Herms Equipment Needed

[ManxRavencoat1]

I am trying to build a HERMS. As I am not an engineer or an electrician, I am struggling to identify which parts to buy. For my HERMS, I need a solenoid that will be hooked up to a thermostat. This solenoid will allow the wort to circulate through the HLT to raise the the temp or circulate through another loop of pipe to keep the temperature the same. I have no idea what kind of solenoid or thermostat to buy, however. Can anyone recommend a thermostat and solenoid for my HERMS?

 

[bruin_ale]

interesting.. not really the method of HERMs that most of us are using. Typically, there's one heat exchanger - you heat the HLT to the temp you want to bring the mash to and then you circulate through that.

An example.. I mash in at 165 to hit 152. The HLT is at 165, so after mashing in I add the rest of my water (that will later be my sparge water) and heat that to my mash temp. That takes about 20 minutes or so, and then I start to circulate the mash through the coil - this maintains the temp.

Once I'm done mashing, I'll raise the temp in my HLT to mashout temp (170) - and continue circulating. This now brings the mash to mashout temp and ready for sparging.

In short, I'm not sure why you need two coils, a thermostat or a solenoid... I have an electric system to hit temps in the HLT, but that's just bells and whistles really.

 

[Hullguy]

Check out Brewtroller
http://www.brewtroller.com/wiki/doku.php

 

[audger]

what specific solenoid or thermostat to buy from where are details for later. it sounds like you first need to figure out how exactly you want this to be setup, and from your description it sounds like you are making this more complicated then necessary.