Planning ahead for equipment purchases

[andrewmaixner]

Since I have kids, my main goal is overall brew time reduction, and set-it-and-forget-it stuff looks really nice. I tend to do 11gal batches, occasionaly 5.5gal though -- double batch is a huge time saver.

I currently have a 15G kettle w/ ball valve, blichman burner, and the huge 70qt coleman Xtreme w/ ball valve for batch sparging. Couple tables for tiers.

I picked up an electric immersion heater (anova) to save time and propane by pre-heating strike water right in my mash cooler. I see no reason why this won't be wonderful just as it is for the strike, or single-infusion / smaller beers.

For larger beers (OG and volume), it would save more time to have another vessel (insulated cooler, or insulate-able pot, or ?) in which to heat the infusion water after the mash-in, so I no longer have to dump the first batch runnings into buckets before I infuse from single kettle -- I can go straight into a propane burn right out of the first runnings, while I batch or mash-out.

I'm basically looking for considerations on what kind of kettle/cooler/etc might be a good idea to get here, that ALSO would be modifiable in the future if I wanted to go electric with a HERMS / recirculating mash type setup. What compatibility or ease-of-use things should I take into consideration on the vessel purchase -- NPT valves, pump hookups, immersion-heater-coil, etc...?

[czubak]

If that heater works well in a cooler then by far the easiest and cheapest route to go is another cooler as an HLT.

[bf514921]

Maybe a counter flow wort chiller, it can double as heat exchange coil for a herms. It would also be external to the current setup

[Matt F]

Do you have to have two pumps in order to use a counterflow in a HERMS application? I was thinking yes but maybe someone has a trick I don't know about. Immersion chiller HERMS only requires one pump if cost is a consideration.

[andrewmaixner]

Do you have to have two pumps in order to use a counterflow in a HERMS application? I was thinking yes but maybe someone has a trick I don't know about. Immersion chiller HERMS only requires one pump if cost is a consideration.

I think you would -- the only way to get around pumps in a double-flow heat exchanger unit is to use gravity, but that's a 1-way trip for whichever liquid isn't pumped/recirculated.
(I don't forsee myself needing counterflow, just immersion heat exchange.)

[bf514921]

Space and setup type would be a consideration if you can do a gravity fed hlt, then single pump would be no problem, if you want a single tier setup, You could use one pump and use it to drain mash, pump more water for batch Sparge, and then pump out the rest of your wort.

[whitedj]

Do you have to have two pumps in order to use a counterflow in a HERMS application? I was thinking yes but maybe someone has a trick I don't know about. Immersion chiller HERMS only requires one pump if cost is a consideration.

One pump would not need to be 'clean' if just using for water... although not too sure about temperature ratings on cheap pumps.

Do you have to have two pumps in order to use a counterflow in a HERMS application? I was thinking yes but maybe someone has a trick I don't know about. Immersion chiller HERMS only requires one pump if cost is a consideration.

I think you would -- the only way to get around pumps in a double-flow heat exchanger unit is to use gravity, but that's a 1-way trip for whichever liquid isn't pumped/recirculated.
(I don't forsee myself needing counterflow, just immersion heat exchange.)