So recently I upgraded my kettle. So for the old kettle I decided to make a new chiller with the intention of hard mounting it to the kettle and using it for a manual at first maybe auto later HERMS setup. I'll be able to use it for whirlpooling when desired and chilling of course. So here's my new chiller. I'm going to solder in two 1/2" NPT bulkheads when time allows.
That's a great looking chiller. But do you really want to hard plump it into your brew kettle? I see this making your kettle more cumbersome, difficulty in cleaning, and overall interference with your hop bags & skimming off hot break. My chiller is similar, but the inlet/outlet connecting arms are bent to go over the lip of the kettle . . . making the chiller independent of the kettle. Please think long and hard before you tap two more holes in such a fine looking kettle. Also, whirlpooling is great feature . . . how do you intend to add that on?
The boil kettle isn't getting hard mounted. Only the heat exchanger kettle will be hard mounted; the wort will never come in contact with the heat exchanger kettle itself. So I'll have a brew kettle, mash tun and heat exchanger kettle. When mashing I can recirculate through the heat exchanger kettle controlling my temps, including having control adjusting temps for things like a protein rest and mash out, in addition to the the normal saccharification rest. When ready to sparge, I can take the water out of the heat exchanger kettle for rising if I need more volume. As for the whirlpooling, I can take my post boil mix and then recirculate through the heat exchanger kettle, with the bonus of being able to control that temp as well. After whirlpooling I chill through the heat exchanger kettle with typical garden hose temp water surrounding the coil. I'm having a hard time putting to words this setup; hope this is clear.
While I understand your counterpoint about your herms kettle never touching wort, I still wonder what advantages hard plumbing the coil to the kettle offers? None come to mind, although this really isn't something I've ever done. If there are advantages, are they worth modifying your kettle for? If you are going to manually herms, won't you still have to sit there and stare at your MLT thermometer as much, or even more so, than usual? I've never herms'd before, so perhaps there is some great equation for determining a temperature to keep the water in your herms kettle that will help regulate your MLT temperature without much adjustment over 60 minutes that I'm unaware of? I know water retains heat better than grain, so I suppose your herms kettle will retain heat better than your MLT. You could also build an insulation jacket for your MLT in addition to using this herms kettle. But, to my unexperienced mind, I would still expect the temperature of the water in your herms kettle to drop during the mash period. It would also rise while you are direct firing it. Then again, there are still benefits to recirculating your mash besides temperature automation. Wort clarification and less stratification in the MLT come to mind....
You're not missing something. Watching the temp will be a manual operation. My mash tun is a cooler, so I anticipate it will hold temps fairly well. I hope to learn my setup well enough that the heat exchanger kettle is only firing either a low flame or a periodic one. As you noted in your last statements, I'll get benefits above temp control.
I'm having trouble seeing this as whirlpooling. You'll run your post boil wort and hops through the coil? Edit: I think I see now. You'll run your wort and hops into and out of the kettle, which happens to contain the coil. I'm wondering how you'll be able to get a whirpool motion in that. Something like Jamil's "whirpool immesion chiller?"
A couple updates for those who have interest. Here's the work on the mash tun side. I'm all done with soldering and ready to rock both sparge arm and manifold. Sparge arm and manifold all cleaned up. Manifold will not be soldered more than pictured, so it's able to be disassembled for cleaning. Manifold in cooler: Sparge arm in cooler:
lookin good man. what kind of cooler is that? You must not have very much dead space and thats what Im looking for...
Thanks Jay! It's a Coleman Xtreme 36 quart; smaller than some, but I didn't want something huge thing bleeding off heat, nothing wrong with those that go bigger, and figured that for real big beers I'd consider partial mashing with therefore some extract. Both manifold and sparge arm fit like a glove. I referenced a lot of Palmer for design.
Doesn't look like I posted these either. HLT soldered NPT coupling bulkhead. All done, leak tested with Brewmometer install . . . hell yes no leaks!!!
Did you create a slight angle towards a low middle point for your sparge arm? I have never done one, but assumed that in order to get a consistent drip you need some gravity feed to the far edges...
Not sure if I understand, but I'll try to give some input regarding flow. There is not an equal drip / flow rate across the entire arm. The middle of course gets a little more than the other two pipes. This is most noticeable when the water pressure is low. However, I don't think I'd ever go as low as it'd become an issue. One possible mistake, which would exacerbate the issue, if you make the slots to big. I can imagine that if you made the slots too big, you'd never reach the other pipes with flow.
