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HERMS coil
I have a 20ft 3/8th inch copper coil that had served as my chiller for 8 years, until I upgraded to a bigger coil.
I have been wondering what is going on inside the coil and if I could use it to pass wort through for use as a HERMS as is. I figured if I recirculated some PBW or TSP through it for awhile if I could clean out any hidden corrosion in there.
Any thoughts?
That is exactly what I use. A good clean is really all it needs. I just connect my HLT up to it after a record of wort, and run about a half gallon of sparge water through to give it a rinse till the next brewday.
You rinse it after each session right? Do you have the same size and length coil? How much volume loss is there of wort?
Sounds like a plan to me. Near boiling water and PBW and then some Star San and I think you'll be fine.
What do you plan on using for fittings? Compression? Soldering?
Are you planning on using your HLT to circulate the mash through?
My IC has compression fitted garden type attachments on there. i just put those on last year or so.
I might solder on some threaded fittings, as I have been practicing on some other projects and feel pretty confident with that skill now.
I have a quarter barrel keg that I have used as a boil kettle on occasion. So my plan would be to drop the IC/HERMS in there. I still plan to batch sparge so I'll just drain the quarter barrel for sparge water. The volume is small for larger than 5 gallon batches but it should be fine for the first few runs playing with HERMS.
Yeah, my HERMS has a 25 ft 38" copper coil as well and all I do is give it a good rinse both before and after use with hot water and never have had a problem with copper corrosion. I have to say, though, that soft copper tubing is not meant for soldering. It can be done, but doesn't look pretty in the end. I was able to solder on some adapters for my counter-flow chiller, but was quite difficult. This stuff is really meant for the compression type fittings, if you can get away with it. Cheers!
Then maybe I'll just leave the compression fittings on there that I already have. I just might switch the garden hose fittings to brass QDs.
brewchez wrote:
You rinse it after each session right? Do you have the same size and length coil? How much volume loss is there of wort?
I have no lost wort. After recirc for mashout.
I then pump some sparge water behind it. So this purges all the wort in the line then starts to add sparge water to the tun, leaving a clean coil behind. I would also highly recommend putting a thermo inline to determine the exact return temp.
thirsty wrote:
I have no lost wort. After recirc for mashout.
I then pump some sparge water behind it.
That makes sense. I hadn't thought about that part.
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