Hi all, this is my first post to this forum but I've been lurking for a while and have read a *ton* of posts regarding electric brewing.
I am in the process of collecting gear to build a 10 gallon, all electric brewery. I had intended to build a HERMS system loosely based on the Brutus 10 but I am confused about one aspect of the HERMS operation.
In my old system (coolers, buckets, lots of stacking) I would strike with 170F water which would usually give me right near a 152F mash. Then I would let the cooler do it's job and set for 60 minutes, mash out and then sparge with 170F water. During the 60 minute mash I was heating up my sparge water. This seemed to work well.
My understanding is that with HERMS you recirculate constantly and use the water in the HLT with the heat exchanger to maintain or raise temperature of the mash.
My question is: In practice, when do you bring the HLT temperature up to mash out / sparge temperature. I would assume that the HLT stays below 170 to keep the mash at the right temperature. So, do you stop recirculation after your mash is done and then wait while the HLT heats up for mash out and sparge? Or do you just keep recirculating but just raise the recirculation temperature to mash out temps? If that's the case, does your sparge water end up too hot?
Thanks in advance for any light you can shine on the process!
Jason
I am in the process of collecting gear to build a 10 gallon, all electric brewery. I had intended to build a HERMS system loosely based on the Brutus 10 but I am confused about one aspect of the HERMS operation.
In my old system (coolers, buckets, lots of stacking) I would strike with 170F water which would usually give me right near a 152F mash. Then I would let the cooler do it's job and set for 60 minutes, mash out and then sparge with 170F water. During the 60 minute mash I was heating up my sparge water. This seemed to work well.
My understanding is that with HERMS you recirculate constantly and use the water in the HLT with the heat exchanger to maintain or raise temperature of the mash.
My question is: In practice, when do you bring the HLT temperature up to mash out / sparge temperature. I would assume that the HLT stays below 170 to keep the mash at the right temperature. So, do you stop recirculation after your mash is done and then wait while the HLT heats up for mash out and sparge? Or do you just keep recirculating but just raise the recirculation temperature to mash out temps? If that's the case, does your sparge water end up too hot?
Thanks in advance for any light you can shine on the process!
Jason