This is the Boiler. After the grain has been mashed and sparged, the wort is drained into the boiler tank. The wort is brought to a boil and hops are added at various intervals for bitterness and flavor. The boiler tank is another Sanke keg that was purchased through Homebrew Heaven . In addition to the drain port, I had them add two additional ports. These ports have quick connects on the outside and a 40 foot long coil of 1/2" copper tubing. There is also a SS screen that was purchased from Stainless in Seattle . This filters the hops from the wort when transferring the wort to the fermentor.

In many ways, this vessel looks a lot like my liquor tank. What's different about this setup than most is that I have chosen to mount the immersion chiller directly through the wall of the boiler tank. Typically, about half way through the boil, the immersion chiller is put into the boiling wort in order to sanitize it. Once the boil is completed, tap water is run through the immersion chiller to cool the wort. Once the wort drops below 110°F or so, the wort is susseptable to contamination by a bunch of different nasties (airborne bacteria and yeast). Thus any opening is a potential source for ruining your beer. By going through the side walls, I am able to place a well sealing lid on the boiler tank to minimize any contamination.

I always disliked fiddling with the immersion chiller. I'm hoping this will simplify my brewing day (and that's half the reason for a HE-Man RIMS). It may make it too difficult to clean the hops from the boiler as I can't remove the screen without removing the coil (which I don't plan to do). We'll see how this works out over time.

Note that my liquor tank used a coil cut down from a 1/2" x 50' immersion chiller. The coil above was bent from 50' of 1/2 copper tubing purchased at Home Depot. This coil came in the form of an Archimedes spiral and had to be re-formed to the current design. I was chicken at first that my coil would come out looking rank. hence, I used a purchased coil in my liquor tank. With a little help from my better half, I placed one end of the coil into the spigot hole of my fermenting bucket. While Debbie held the bucket, I coiled the tubing around the bucket.

It came out looking great and much better than expected. I wish I had done the other coil this way. I would have saved about $25. I prefer the larger diameter of the coil in the boiler as it will give me more room to stir. If I choose to bail on this permanently mounted immersion cooler, I will swap this coil with the one in the liquor tank, buy a new boiler and sell this one off as a liquor tank.