crazy idea?

[Haydnexport]

Hi guys , im looking into making a herms setup , and i was thinking could i not use a counterflow chiller as a counter flow heater? like pump the sparge water thats in the hlt into the what would be cooling side and have the wort in the usual one? Surely there is a drawback and it cant be that simple?

[AFewTooMany]

You could. But you'd still need a way of heating the water to above mash temp and would require one pump for wort recirc and one for water recirc

[Haydnexport]

the hlt will be keeping the sparge temp at 75 , i've got 3 pumps in my system , one rg550 for hlt recirculation , and 2 march 815@s one for mash recirc/vorlauf and one for boil recirc/ counterflow

[Fil]

may i ask Why? the reason i ask is after spending a bit of time and having a lot of fun experimenting with a herms coil and pid controller, i then struggled to find a beer i wanted to brew that needed any sort of step mashing.. My tun has always managed to hold a good temp so herms isnt needed to maintain the mash temp.. and the rig ended up on the shelf.

Saying that a few months down the road and a few pints resulted in a midnight purchase of a rims rocket element to fit into my hop rocket hehe,, i do like my brew toys

[bobsbeer]

I can't see any reason it would't work, but cleaning may be a pain.

[Kev888]

I know the cooling water gets heated during normal use, but would purposely using hot water mean the outer hose needs to be more temperature proof than normal?

[Haydnexport]

It's for step mashing really , well that and i want to recirculate the wort fully and not just do a vorlauf , 95% of my grain brewing is lager. What herms system you have fil?

I hadnt thought about the hose for the cf having to be heat resistant , but i could easily change it or get one on them all copper / stainless ones.

[Fil]

Not that i would recommend my herms solution... but since u ask.. i used a round plastic ammo container i found in a metal box i bought for tools from the army surplus, initially intending to stand it upright my initial element hole thru the side encountered raised internal ribs which precluded sealing an element so that became the 'top' fill hole.. thankfully the lid sealed easily ..
just over 2m of 10mm copper tube was coiled and kinked only in one or two spots for the final fit..

effective enough to heat liquid to the waterbath temp (even from cold) @ 2l p/m using the standard lil brown solar pump with circa 8v dc.



testing with water is great fun, and quite easy to get working with a pid controller. a brew is another matter getting the flow sufficient to effect any change without sucking down the grain bed can be problematic.

the limiting factor is how fast you can drain the tun which may differ from brew to brew depending on content such as wheat, and the pumps you mention could run the risk of sucking the grain bed down into a solid plug, however some sort grainfather-esq overflow could overcome that risk?? another option may be to employ a bucket to collect the tun runnings and pump from that when sufficient volume has been collected indicated by float switches. but then the control becomes a LOT more complicated..

[Haydnexport]

the march pumps are mag coupled , so i can restrict the flow to a dribble if needed , i have done 10 min vorlauf with it , and that mega improved my efficency with batch sparging

[Kev888]

I hadnt thought about the hose for the cf having to be heat resistant , but i could easily change it or get one on them all copper / stainless ones.

For temperature resistance alone, it need not be very glamorous - I used a roll of car radiator hose for my CFC and that is intended to cope very well with heat. Though I only use it for water... perhaps some thought would need to be given to food grade and rubbery carry-throughs if you intended to use the same HLT water both for warmng mash and for sparging liquor. I guess the same is true for any garden hose or other kind not designed for food use at temperature.

[Haydnexport]

Can get milking grade silicone hose in all kinds of diameter.

[Kev888]

Yeah, platinum cured silicone would be good. A tad more costly but then this application is a bit different to normal and would warrant it.