Minimum Fill for Boilers

edited May 2014 in Usage

For those with the SD boilers I am curious what is the minimum amount of liquid needed to run. What is the amount of liquid needed to properly cover the heating elements for those of us using electric? I am leaning towards the 200L so hopefully someone here has some working knowledge of that one but I am also curious about the 120 and 380 as well.

Comments

  • Hi Wally, As previously mentioned, you can get by with a 200 liter (beer) charge on the 380L but you may not be able to finish the run without exposing the elements. A low wines charge would likely be best to fully charge.

    Hopefully the rest of the gang will chime soon?

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • If you cover your elements with water before adding your wash or low wines you never need to worry.

  • Yes adding water will allow any size charge to be ran. I was still looking for a number. Minimum quantity to cover the elements.

  • Probably won't help you guys but my 50L boiler needs at least 12L to keep the element covered, and personally I wouldn't go below about 15L to be safe :p

  • Well, its not hard to calculate/guesstimate.
    Measure the water that's needed to keep the elements covered, example 10 liters.
    Calculate the water that will be left after distillation:
    Example, 20L of 12% wash drawn off at 85% ABV.
    (20 - (20 * 12%)) * 85% = about 15 liters left in the boiler after distillation.

  • I am sorry for the confusion. I wasn't looking for what was needed during the run to maintain coverage of the elements. I could do the calculations for determining the depleted wash. Simply looking for the volume needed to cover the elements initially. I am just curious of overall volumes of the boilers. Just one of those things bouncing around in my head and was hoping someone might have tried to figure it out before me.

  • Sorry @Wallybox I completely misread your original post.
    I have the drawings and could do some rough calculations or you can contact your distributor and he'd be happy to send the drawings to you.

  • I have a 120l mate, i'll go and pour some water in there and let you know. It would be handy if one of our members who has a 200l or a 380l would do the same for you at some stage.

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

  • well there's 5 mins served to a greater good. :))

    35 litres to completely cover the element ports on a 120l boiler that's been around a few years now. I don't have elements in them i'm sorry (run on gas) but i would think that would cover them if i did.

    You can also bend the elements a little, so you could point them down, but you'd still need to cover the bases where the element joins.

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

  • Thank you @punkin. I appreciate it very much. And @smaug has provided the drawings to me already as well. All is good. I have put down a deposit on the 200L. :D

Sign In or Register to comment.