RIMS/HERMs single vessel setup

[barneey]

Kev, I havnt seen the Aleman post on the flexible Herms / Rims.

Before I saw this post I was thinking along the lines of a 12ltr thermo pot with burco element with a stainless or copper heat exchange pumped coil.

Assuming the 12 ltr is adequate for the job (too small / too large or just about right?????) ~(Mash T = 50ltr size) the heat exchanger being connected via flex hose to keep it portable, the temp of the 12ltr being controlled via Pid SSR and PT100.

If anyone has the link to Alemans post? could they please let me have it.

Thanks

[Kev888]

I'm not certain but I may just have seen it in use on brewday posts, as I seem to remember its concept (which is what attracts me to it) but few actual details. There's a pic including it in this post and a bigger version on his web site here.

Cheers
Kev

[barneey]

Thanks Kev, Perhaps Aleman could elaborate a little more on sizes of the herms system?

Although I think going down this route with a "ONE" pot system is getting away from your initial goal? of having everything contained.
Cheers

[Kev888]

It wouldn't necessarily be a conflict of interests for me; my motivation for the single pot is convenience in use rather than compactness. Particularly, I am interested in the time savings of not sparging, not transferring wort and liquor around, and only having one tank to clean etc.

The herms should make each stage of the mash and mashout pretty much 'set and forget' so seems worth the extra complexity, but I suspect a separate herms would be very similar to an integrated one in terms of the time required to recirculate cleaner through it and so on. I may finally have to invest in camlocks though..

Cheers
kev

[Kev888]

Still not had much time to progress this but have been surfing again. This looks interesting (thanks to the pics and google translate), there are some potentially useful ideas there.

I should mention that I'm not actually looking to make a BM clone as such though, I'll be wanting/needing to make my own design choices for my own circumstances and preferences (that to me is part of the fun of DIY builds). Its just that it seems to be the state of the art in off-the-shelf single-vessel recirculated systems at the mo, so its setting a useful benchmark to compare my own thoughts to.

Cheers
Kev

[Aleman]

Thanks Kev, Perhaps Aleman could elaborate a little more on sizes of the herms

You want to avoid going too large as the time taken to heat the water up and to achieve an 'even' heat distribution through the HX is a limiting factor. Conversely if you go to small the water heats up too quickly making it difficult to accurately hit your desired temperature . . . You end up with the PID chasing the rapid changes in temp at the wort outlet.

My original HX held about 2L of water and actually did a pretty good job, the current one is 7 or 8 litres and it is a bit sluggish to respond . . . If I was to fit a pump or a stirrer to it to distribute the hot water more evenly I would probably get better results . . . Although That is complicating something that is already an overcomplicated solution . This is the reason for looking at the 6L Thermobox as my next HX vessel (I have one I just have to convert it). as the heat losses should only be due to what the wort takes out of it heat distribution should be less of an issue.

[Matho]

Kev,
I have just finished building a braumeister inspired single vessel brewery, I saw you talking about mash thickness, I would suggest not to go under about 2.5l/kg.
The volume between to top and bottom filter plates in the malt pipe minus the volume that the grain displaces( I used the figure of 0.65l / kg) will give you how many liters of mash liquor you have. In my system I'm at 2.4 l/kg for a 1.060 beer and it is pushing it, I'm going of 75% efficiency but i get a little bit higher but its better to be over than under.

here is some pictures of my gear including the braumiser

http://s1164.photobucket.com/albums/q572/matho3/

here is a ZIP file containing PDF's on the build

http://www.mediafire.com/?ldfgsrmu6l3iapi

after the i put together the PDF's i changed the pump to a march pump because the pump i used had a strong plastic odour to it and i also changed the top filter design and filter material I used a splatter guard from IKEA as the filter material and i cut bigger slots in the top filter plate.
If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask

cheers steve

[Kev888]

Hi Steve,

thats really interesting - many thanks for sharing it! You must be really pleased with that, it looks truly excellent!

Yes, I was slowly becoming aware that mash thickness can be looked at in two ways for this sort of setup: there's how much liquor in total compared to the grain (which was my concern on diastatic power) and also how much liquor there is in/around the grain in the inner pipe (which seems to be important for helping the recirculation). I'm happier about the former now, and so its also good to hear that 2.5L/kg is a minimum - I was just using that as its common in three-vessel brewing but I had no feel for how well it would work in this sort of setup.

Thanks again
Kev

[Kev888]

I'm starting to sort out my preferences and ideas for this, but I'm still pondering the pump options for the recirculation. If I went with upward recirculation you can theoretically get higher flow rate than normal, partly though having greater pressure than gravity systems do and partly because gravity isn't helping to compact the grain bed, so the demands on the pump may be a bit different to normal. And as this is all about speed and convenience in use, I'm also hoping to run it in the kitchen, where noise matters.

It appears that the speidel machine uses domestic hot water pumps - for recirculating or pumping potable hot water; their systems have one (for the 20L) or two (for the 50L) and a couple of models have been cited - these and these 650L/hr ones. I love their quietness and they seem to be about 90 euros each so not 'too' bad if the equivalents over here are similarly priced. But it seems they can wear a bit oddly if solids get into them and they aren't quite rated to pump boiling water. Possibly no biggie, as I could use mesh filters and at 95c they'd still be hot enough to sanitise.

I've also got three solar project pumps - the 14w ones, cost me about £30 each IIRC. It looks like they would have a similar flow rate to the speidal ones, I can't tell how the two would compare under load but they're at least roughly in the right ball-park, they're also very quiet too, can take boiling wort and you can adjust their speed easily. However more pumps mean more fittings/plumbing and complication and I'd have to work out how to configure them - e.g. do they all need their own individual intake and outlet, or can they run in parallel on the same pipe without fighting each other?

And the obvious other option would be the March 809; at about £160 (last heard) its not cheap but is designed to pump boiling wort, there are different models but it looks like one pump could be enough and its going to have no problems with bits of grain. However at least relative to the others is quite noisy; I'm not sure if it is noisy enough to be intrusive, say if it were pumping away for a couple of hours in the kitchen, could the noise become wearing?

Theres also the stuart turner RG550 but I'm not sure if thats a serious contender; its also noisy, can't officially take boiling water, isn't cheap and isn't magnetically coupled. So its not got as much going for it in this application, however it has got much more umph which is why its of interest on my shortlist, but I just wonder if possibly too much..

At the mo its far from decided but I'm thinking possibly three or four solar pumps may cover all the bases, if I prevent any huge globs of grain getting into them. But I'd want to find out if they can be run in parallel on one outlet or not, different flows could be awkward if you wanted to redirect them through a plate chiller and so on. I'm not sure what it would mean for priming, either.

Does this sound reasonable?

Cheers
Kev

[Kev888]

Okey Dokey, well some progress on thoughts, if nothing else.

# I've decided to try 14watt solar project pumps - apart from their size they seem to have everything I want; quietness, 100c rating, easy speed control. I'll just use two or three to get the flow I want.

# Also have been working on the concept and come up with this:

(The brown/inner stuff is supposed to indicate the mash/grain part).

• The return flow is through an internal drain/pipe, as it seems relatively easy to devise a method of adjusting the height of this, or swapping different ones out, for different batch sizes. I was going to have it to one side, but now I've placed it centrally partly for even draining and partly so that it should be easier to stir around.
• I could have a Tee at the bottom to direct returning wort to a ring shaped element around the sides (like the braumeister has), but I'm thinking it may be easier to just have a burco-stylee element underneath.
• Thats possible because I'm thinking of having a grain pot/basket rather than an open-bottomed pipe, it just seems a lot easier to seal a small inlet pipe at the bottom than to clamp the whole thing down to the base. I'm thinking maybe a small hollow cone on/around the end of the inlet pipe wedging itself in a hole in the bottom of the grain pot - probably with some rubber lining the hole.
• The ends of the pipes are just shown ending square, but I would probably put something on or over them to diffuse/spread the flow

# I've also been looking at the issues of pot sizes, as I'll be potentially wanting to do both single and double corny brew lengths in both low and high gravities. So obviously I need big enough pots for the bigger brews, so then the worst case is for smaller high gravity ones:

As you can see, a small low gravity brew (A) is fine, but a high gravity one with a higher grain-to-liquor ratio means that the external reservoir will drop (B). Clearly it shouldn't drop below the element or become empty so this will impose a limit on the maximum gravity of smaller brews; I can only change the mash volume (ratio) so far, as thicker mashes will restrict recirculation more. Also, once the reservoir drops towards/below the height of the mash, the liquor level will no longer cover the return pipe (as indicated in the circle at the bottom of the picture); it could draw in air which would be bad for the pump and also help oxidise the wort.

As far as I can determine, the best way to offset this limitation on small high gravity brews is to make the inner pot wider - (C) shows a similar gravity/size brew to (B) but in a wider grain pot. This firstly reduces the hight of the mash by allowing it to spread out more, and secondly does the opposite to the reservoir - restricting its width and maximising its height (not pictured that part very clearly, sorry!). I suspect a by-product of wider shallower mashes will be easier recirculation, too.


But its all just thoughts/theory at the mo. Can anyone spot any flaws or missed-tricks?

Cheers
kev

[Kev888]

Ah, clearly my ideas have caused stunned admiration.. or more likely complete disinterest

But so far I've not detected any flaws in the idea, so probably some experimentation is in order; I'll have to get some fittings next week and find time to play with pumps.

Cheers,
Kev

[barneey]

Kev,

The only couple of possible problems I can think off.

1) Getting the flow of the liquor around the system uniform, very much dependant on the number of flow outlets + pumps.

2) The connection between the flow and the inner bucket being easily achieved, the idea I came up with is to use longer lengths of flow pipework actually penetrating the inner bucket a grommet providing the temp seal, these pipes could also have a spacer on them for sitting the inner pot on.

3) Are the solar pumps up to the job of pushing all that liquid around?

4) How long will it take for the wort to drain from the inner bucket? you dont want to be holding it whilst waiting for it to drain.

Just a few thought for you....

VBR Clive

[Kev888]

Thanks Clive, most helpful! Glad to see you can't see any major stupidities in there, too

Yes, that all makes sense.

• For (1) a diffuser or something positioned between the inlets and the underside of the grain bed would perhaps be a possibility; I guess that I could arrange some sort of submerged sparge arm if needed, but it would be a bit more effort to couple it.
• For (2) then its a case of great minds thinking alike; a grommeted hole (or three) was what I was thinking too - I was debating between having it sit on a flange around the pipe, or wedging it on hollow cones fixed to the pipe - like you get in stainless compression fittings. I suppose the wedging would work for one, but I probably wouldn't be accurate enough to wedge three at once.
• I don't really know about (3) yet; the 14w solar ones have roughly similar flow rates to the recirculation pumps used in the braumeister, but neither seem to have any specs for head/LPM so i can't be sure - I guess time will tell!
• (4) you're dead right. I could devise a rack to sit it on, but even then I'd prefer not to be lifting a double-corny batch before it drained. Probably a pulley or manual winch would be in order. I just had a look and machinemart do a simple one for about £23 (without rope/cable) - they may okay if they've got some sort of latch on them.

I had a bit of luck this afternoon. I'd thought my current boiler was the same size as the 100L european pots but it wasn't made completely round so it was difficult to tell; I cut off the lip this pm, and (handles aside) its a teeny bit bigger - a snug fit!

If I removed the handles then there's about 13cm height difference, so should be more than enough space for elements etc - I may even have to reduce the boiler a tad; more planning to do now. It would be very convenient if the boiler for my 3vessel system could also be used for this single-vessel setup.

Obviously its embryonic at the mo, but I've decided to name it the frogmeister

Cheers
Kev

[barneey]

Obviously its embryonic at the mo, but I've decided to name it the frogmeister

Cheers
Kev

Not a TADPOLEmeister???

[barneey]

Kev, Just looking at the two pots have you worked out away of lifting the inner pot with the handles cut off? also I assume the thermal expansion of the two pots would equal each other?