Hot liquor tank for brewing on a 5 bbl system?

[ESBC]

So I'm wondering why most brewhouse systems don't quote w a hot liquor tank included. Is the HLT not as necessary as I think it is? What would the process for sparging be without the HLT?

Thanks in advance

[BemidjiBrewing]

I think it depends upon the particular manufacturer and how they structure their quotes and what you request to be quoted. At the 5bbl scale you are kind of at the cusp of still being small enough to do the on-demand hot water thing or get a true HLT. It all depends on how you brew and how you decide to add salts, acid, etc for water/mash adjustment as well as how much flow rate you need for your particular system.

Personally, I'm in the camp of using a true HLT, even at the small scale because you can choose to adjust your water separately for mash and sparge if you can completely empty and refill/reheat the HLT during the mash rest. Plus, having a big tank of 190°F water on hand to just dump in a bucket/pastuerize parts/etc is super handy. We used to brew on a 3bbl system and had an on-demand hot water heater that we would use to fill our under-sized HLT and then add salts/acid as needed. It worked, but wasn't ideal by any means. Now that we have a double-size HLT I wouldn't trade it for all the daisy-chained on-demand heaters in the world. YMMV.

Cheers,
Tom

[ESBC]

I think it depends upon the particular manufacturer and how they structure their quotes and what you request to be quoted. At the 5bbl scale you are kind of at the cusp of still being small enough to do the on-demand hot water thing or get a true HLT. It all depends on how you brew and how you decide to add salts, acid, etc for water/mash adjustment as well as how much flow rate you need for your particular system.

Personally, I'm in the camp of using a true HLT, even at the small scale because you can choose to adjust your water separately for mash and sparge if you can completely empty and refill/reheat the HLT during the mash rest. Plus, having a big tank of 190°F water on hand to just dump in a bucket/pastuerize parts/etc is super handy. We used to brew on a 3bbl system and had an on-demand hot water heater that we would use to fill our under-sized HLT and then add salts/acid as needed. It worked, but wasn't ideal by any means. Now that we have a double-size HLT I wouldn't trade it for all the daisy-chained on-demand heaters in the world. YMMV.

Cheers,
Tom

Oh ok so you just used a couple or more on-demand heaters in line to get a desired temp? I didn't think of that.. I saw their max temp was generally 125 degrees.

I'm looking to start a distribution only (to start) 5bbl brewhouse and looking to trim up the price a little. Thanks for the help!

[wailingguitar]

Oh ok so you just used a couple or more on-demand heaters in line to get a desired temp? I didn't think of that.. I saw their max temp was generally 125 degrees.

I'm looking to start a distribution only (to start) 5bbl brewhouse and looking to trim up the price a little. Thanks for the help!

When using multiple on demands they run parallel, not series, which gets you the temp you want at a higher flow rate. Not sure where you saw 125F max, our plumbing supplier had multiple options that topped out at 185F. We have one of those that we use to top up the HLT a little after mash in and for our hot water for tank cleaning.

[BemidjiBrewing]

Actually we only had a single Navien brand on-demand heater for our previous 3bbl system. It also had a top temperature of 185°F and could hit it no problem, even with cold Northern MN city water (coming in at ~40°F in the winter). This fed our HLT, which we would top up multiple times during the day - really just a kettle that held the hot water so we could adjust its alkalinity + add salts. You can install multiple heaters in parallel, as mentioned, to increase your flow rate. These can be used to directly mash-in or sparge, but I would definitely put some thought into how you are going to adjust your water's alkalinity and the mash pH as well as do some investigation into the heater's minimum required flow rate. For instance, if we flowed less than 1.2 gallons per minute our heater wouldn't kick on. So determine what your flow rate will need to be on the high side AND the low side if you are opting out of any sort of HLT or holding vessel for the hot water. Keep in mind that any filtration (sediment or carbon) prior to the on-demand heater will also slow the flow rate.

And a side note, that I'm sure has a dozen legitimate responses/arguments...5bbl will be REALLY tough to cash flow with distribution only, unless you can charge a primo for your kegs. Consider a taproom component if at all possible!

Cheers,
Tom