but its changed and escalated a little since I did this. Currently the brewery is thrown together with zip ties as I haven't had enough power available to run it since we moved house, but the plan is back on track.

All soft pipes are going. I have all of the TC hard pipe parts and butterflies in a container somewhere halfway from Shanghai right now to meet the Brewblox diagram, as well as 3 new larger pumps. Everything is custom 1" 22mm ID. I am negotiating on a new gasketed 2 stage plate chiller, as my current chiller is not caustic safe. Control panel is a few months off. When I've finalised design it will sit in front of the HLT, and my glycol chiller will live under the Pre-Kettle. Right now I'm using very basic controllers for heating, but now, after a switchboard upgrade, I have more mains power available. The sky is the limit (or the 80A mains breaker). Plan is 25A in the HLT, 10A in the pre kettle, 10A on HLT recirc RIMS and 15A for an external HERMS return to the MLT. This leaves 20A for the pumps and the rest of the house. Mains hot water power is separate to the 80A mains breaker, so 20A should be sufficient. The kettle is running a high pressure gas burner.

The current HLT is a 118L Kegmenter, which is smaller than in the render, but the plan is to replace it with a 270L ish HLT @ 580mm/600mm diameter. I recently learned that my TIG welding skill and current equipment is not quite up to making my own tanks, unless I spend a lot of money on a bigger guillotine and roller. Problem there is cheeky peak just discontinued what I had originally planned on buying, so I am looking for another solution.

MLT on the far right is a SSBrewtech 20 gal, and is to scale on the render, and the pre kettle is about 40mm diameter less. The thing that makes this extra tricky is that the MLT is running on a linear actuated tilt system to empty spent grain, so it will be problematic to have anything attached to the MLT, and will probably need to be positioned underneath it. If the AIO HERMS heater was tall and skinny, it could attach to the front right top of the HLT, and would avoid any drainage issues.

Excuse the mess in the photos. Everything needs a clean and polish.
Happy to take advice or suggestions.
Thanks

 

[philrob]

Wow, way beyond my skill set and pay grade.

 

[clickeral]

Get yourself a 500mm 4" triclamp pipe, get a 4inch to 2" reducer so you can mount the element at the bottom, weld on an additional 3/4" triclamp ferrule and run a 3/4" TC sanitary encapsulated ball valve for a bottom drain, not sure why you need this as pulling the tc element out is pretty easy but I guess this is cleaner

Get a stainless coil to fit in the 500mm pipe

Get a 4" end cap, drill holes weld/braze stainless coil ends to the 4" TC cap, Weld/Braze TC ferrules of your choice to the cap for entry/exit to the stainless coil make sure you drill a vent hole for steam/liquid expansion

Use 4" TC clamp brackets etc to mount it

You don't want threads so your going to need to do some fabrication

The top cap could have 1.5" to 22mm ferules to 22mm id stanless, main issue is going to be wall thickness of the coil

Hopefully this gives you some thoughts

 

[Unslaven]

Get yourself a 500mm 4" triclamp pipe, get a 4inch to 2" reducer so you can mount the element at the bottom, weld on an additional 3/4" triclamp ferrule and run a 3/4" TC sanitary encapsulated ball valve for a bottom drain, not sure why you need this as pulling the tc element out is pretty easy but I guess this is cleaner

Get a stainless coil to fit in the 500mm pipe

Get a 4" end cap, drill holes weld/braze stainless coil ends to the 4" TC cap, Weld/Braze TC ferrules of your choice to the cap for entry/exit to the stainless coil make sure you drill a vent hole for steam/liquid expansion

Use 4" TC clamp brackets etc to mount it

You don't want threads so your going to need to do some fabrication

The top cap could have 1.5" to 22mm ferules to 22mm id stanless, main issue is going to be wall thickness of the coil

Hopefully this gives you some thoughts

Thanks for the insight.

I had considered something similar. Possibly even using a 4" TC distillation condenser and sending wort through the cooling coil instead of through the product tube, but I cant seem to find a defleg style condenser that would work. Probably because it doesn't need to in that setting. Most TC condensers are shotgun defleg or liebig style because they work well and they're far easier to manufacture.

Regarding bottom drains, I am only really concerned about the wort lines draining freely. All AIO HERMS products I can find have top inlets & outlets, so once the pressure on the pump stops, any liquid stays in the coil. I don't give a poo about any leftover water on the heating side. I'll suck it out with a shop vacuum if necessary. I do however like your idea of drilling a TC valve outlet at the bottom to drain heater water.

I will clarify, when I say bottom outlet for the wort line, that can be on the side, as long as it is at the bottom of the coil. Free draining would be a better terminology.

I may be able to put togethor a coil in a TC housing similar to your idea, with a side inlet and a top outlet for a coil or vice versa. That would leave the bottom TC removable. I do however very highly doubt I would manage to get side outlets poked through with a coil inside a 4" TC tube. Copper maybe, but not stainless, and defs not 22mm ID. I'll see if I can find a 5" and what they're worth.