Welcome!
Be part of our community & join our international next generation forum now!
Categories
In this Discussion
- grim December 2013
- Mtnmann December 2013
- RedDoorDistillery December 2013
- Smaug December 2013
- Whitecap December 2013
SS IBC as a jacketed pot?
Hello all. I ran across some pictures of @RedDoorDistillery's setup using an IBC as a pot in his 8" crystal dragon shakedown thread. It got me to thinking and i'd like to run those thoughts by you folks. These are available brand new for about $2k or so. They can be custom ordered with the dimpled water jacket on any or all sides for like $700 per jacket. My thought was to have 3 sides and the bottom jacketed and then run hot water or steam or glycol through them creating a lowish cost 350 gallon double boiler for stilling on grain. Does this seem crazy? Would it work? I assume i'd have to insulate the IBC well to lower losses as well as agitate the mash. Something like this could also be used as a mash tun i'm thinking... Thoughts would be appreciated.
mtn
Comments
First time poster, long time lurker - Chiming in because I was following that thread and wondering the same - would make for an ideal stripping run setup at low cost. The fact that many of these are 10 gauge stainless makes them even more interesting, especially since they'd be large enough to weld in a larger sized manway.
I wasn't, however, looking at a new tote, but repurposing a used tote and installing a simple gas boiler driven glycol loop for heating (well, simpler than steam anyhow).
I've seen the dimple jacket offerings (although most I've seen seem to be 1-sided - likely due to the fact that these are generally used to keep contents warm enough to control viscosity, not to cook). Biggest concern is whether or not they'd pass inspection as steam jacketed kettles. Suspect that these may be rated only for atmospheric. Most of the totes I've seen carry some rather strict no-pressure warnings. Now, while I know that's not a big deal, especially consider the 10 gauge 304/316 construction, my local plumbing inspector might not share that sentiment, making the prospect risky.
@RedDoorDistillery, would love to know more about your tote setup please!
Hey grim. The metalcraft brochure calls out a max of 200F/100psi. But I have a call into them to see if that can be adjusted upward. If it can, at reasonable cost, these might be a good value for the volume of double boiler. I like your idea of adding a glycol loop into a used IBC, could be even more cost effective. What dimensions of coil were you considering?
Just got a reply from metalcraft, 100 PSI at 350F steam is the actual spec on the jackets.
Careful with using a Used Tote. Most of these are used for Toxic Chemicals. I would not use a tote that I was not 100% sure that it was not going to be a problem. That is why I bought a NEW one. Mine is not jacketed. I use direct immersion heaters.
@RedDoorDistillery, what do you use to keep/adjust the temp on your mash tun? Are you feeling the need for some insulation? Anyone else have any thoughts/suggestions on the jacketed IBC idea? They seem cost effective for their volume and i'm starting to see them a lot in various distillery videos being used as fermenters (plastic style), blending tanks, holding tanks etc...
I use the tote as the boiler for the my still and to boil water for mashing. My tote is not insulated at all.
I do not heat my mash tun at all. The thermal mass of the water and grain keeps it in the range I need. I mash in with boiling water 100c pumped to the mash tun mixed with the grain. Once all the water and grain is in the tun I have dropped to about 90C. I run about a 90 mins mash cycle and by that time the temp is around 73C. So over the 90 mins I have only lost 17C due to the massive thermal mass of 350 gallons of water and 204kg of grain.
My tun is made from10gague stainless steel and it not insulated at all. I can get away with this process as I add High Temp stable enzymes and do not rely on the enzymes in malted grain to convert the starch to sugar. The High Temp stable enzymes work best between 87C and 71C so I am in that range when I start to extract the liquid after 90mins and run it thru the coolers to the fermenter.
You can not do this and will need a way to heat your mash tun if you are going to rely on the malted grain to supply the enzymes. If you mash in this hot you will kill the enzymes. If you try to mash in at a normal strike temp of around 73C you will not get full conversion before you have lost to much heat to keep the enzymes converting.
I hope this helps.
Can you mash, ferment and strip from the same tote?
I like this solution if those prices are accurate! After trolling auctions for a sanitary jacketed reactor (similar to the bain marie sold here) the past few months for gently heating the grain for the stripping run, this appears to be a great value for the volume. Combining the jackets with the immersion coil accessory would seem to make it very efficient to run.
You mentioned mashing and stripping in the same tote; can you ferment in there as well? The coil and jackets could be used for cooling the mash down to pitch temp.
You could. If you set it all up right and planned to distill on the grain. But then you could not use the immersion coil as it would scorch the grain. I would not do it this way as you are limiting your ability to have multiple ferments going at the same time.
Great info folks. My goal with this IBC pot is to be able to distill on the grain; both for flavor and for ease of not dealing with damp spent grain. Using pumps to move the mash and spent stillage seems to be a huge labor saver in a production environment. I'm beginning to suspect that a jacketed IBC might not be efficient enough for a pot. Unfortunately I don't have the knowledge base to calculate such a thing ahead of time. Going off of @grim's idea, maybe an internal coil covering the bottom of the tank and coiled up the inside walls about 2/3's of the way (think of a coil basket inside the IBC) would be more/most efficient. Passing glycol or steam through this to boil the mash. Agitation is necessary of course. Anyone see why this route wouldn't work?
Cleaning the inside of the tank. Cleaning all the spent grain off the coil of tube in the tank would suck. How are you going to separate the left over liquid from the spent grain after distilling? Or are you thinking about trying to pump the entire left over liquid and grain to some sort of tank truck for hauling away?
I'm thinking of one or two CIP balls to take care of the cleanup. Yes, i'm hoping to pump the stillage directly into plastic IBC's and then selling/donating to local farms as feed or fertilizer.
Your right, @RedDoorDistillery. Immersion heaters do scorch. I was referring to the coil tube accessories that will circulate mediums such as steam, oil, water, antifreeze, glycol.
Internal Heating Coil
Using agitation there would be a ton of surface area to indirectly heat and strip the mash with the draw back of cleaning the coils.
Of course its not ideal for production but for the serious hobby or low budget start-up one saves on pumps, hoses, cooker and fermenter. In production its possible there is a workflow using multiple totes where the strip column, coil, and agitator would shuffle between totes allowing multiple ferments and quick scalability; one only needs to add more totes as demand grows. Its an idea that would need a lot more thought.
One thing to keep in mind with this option would be the ceiling height above all your tanks. It needs to be tall enough everywhere to accommodate the column. In my building I have a V roof so there is only 1 location that I can have a full height column as I lose ceiling height everywhere else. But over all if you can create enough heat with the coil. It would be a very scalable option.
Good point. IIRC, your Crystal Dragon is an 8 plate? What's it's over all height? I was lead to this from another forum, they use an IBC as their stripper:
http://youtu.be/lIXraRRzrS0
The guy using the IBC is Steve Beam from Limestone Distillery. He is the guy that is letting Tim from Moonshiners come and co-run the distillery so Tim can go legal.
My 8" CD is 10 plates could be 11 if I get it all dialed in right. The column from the top of the boiler to the top of my enhanced Dephlem is about 6' but then there is the 8" to 4" reducer and the 180 bend. Total height is about 7.5-8 feet above the top of the IBC.
For every plate you take out you can remove about 4".
The 350 gallon IBC is 47" tall and I have it lifted 4" off the floor to make hooking up the drain and fill hose easier. So about 51" for the Tote and 96" for the Column. 147" total or 3.7338 meters tall total.
Height is big issue with a workflow like that. It also assumes you have a separate spirit still. If your product is double distilled you could keep the spirit still stationary under the roof peak and have a separate stubby stripping column. I'm picturing just a conical reducer as the hat to a lyne arm and condenser.
I figured each tote would add capacity of 400 cases/yr.
Correct. You could setup a short height simple Pot Still head that is moveable from unit to unit. While leaving your Spirits still column setup and stationary where you have the ceiling height. The only issue I see with trying to do this with a Steam powered setup would be the flexible lines or hoses to reach to each IBC from where ever you setup the steam plant. Or the entire steam plant would have to be moveable. Using hard pipe for steam is much safer then using flex lines of length to deliver steam. If you get a low point in your lines water can condense and block the steam path. With had lines you plan for this and allow for drainbacks in your hard lines to the boiler.
Steam especially pressurized can be VERY dangerous. It can strip skin off the bone in seconds. Every caution and proper setup must be accounted for.
Yikes!
Mmmm, skin.
Well salted and and crispy makes it very yummy.
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
@Smaug I hear that it is considered a delicacy in China.... Hey @Lloyd ever tried some? LOL >:)
If they'll eat these, they'll eat anything in China. Most skin is pretty tasty though, my favorite part of many animals.
This thread just took a turn for the worse (or tasty).
You can get plastic IBCs of similar size for fermentation, which would make for a much more productive arrangement than having your still tied up fermenting. The savings on the plastic IBCs would easily fund a pump and hoses.
Our plan is to use a separate spirit (approx 100g) still that will take the full output of the stripping run. This eliminates the headache associated with mounting any sort of tall column on the stripping still.
I suppose you could run double duty as a cooker and stripper, especially if you've got a detachable pot still head.
I suppose all of the above may be different depending on what your product is, in our case it's bourbon, and we'd like to ferment and strip on grain.
I started out with Plastic IBCs as fermenters. Worked very well for the actual ferment but cleaning out the trub is a major pain in the ass as they are flat bottom and things don't like to drain. I moved over to 300 gallon Plastic conicals work WAY better.