Ive gone mad with chugger pump - ? herms

[Laughgov]

Hi all,

I got a chugger pump from armedcor from the sales section, and frankly I love it. It made the brew day sooo easy and the whirlpool cooling through plate chiller with the pump is fantastic. Ive got three steel kegs (mash tun is insulated and has an inlet at the top for fly sparging with arm.

I was wondering if I heated the hot liquour tank, used the thermometer to control the pump (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121927289842?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT) and the old copper coil wort chiller could I make a herms

Using the temp controller to trigger the pump to kick in to bring mash up to temp using coil in HLT ->bottom of mash tun through pump to coil to fly sparge for return into the mash or is this just crazy talk.

Bear in mind I could be talking through my behind just an idea. Thought it would be cool to herms without the crazy build.

[Leann ull]

Don't use chugger for switched on and off you will shorten its life, in any case with a herms you use a throttled chugger and you keep it on permanently.
Using HLT for controlling herms is too inefficient in my opinion, responsive time, over shoot, response to ramp requests.
Small pot, fellas on Jim's used electric kettles.
Ink bird is either on or off there is no small squirts to get it to temperature what you want it to, pid and element will allow you do that

[Laughgov]

Thanks CH as usual for your vast knowledge. Id be interested in doing this

Have you any links re PID and when you say element  - into where?
Sorry dont mean to be thick

[armedcor]

Glad it worked out well!

[Leann ull]

Not Vast knowledge but have been messing with herms for 3 or 4 years now
Shanna has them there on another current  thread
Lots of different types out there, avoid cheap Rex ones, and see if you can get one accurate to 0.1 degrees, cheaper ones only 1 degree.
I and others use sestos but there are others out there.
Mines in a plastic lunchbox, one of these days I'll do a proper control panel.

My first herms was a small t urn 15l with 8mm copper coil, coil at 4 metres was too long, bigger bore 12mm shorter length is better I now have a pot with a coil from brew builder



with 5l and 3kw element and can ramp 40l a degree a min in 50sec, you can't do that with hlt

Have a think about where the probe will go to measure temp of herms return, important that it reflects the temp of the wort on top of grain and not that exiting pump.

[Shanna]

Not Vast knowledge but have been messing with herms for 3 or 4 years now
Shanna has them there on another thread
Lots of different types out there, avoid cheap Rex ones, and see if you can get one accurate to 0.1 degrees, cheaper ones only 1 degree.
I and others uses sestos but there are others out there.
My first herms was a small t urn 15l I now have a pot with 5l and 3kw element and can ramp 40l a degree a min in 50sec, you can't do that with hlt

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/forum/equipment-chemicals/wiring-sestos-pid/msg121647/#msg121647
Use a 7 litre tea urn that I bought from Aldi. I ripped out the electrics and the element on it cause it was only 1KW. Replaced it with a 2.7KW heating element that was fitted through the bottom of the urn. Use it with the stainless steel coil, sestos PID/chugger pump and detachable rtd-pt100 - search for the following on ebay "2M RTD PT100 Temperature Sensors 1/2" NPT Threads with Detachable Connector"

Really happy with it now as its allows me really good control of the mash process and sparging process.

Shanna

[Laughgov]

ohhh thats nice - shiny too.

Might I be a bit cheeky. Would it be possible to list the stuff I need to do this and where to get it from, it looks just fantastic. I dont think there is much point in reinventing the wheel  - and if I did mine would likely be oval if I tried. If its too much hassle dont worry Tought it was worth a punt.

[Leann ull]

Do a quick search on forum all in there, couldn't be arsed to list out all again, pot from bergland 30ish plus delivery
3kw circular element on amazon 10-12stg

[Leann ull]

Links I had are probably long expired as Mines 2 years old now
Post how you get on before pulling trigger

Here's element though for floor of insulated pot



Don't forget to earth your pot!

[Leann ull]

Few sestos pids on eBay there for 20stg

[Shanna]

Read the thread for a start as there are links in there for some of the stuff.

Sestos PID controller
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inkbird-Temperature-Controller-Thermostat-Calibration/dp/B008GS2QFU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485732744&sr=8-1&keywords=sestos+pid

Backer Electric heating elements 2.75KW - http://www.heatingelementcompany.co.uk/default.asp?Product=287 - buy two as you will need a spare. Beware they use older round shaped connectors - search for the following on ebay "SWAN Catering Kettle Plug Socket Connector & Cable Lead 13 Amp Round 3 Pin" to get an idea of what they look like. The elements don't come with power leads so you will need to find a source of these. I have only found those connectors as I had some of them from a previous pair of elements that I picked up in a local hard ware store.

BEARING OPTIONS KM SERIES STAINLESS STEEL LOCKNUTS (LOCK-WASHER-TYPE) - search for this on ebay. This allows you to secure the heating element properly as the backer elements come with a plastic shroud and guarantee they will either crack, come loose or fail spectacularly at the wrong moment. I lost two beers to these plastic bastards before I coughed up and bought the stainless steel ones.

I figured out the other parts required to connect the wiring for the probe from the http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=11562
From memory this included a 3 pin socket, some electrical wiring cable, a large project box, crimping connectors to attach the electrical wires to, fuse & cable glands from Radionics in Dublin and mounted the sestos pid in it. Basically these allow me to plug one end of the temperature probe in to the project box. The other end of the temperature probe is already detachable. I mounted the temperature probe inside a t shaped stainless steel piece that got fitted to my stainless steel taps.

The SSRs & the Heat sink for the PID controller were bought on ebay also.
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Solid-State-Relay-SSR-40DA-40-AMP-3-32VDC-Output-24-380V-AC-SSR-40A-Module-/251334537481?hash=item3a84b4b109:g:NxEAAOxyJX9SKfHZ
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Aluminum-Alloy-Small-Heat-Sink-Dissipation-Cooling-Fin-For-Solid-State-Relay-SSR-/252537652649?hash=item3acc6ac5a9

I attached the heat sink to a small piece of wood and mounted that to the bottom of the project box. I bought thermal grease for a computer CPU and put a layer of that on the back of the SSR and the top of the heat sink.

Hopefully that will be enough to get you started. I would read the link above to the homebrewforum as well as the link to the guide that CH wrote. I can take some more pictures of my rig (just not tonight) if you need them but hopefully that lot should be enough for you to get going.

A couple of things you might want to consider include the following
1. the temperature probes are analog and they can drift over time meaning that you might have to adjust the PID controller to offset them.
2. the instructions with the sestos are shite so be prepared for loads of googling as to how to get the bloody thing to work. Basically before you use it you have to autotune it in by allowing the PID controller figure out the best way to heat the required amount of liquid in the mash. I did a step mash with a hefeweizen to allow it figure out the requirements for my system. I found the following link useful to figure out how to run the auto tuning - http://www.lindens.nu/projects/sous-vide/en.htm
3. this stuff involves wiring and electricity, so it has the potential to kill you if you fuck it up. If your not comfortable with this best to get an electrician to help. I don't want to held responsible for you getting hurt. Resist the urge to just pull wiring out of some other appliance get the correct wiring for the heating element. - see http://www.rospa.com/home-safety/uk/northern-ireland/electricity/flexes-cables/flexes/ for details.

Good luck.

Shanna

[Laughgov]

Thank you so much for all the work

2M RTD PT100 Temperature Sensors 1/2" NPT Threads with Detachable Connector

can get most of that stuff on amazon easily

The pot and coil I cant find
Brewbuilder only seem to do really long coils
and bergland have no pots of this size.
I could get a tea urn but not sure which one

Again thanks lads

[Leann ull]

The pot and coil I cant find   

drop bergland catering a mail 1 x 10465 - Thermo pot 6 litre - 33,90 EUR  Catering-Portal.Bergland@msg.afterbuy.de is the one I have
Brewbuilder also need a mail he will sell you coil, not cheap, its on his herms pot he will take a few days to respond,

[Rory85]

I built a similar herms pot at the end of last year, this is the pot I used
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381832767937?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

and this is the coil I got but it seems to be out of stock with this supplier at the moment
https://onlinebrewingsupplies.com/hermit-coil

[Leann ull]

Nice find on coil