Lawrence Brewers Guild

Sunday I finally got a HERMS moved into the loop. It only cost me about $6 to get it done. I just used my existing IC and my HLT. I just needed to convert one of the outputs on the IC to a male QD to be able to add it to the loop.

It was a good brew day, I haven?t brewed in a few months and it was a perfect day. I heated up the HLT for my dough in, filled it back up and heated it back up to around 150?. I let the mash sit for 30 minutes and then started fire up and started the re-circulation through the HERMS. The pump was on pretty low and the heat transfer was perfect. I monitored the temp of the wort coming out of the sparge arm and kept it 153? and did my re-circulation for 15 minutes.

I then raised the temp to 165? for the mash out and let that run for about 10 minutes, monitoring the wort at the sparge arm.

Once I was done I started my normal fly sparge by simply moving the QD from the IC to the HLT. Since I always re-circulate before I sparge my wort is always nice and clear when it is going into the kettle so no difference for me there.

I guess I?ll have to brew one of my familiar brews to see if I can tell a difference in the brews. I?ll probably keep it in the loop as it took me no extra time or effort, the only thing it is costing me is fuel, which I guess would be the only reason I would pull it out. Well, that and the fact that I wasn't willing to let all that sweet wort go to waste that was in the HERMS so I held it upside down and blew it out the other end straight into the boil. So, I guess if I keep the HERMS there will be a little bit of me in every batch

Anyway, glad I did it. I may look into those small exchangers that are being thrown around in the GreenBoard threads. Hell, I may even look into having it be electric!

once you go HERMS you'll never go back!

This thread is useless with out pics!

Fine Tom, Fine. Pictures, here they are.

Here is the recirculation running about 1/2 throttle. Tun is in the foreground, pump-in-a-box is on the bottom-left and the hot liquor/HERMS sitting on a chair. Safety first


Tun to pump-in-a-box. Too much time on my hands one day, so I mounted the pump to a box I had. I need to mount it higher up.


Pump to HERMS with the return back to the sparge arm (which just made me realize that I forgot to do a mash-out for this brew )


QD on the sparge arm. Everything gets a QD. Nothing is hard-piped.


Yummm, Porter. Sparge arm in action. This is also where I take my temp. I figure if the mash is 152? and the return from the HERMS is 152?, I just need to monitor the return temp. I will replace this ghetto-fab piece and make a copper manifold that goes through the lid.


My giant Pepsi can filled with water and jugs of ice with my pre-chiller. With the blanket on there it stays around 38?


Recirculating the wort during the chill. Not sure if this is doing much for me , I need to do some time/temp tests. I wrapped the kettle with some self-adhesive foil insulation. I've had it on there for about 2 years and its basically held on with clear packing tape. Good tape. I wrapped it because I was brewing outside with no wind-break, so during the winter a good gust would stop the boil (remember that brew session Sean?). Maybe it's hurting my chill-down times?


The wort going back into the kettle. I'm going to cut another hole in the keg and mount a copper return about the middle of the keg. I'll have the copper run along the curve of the keg. Hopefully that will stop the foaming action I'm getting.


That's my brew rig pretty much. The orientation changes a bit each time, depending on what crap is in my way that weekend. I've got some bed frame ready to go to make a sturdy rig on wheels, I just need some assistance with the welding.

Whats that tire belong too? Oh, your HERMS is ghetto cool!

Blktre wrote:Whats that tire belong too? Oh, your HERMS is ghetto cool!

Good eye for Rally Sport rims Andy `72 Vette

The car is as ghetto as my rig though.

Are you sure you don't realize a quicker cooling time by recirculating the wort? I'd be interested in what your brewing note say.

Hey Bill,
Are you using your sparge loop to return your wort (at distance) to the mash bed??? You may want to rethink that one and get the fall/splashing distance closer to just flowing it onto the grain. Hot wort no liky splash bra. BTW how do you insert the pics into the forum message. Brew like Tarzan / I-M like Jane

fergmeister wrote:Hey Bill,
Are you using your sparge loop to return your wort (at distance) to the mash bed??? You may want to rethink that one and get the fall/splashing distance closer to just flowing it onto the grain. Hot wort no liky splash bra. BTW how do you insert the pics into the forum message. Brew like Tarzan / I-M like Jane

It's my plan to make a copper manifold that I can adjust the height and bring the distance down.

as far as posting a pic, there is a link above the chat box labeled Img or you can manually type it out like this: this You just need a place to upload the picture to. There are sites like www.photobucket.com and www.flickr.com that you can upload files to for free.

Pardon my ignorance. Thanks Well that didn't work. Do you cut and paste from another file?? [/img]