Using Ultrasound

punkin

I'm gunna tape a transducer to my freckle and see if it makes my dick bigger.

grim

Probably would, but only for a few minutes.

Smaug

Yeah that is like a final milling process done with vibration. Simply exposing even more available surface area of the grain material.

It reminds me of a machine that cleans metals that we saw in China.

If one could get a 30% increase in yeild, I wonder how long it would take to pay for that machine?

grim

Jet cooker is a single pass process, so the efficiency is typically lower, especially at high throughput.

No reason why a batch cook shouldn't see 100% efficiency for gelatinization of starch.

FloridaCracker

@punkin said: I'm gunna tape a transducer to my freckle and see if it makes my dick bigger.

It might but just like with spirits, it might speed up the aging process .

Kapea

@grim said: Completely different things going on

+1
Cavitation and liquifaction are not what's going on in US "aging" of spirits.

@Smaug said: I appreciate the kind words. There are a bunch of people within the community that that were able to take bits and pieces of their experiences and use that info to create what is now some pretty common knowledge about how simple or how complicated practical distilling can be. Separate and apart from any personal conflicts over who did what and who is responsible for this or that,, the community pushed the growth of knowledge forward.

The StillDragon model is entirely built upon input from the community. No single person can take credit for what the community has been able to achieve.

Many thanks to the community at large.

What has happened in the homedistilling community over the last few years is nothing less than a revolution.

When I got started 6 years ago most everyone was fabricating their own stills out of copper - 2" diameter tubing was the norm. Three inch tubing was considered huge, and on the verge of pro class. A few people were experimenting with perf plates, bubble caps, and bubble balls.

I stepped away from the forums for a couple of years, but continued to distill. When I returned to the forums 4" bubble cap plates had become the norm in homedistilling, StillDragon had arrived, and modularity had taken a strong foothold in the pro world.

Quantum leaps in no time at all. To me, that is amazing.

Many creative minds linked by instantaneous global communication.

We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile!

Smaug

Separate and apart from the hobby side, I also see the pro side experiencing an up tick in knowledge. It seems for a while there some were doing things because that's how it was learned rather than having a true point of view and understanding about the process.

True story,,, I recently met production manager that has been in the industry for a good long while and has worked for a couple of major players. He had no idea what a parrot was, let alone how to use one in spite of the fact that he did have a parrot on his bench.

Of course he now knows what a parrot is for.

CothermanDistilling

It also says is sterilizes by destroying bacteria.. I am wondering for something like Rum, an un-clean sugar wash that to avoid competing some people bring to 180+ then cool, which is a lot of energy.. US might be great at helping the molasses/raw sugar dissolve and also sanitizing the wort so that the intended yeasts can do their job?

My barley wort is boiled, because I get it from breweries, but the same could be said for any wash that you want to try not to boil...

someone want to do a side by side mash, say with a 2l glass still and with and without a 2L US cleaner?

Kapea

@Smaug said: Of course he now knows what a parrot is for.

Long sea voyages with only men onboard? :))

Kapea

No disrepect to professionals meant, but it is a whole lot easier and cheaper to experiment with new ideas on the hobby level than on the pro level. Including professional pilot plant experimentation. You can chase a lot of wild geese as a hobbiest without running a business into the ground.

Smaug

@Kapea said: No disrepect to professionals meant, but it is a whole lot easier and cheaper to experiment with new ideas on the hobby level than on the pro level. Including professional pilot plant experimentation. You can chase a lot of wild geese as a hobbiest without running a business into the ground.

100%

Hence the up and coming hobbyists are elevating the entire craft movement. A movement that will soon be mainstream IMO.

DonMateo

OK here is this for an idea. I was thinking about making oak Dominoes and as I live in Mendoza Argentina I was thinking of making my own oak Dominos. So when you make Oak dominos and you heat them up to 200 deg c and they become very dry. So what happens if in effect you quench them in a wine that you desire to flavour your whiskey with?. As I live in Mendoza Argentina I was thinking about getting french oak, making dominos, heating to 200 deg c for a couple of hours per other threads and then rather than leave to cool with heat, you quench in Malbec and the cut cross grain to increase surface area. With these dominoes you put into whiskey with an accelerated heating and cooling cycle you will get maximum infusion and exfusion of your whiskey from the oak Dominos.
So has anyone tried this process or anyone going to ? I will but I am about 9 months away from from having my first still up and running. I love this forum and the home distiller forum. I agree with a lot of the previous posts that in the past in the spirits industry profit and product was controlled by the control of knowledge. With forums like this and the posting of contributors then that is no longer possible.

grim

How about the other way? Get a used barrel, cut it up, toast it.

DonMateo

OK here is this for an idea. I was thinking about making oak Dominoes and as I live in Mendoza Argentina I was thinking of making my own oak Dominos. So when you make Oak dominos and you heat them up to 200 deg c and they become very dry. So what happens if in effect you quench them in a wine that you desire to flavour your whiskey with?. As I live in Mendoza Argentina I was thinking about getting french oak, making dominos, heating to 200 deg c for a couple of hours per other threads and then rather than leave to cool with heat, you quench in Malbec and the cut cross grain to increase surface area. With these dominoes you put into whiskey with an accelerated heating and cooling cycle you will get maximum infusion and exfusion of your whiskey from the oak Dominos.
So has anyone tried this process or anyone going to ? I will but I am about 9 months away from from having my first still up and running. I love this forum and the home distiller forum. I agree with a lot of the previous posts that in the past in the spirits industry profit and product was controlled by the control of knowledge. With forums like this and the posting of c

Kapea

That's a very interesting idea @DonMateo. I have not read of anyone doing that. Like @grim says, I do know of some guys making dominoes from used wine barrels.

Many people who are experimenting with dominoes are doing it in quart-size mason jars. Sounds like you have a few months to experiment with before you come online. Give it a go.

I buy cherrywood smoking chunks in the barbeque section of the local big box hardware store. I make my own toasted dominoes with that. I got the idea from guys on another forum talking about experimenting with toasted wood chips, sticks, and dominoes. It sounds like you may have found that topic already. There are some good ideas in there.

DonMateo

Actually the idea came to me today when I was sucking down a bottle of really nice malbec trying to figure out how to get a really hint of malbec in a clean whiskey. And then I thought well the Oak Dominoes have got to be very very dry after being heated up to a couple of hundred degrees as you toast them, and if they a dry they will suck up any kind of liquid so they will most probably suck up the type of liquid you want them to taste like after being stuck in whiskey. I am sure there are guys here who are experimenting as well. You could have some fun with a lightly oaked whiskey and add in different flavours with the types of wines, or anything else, you want to douse the oak in.

I am going to give it ago but I have to get small still and then start practicing while I save up the money to buy some land and build a big shed and get the distillery set up. It should take until the end of the year until I am buying some serious gear. In the mean time researching and working on my business plan and trying to save some bucks and get the wifey back to work. The last bit is the hardest part. Thanks for the comment Kapea.

Jung

OK, back to the topic at hand...

For US transducers, which is essentially a speaker, or at least a speaker motor made for high wattage, high frequency. Can we just get something like this and attach them to an old stainless keg as a much larger cleaner?

1PC Power Driver Board 110VAC+2PCS 50W 40KHz Ultrasonic Transducer Cleaner New @ eBay

Does frequency make a big difference to the point where I should make a signal generator that I can vary the frequency and use an old stereo amp as the driver?

A big cost in the kit above is the power driver, the transducers are $10-15 each at this place:

20KHz 100W Ultrasonic Cleaning Transducer @ Beijing Ultrasonic

at 10-20ohms, I could run 4 in parallel per channel of a cheap amp and get around 250 watts per set. This could be a cheap way to do 10+ gallons at a time....

Last thought: dogs can hear up to 60khz, is this thing going to drive the pooch mad?

FloridaCracker

@DonMateo said: you quench in Malbec and the cut cross grain

You don't want to increase the end grain. If anything cut lengthwise.

As far as trying the US on a wash, I'm out as I use live dunder and intentionally keep live shit in there.

CothermanDistilling

@FloridaCracker said: As far as trying the US on a wash, I'm out as I use live dunder and intentionally keep live shit in there.

not completely true... it would be used before you introduce your dunder... you want to pitch your yeast and dunder into a known clean wash, right? you want all the sugars dissolved and mixed, right?

grim

How many watts per liter is needed to sterilize? On a power consumption basis, is there any savings off simply using electric elements to heat the wash to equivalent sterilization temps?

Mickiboi

@Jung said: OK, back to the topic at hand...

For US transducers, which is essentially a speaker, or at least a speaker motor made for high wattage, high frequency. Can we just get something like this and attach them to an old stainless keg as a much larger cleaner?

1PC Power Driver Board 110VAC+2PCS 50W 40KHz Ultrasonic Transducer Cleaner New @ eBay

Does frequency make a big difference to the point where I should make a signal generator that I can vary the frequency and use an old stereo amp as the driver?

A big cost in the kit above is the power driver, the transducers are $10-15 each at this place:

20KHz 100W Ultrasonic Cleaning Transducer @ Beijing Ultrasonic

at 10-20ohms, I could run 4 in parallel per channel of a cheap amp and get around 250 watts per set. This could be a cheap way to do 10+ gallons at a time....

Last thought: dogs can hear up to 60khz, is this thing going to drive the pooch mad?

An audio amplifier is a broadband device. It is designed to produce say 100 watts from 10hz to 18khz or 20khz. That power produced by the amplifier is spread across this spectrum. Your audio amp wont last very long driving a 20 or 40khz transducer at 100 watts and 20 ohms. It's an audio amplifier not an ultrasonic driver. That's why the ultrasonic driver costs what it does. It is designed to produce a single frequency and drive a non varying load, not amplify a signal and drive that into a varying load over a broad frequency range e.g a speaker.

If you are thinking about doing this just buy the proper components. Save yourself the headache of trying to save some bucks. In the end you are going to cost yourself more money. If a cheap audio amplifier would work then you would think that the transducer manufacturers would be doing this. But they aren't because it doesn't work like that. Get in touch with Jessie at bj ultrasonic.

grim

This one is using 2.6kw for 5 liters of carrot juice, took 1 minute with a 10 liter per minute recirculation rate through the reactor. Using what appears to be some very specialized equipment.

Beverage Sterilization / Pasteurization @ Industrial SonoMechanics

grim

In college I built some fancy ultrasonic kit for use in rodent experiments (mouse vocalizations are in the ultrasonic frequencies, but only around 25-30kHz). We worked with Sennheiser to help design the system, and they donated a few electrostatic headphone transducers, and I built the audio amplifier based on a single-ended Nelson Pass design. This was a direct drive electrostatic and the system had a -3db usable frequency well past 40kHz. We used another system to record mouse vocalizations and used this system to play the recordings back in an experimental situation. If anyone is wondering why the hell anyone would do this, there are lots of rodent experiment protocols used in drug research that involve stressing mouse pups to induce stress vocalizations, and monitor the mother's response. We wanted to try to come up with a system where we didn't need to stress the pup, and we could create a more repeatable experimental scenario. This was back when Prozac and the SSRIs were just hitting the market, and everyone was doing animal experiments to understand the broader psychological/physical impact of the drugs.

All that said, why the hell would you even bother.

It's so much cheaper to just source pre-built driver boards and just keep adding them up until you get to the power/wattage required. They work, perfectly, they are tuned, efficient, packaged, and ready to go.

FloridaCracker

@CothermanDistilling, OK, I understand what you are doing now but my 15g boiler couldn't do less than a 6 gallon wash and there ain't no way I'm doing 12 runs through the US machine. :D

DonMateo

Just as a follow up I finally got some pricing on the ultrasonic immersion rod style probes from a couple of different suppliers. I was thinking of using them for inserting in 50l SS kegs and doing the ultrasound inside the transport and storage keg. American suppliers wanted about $8500 for a 500mm immersion rod transducer that will put out about 800watts at 40 khz. A german maker has them for Euro 6500. And I found chinese suppliers that will do the same for about $3000 for a less elegant version. So if you dont want to screw around with transferring to the ultrasonic baths those are the ballpark prices. At those prices you are going to have to really want to do it or have a small craft distillery to want to make the investment. Personally I am still going to get one when I set up my distillery. I think the ability to move your ultrasound around your facility and not be stuck to one tub in one location will be very handy.

FloridaCracker

To be able to treat 15 gallons would be great but I wonder what its limits are? Could you immerse it in a 100 gallon tank and it still be effective? Obviously this would be a great tool for a micro but the $$ would rule out 99.4% of the hobby guys.

Nice find.

grim

You can get 100w driver boards and transducers from China for under $100 a set. Most of these have threaded fittings on the face which only require welding a boss to your container to attach, that and maybe some epoxy. You could weld 8 of these to a keg for and put together the same setup less than 1/3rd of the cost.

DonMateo

I am no ultrasound expert but I was reading an article on ultrasonic treatment and the action, for treating biodiesel, is about putting in watts of energy over a given time via the ultrasound. This should be so different I would guess. The magic number I read was 50 watts per gallon, but I suppose that depends on what action and what substance your trying to get your ultrasonic action out of. I only want to treat 12 gallons at a time so I guess that would be enough. for a large 100 gallon tank there are other sorts of immersion transducers that are a lot cheaper than a rod. There are box type of immersion transducers that would be a lot cheaper. They come in all different sizes and are used in ultrasound in tanks for clearning prior to electroplating, so cleaning with caustics corrosive substances. Those will have a lot more power and be a lot cheaper. I got a quote from an American supplier for those and the rod was about 8500 US but the box type of transducer, its basically a sealed box with multiple small US transducers glued to one metal plate, the quote for the box from the American supplier was 3500.. I would imagine you could get a box that will treat 100 gallons from a chinese supplier for about US$1500.
I just got one more quote for a rod for 2400. I will get some quotes for the box type. I am searching on Alibaba for immersion ultrasonic transducers if anyone wants to do the same.

Mickiboi

@grim said: You can get 100w driver boards and transducers from China for under $100 a set. Most of these have threaded fittings on the face which only require welding a boss to your container to attach, that and maybe some epoxy. You could weld 8 of these to a keg for and put together the same setup less than 1/3rd of the cost.

+1

DonMateo

+2. I just checked and @grim is correct. For $500 bucks and a 100l SS mini tank and a bit of work and you have got something that will work really really well.