HERMS using Kettle

[Jboggeye]

Hi all, I haven't been able to find info on this, forgive me if it has already been addressed.

Is there any reason one could build a herms coil in the Kettle, and use it instead of a MLT ? The reason is space issues, living in NYC.

Think Kal's electric brewery with one less pot. Tankless Water heater to MLT with herms in Kettle.

Thoughts?

 

[Bensiff]

So you want to add a herms coil to the BK or MLT?

If putting it into the MLT the first problem is that cleaning the coil every brew would be such a PITA you would probably be redesigning after the first brew. You would have to have constant circulation which in such a setup would mean constantly flowing hot water from your tankless which is a complete waste of energy and water and while I'm far from an environmental nut job, being pointlessly wasteful is well, pointless.

If you were thinking of using the BK for the HERMS tank you might be able to pull it off. Do the recirculation, when its time to sparge, drain the BK, remove the HERMS coil so you don't have to clean the outside, then sparge with tankless water. But, that also wastes water and energy, just not as much.

Probably the most elegant electric two kettle system would use a RIMS tube to maintain mash temps.

 

[Jboggeye]

I would put the Herms coil in the BK. (bypassing a HLT altogether)

Just thinking if it's doable, if there are no problems other than sparging logistics, and a dirty HERMS coil on the outside due to the boil.

 

[Spartan1979]

I'd be concerned about cleaning it. I've thought about doing a similar thing and permanently mount a chiller in the kettle and the cleaning issue has stopped me so far. The only other issue is that you probably would still need a third vessel to catch the runnings while you still have water in the BK.

 

[HDIr0n]

So I ran a version of this for a little while. You use your BK as double duty BK/HLT, I have a 50' 1/2" immersion chiller that I used as my HERMS coil. It seemed to be very inefficient when I needed to raise temps or Sparge, as I would have to wait on the liquor to heat up it just always seemed that I was waiting on something. So for sparging I do a cross recirculation sparge as described by Lonnie in his Brutus 2.0 http://www.alenuts.com/Alenuts/brutus20.html
As far as cleaning it you just run hot PBW/Oxiclean and hot water and you are fine. It gets boiled and what you would run through there is before the boil anyways.
I now have a RIMS tube to maintain my mash temp and now free to heat up my sparge water independently and not having to keep it at mash temps. It saves me a lot of time.

JMO

-G

 

[Jboggeye]

Thanks all for your responses. This is all theoretical at this point, but it's cool to know there are options