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Steam?

I have been seeing some threads on steam heating of boilers & mash. Are you / others just directly injecting steam into your boilers and venting the steam or are you taking about bain-marie boiler? If it is a double wall boiler, how are you using steam on the fermenters?

Assuming that you are simply injecting steam into the liquids are you using standard low pressure (212°F) or are you using high pressure steam with a higher temperature? After trying a rice mash and cleaning a pot with a wire brush, the prospect of indirect heating is sounding pretty darned good.

If you are just injecting steam into the product are you starting with a stronger wash to account for the dilution?

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Comments

  • edited March 2015

    For that matter, if nobody is injecting steam has anybody thought about just doing that?

  • edited March 2015

    Stacks on info on steam mashing here with plenty of calculations.

    Everything you ever wanted to know and lots more about steam here.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • I don't know of anyone using a DSI for their boiler. It's all jacketed steam here.

    DSI will work for a stripping column though and I hope to be testing it out sometime before I'm dead.

  • edited March 2015

    You could have your column on top of a thumper, and simply boil water and pipe it in.

    Edit: With your wash in the thumper of course.

  • edited March 2015

    @punkin you seem to have been around since before time, what is the correlation between AD, StillDragon & HD? I saw some old posts in the flute thread where Loyd, Larry & you were on HD and AD seems to be kind of on the fringes. The flute thread seems to be a who's who of the craft distillers world.

  • I am in the heating and air field and it would be really simple ( possibly a little scary ) to build a steam generator and just blow medium pressure steam into the wash. Don't know if the extra volume of water would effect the whole distillation process, but I suspect it would not.

  • @razerhawg said: Punkin you seem to have been around since before time, what is the correlation between AD, StillDragon & HD? I saw some old posts in the flute thread where Loyd, Larry & you were on HD and AD seems to be kind of on the fringes. The flute thread seems to be a who's who of the craft distillers world

    @punkin is the Paracelsus/H.G.Wells/Dr Who of our time. You'll find references to him all throughout time, I heard a rumour he's mentioned in the "Dead Sea Scrolls".

    In all seriousness the correlation between one forum and the next is simple, you'll find many users are on multiple forums with each forum offering its own unique perspectives and individuals.

    What sets SD apart from the rest is the high number of professional distillers contributing directly to the forums as well as SD being a product development forum where you can see an idea transformed into a commercial product right before your eyes.

    A great team of people all working together.

    Cheers,

    Mech.

  • edited March 2015

    Started distilling around 2007 mate, there's lots of guys been around the traps longer than me. I, like many others could not adjust to tater on home distiller and his way or the highway bullshit of editing and locking posts etc. A bunch of us joined with Pint when he started Artisan and as we all gradually got barred from HD it just kicked on. There was a time a couple years back where Artisan really was the place to be for the cutting edge development, it was where the experimenting and research was going on at a good place with Pint fostering a great experience with his leadership of the mod team.

    Most of the mod team have been there for a long time and all are respected on Artisan as are the members (same as here) which means there is no need to lock threads, delete posts or edit stuff.

    Pint has taught me a lot over the years and i respect the man tremendously, the main thing he has shown us is that if you treat people with respect and expect that respect to passed on to the next person then the world is a much smoother place.

    @Lloyd and myself are not welcome at HD, although @Smaug has kept himself in the good books, we started this forum with @Moonshine and @SDeurope so we had a place for our customers to openly talk all things StillDragon without fear of deletion, or disfavour while still showing respect to the other forums to not be seen as pushing wares all the time.

    As it's turned out the cutting edge seems to have moved here and the development and refinement that is happening here is a great thing that we (or i at least) never anticipated. It has been a fantastic move for us to have access to our customers as much as has been for our customers to have access to us. :-*

    As far as the steam there's lots of injection builds on Artisan, most are mash pots but my build above ran steam injection as a stripper and swede has a bain-marie jacketed boiler that he runs with water and vents the steam relief from the jacket into his boiler to help with the boil and recover the energy.
    The challenges that stopped me using the big pot all the time were that it was a bitch to seal and i never got that right and that using a coil to condense the vapour to the parrot (even though the parrot was water cooled) meant steaming hot distillate.

    I would happily do it again, especially that i can get large stainless pots at reasonable prices that have good clamp seal lids.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • edited March 2015

    Thanks Guys. Yes I got my hand slapped on HD for even mentioning StillDragon and hadn't thought much about it till I read the Flute thread yesterday. I guess I need to join AD?

    It is a little strange for all of the commercial guys to divulge their secrets on this site which I really pretty cool. It has helped me greatly reading their threads. I am one of those mechanical people who can't begin to comprehend all of the technical / chemical mumbo jumbo. So I have to make crib notes on all of the various chemical additions and enzymes. God I wish I was smarter, but I have a notebook getting fuller every day.

    My background is in air conditioning and refrigeration with some knowledge of cooling towers and boilers. So feel free to pick my brain on any of this that you need. Although I suck at it I can MIG, TIG and Stick weld and I currently have a light gauge sheetmetal shop (working on a 10 ga shear & pressbrake with hopefully a waterjet coming). My dad was a plumber so even if I don't like it I know it and I ( was dad's....) by proxy own a small hardware store.

  • edited March 2015

    I was watching Brian Williams just the other day recount how he swam across the Bay of Naples to escape the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD. Williams remembered how Punkin and Pliny the Younger were standing on the shore on the safe side of the bay encouraging him on! Apparently they had been discussing the relative merits of sieve plates vs bubble caps when they spotted Williams swimming towards them.

    I'm more like I am now than I was before.

  • edited March 2015

    From my recollection of that event @olddog was somehow involved in that discussion?

  • Steam is nice to strip with, but its one of those strange things.

    Its good if you have it available, and its also good if you are going to use it for other parts of the brewing process. Not sure its worth putting in a steam boiler ONLY for a still.

  • @Kapea said: I was watching Brian Williams just the other day recount how he swam across the Bay of Naples to escape the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD. Williams remembered how Punkin and Pliny the Younger were standing on the shore on the safe side of the bay encouraging him on! Apparently they had been discussing the relative merits of sieve plates vs bubble caps when they spotted Williams swimming towards them.

    Wow. This guy's resume just gets better and better. :^o

  • edited March 2015

    A still is a perfect steam boiler if you just want to mash with direct injection by the same token.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • edited March 2015

    @punkin did I see a post where you had done a beautiful job of insulating a keg?

    After reading everything I could find I am thinking I am going to use a keg with 2 or 3 heating elements (for faster heat up). I had seen a neat idea earlier where you could have 2 water feeds, 1 full stream & 1 with a regulating valve to try and match the boil off for a continuous fill rate?

    I'll go ahead and put a sight glass and low water cut off probably on sanitary fitting stubs welded to the side of keg. Add a pressure gauge, high pressure switch and pop off and it should be bullet proof. Throw in 2 or 3 steam injection ports (all fittings sanitary fittings) with check valves. Thought I could run it through a PID controller with a SSR with the temperature probe being in the mash tun or still boiler & use a temperature and pressure switches in that circuit to cycle main element. Other element(s) would just be on a Hand Off switch with the above pressure and temperature switches in that circuit as well.

    I was thinking I would try to create 2 or 3 kegs with an 8" ferrule on top and possible a smaller one as well. after mashing just leave the product in this insulated keg with electric heating elements attached to the side and placing an airlock on top. After fermentation place a couple of pieced of 8" pipe and then a reducer and condenser to make a pot still for stripping.

    Place all of this up on legs with a 2" drain valve. Buy some flexible steam hose to connect and woo hoo. Thoughts?

  • @razerhawg when @punkin , @Lloyd , @Smaug or @olddog speak, I listen! This bunch have a wealth of knowlwedge they are willing to share with anyone who wants to listen :-bd

  • edited March 2015

    Cut it out you guys, i have already got a head the size of a punkin.

    The only keg i ever insulated was with reflectix, but i spent some time on Black Betty in the link on page 1 of this thread insulating with foam and rubber. I then spent some time later on ripping 1/3rd of that off when i converted the pot to the gas rig it is now.

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    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • OK, well darn it. Somebody had built a fiberglass shell and foam insulated one then added tongue & groove wood on the outside and it looked great.....not that yours doesn't:)
    I thought I had read about the demise of @olddog, but I guess the reports of his demise are greatly exaggerated!

  • There's a few builds around like that one, one was posted here a week or two ago.

    oldogs just laying low in the back of his kennel, he has a fifteen year extension on his pump now.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • There are some nice wood insulated versions around and I will probably do the same on my own 100 litre keg later.

    I did a fibreglass and foam insulation on a glycol boiler, and also did a cement insulation on the shroud of a gas heated steam boiler that was keg based. The cement worked very well but is heavy.

  • edited March 2015

    @razerhawg If you haven't already have a look at this thread for my steam generator - partly built from SD parts.

    @telluride & others have added their generators to this thread, so there is some top info there.

  • Thanks @crozdog, that thread was the first one I read that got me started down this path.

  • The (craft) pros share because they are trying to build awareness about craft spirits and also build a legitimate industry. This is really one and the same.

    They are trying to create a destination spot within their communities so that they can attract business. Helping each other helps the industry as a whole. The Bourbon Trail can be expanded beyond it's respective state line if distillers work together and help the entire industry grow and get better.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • edited March 2015

    BTW @razerhawg1, easy to check the time signatures to conclude who did what and when it was done.

    Having said that, I have no idea why Decoy's progress seemingly stopped dead in his tracks with regard to the small plated still development?

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • Decoy got paranoid about his name being out there on the forums, he told me when he was at my place.
    Said he was going to drop out of the online community.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • edited March 2015

    His plate design is sophomoric compared to the robust behavior we now see from various available designs, but he was years ahead at the time.

    @olddog got that book from his daughter and was off to the races. I never Did ask Mike how much Decoy did or did not inspire him.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • edited March 2015

    @TheMechWarrior said: I don't know of anyone using a DSI for their boiler. It's all jacketed steam here.

    Not on the still boiler, but we're going to give steam injection mashing a try. Our plumber thinks we're crazy for not doing it. He says nearly every plant he's built in the past few years used steam injection for heating.

  • Keep us in the loop with pictures @grim, I'll be keen to how you implement this.

  • for steam generators (not injected, but more of a total loss system...) I saw some real cool ones at Boulder Distillery.

    I have mentioned it before on here, but the distillery had more than a half dozen kegs with one or two elements in them piped to immersion coils in the still, and then into a bucket of water to provide a half-psi or so..

    In the below pic, you can see the keg on its side under the still, and the bucket of water on the left...

    image

    more pics: Google Image Search on Boulder Distillery

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  • Another pic, with a pressure gauge on a still in the foreground...

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