My Steam Generator

irishman

Just curious...but why not adapt a system to a normal keg and hot water heater element? Don't most home distillers that would consider steam already have a keg/milkcan boiler? Just need an adapter plate/connection up top with the pressure relief and diverter valve to make things simple. How many home distillers are going to be making a mash at the same time they're running the still? Just a thought. I really like the unlimited supply offered here...but doesn't a keg offer plenty of steam for a 1-hour mash time, including heatup and sparge?

I mean really...we all already have some sort of steam generator...the fancy bits that still dragon could provide would be the connections to send it into a mash tun on a homebrewer's scale. As far as simplity goes...that's the low hanging fruit..and then this unit could be aimed at the guys with huge steam kettles and the like.

punkin

If you read the OP you'll see the keg based equivalent for single batch. The intention and use of this rig is mashing 150 gallons (570 litres). There's no way my keg boiler is going to hold enough water to do that.

Guys, if @Telluride has planning permision to use this then that's the go. I would nt offer the llit for sale in Australia, cause as Drunkas said, if you operate a boiler here under pressure it needs to be certified (xray of all welds etc) and it needs a licensed operator.

I do thank @Telluride for posting his setup though as there are lots of people smart enough here to weigh the risks and decide for themselves if they want to go the certification route or feel they can safely build one anyway.

The warnings are good, in that people should be aware of the state of play, the risks and the regulations in their own environment before attempting something like this.

Lloyd

So we are aware of the risks, this looks less dangerous than the "herb" extractor from a few months ago. And who here has not cooked a liquid that's upward of 30% alcohol and dealt with explosive vapors? And usually hidden from view.
The use of high pressure clamps would be a nice touch, if just to insure that some fool didn't come along and loosen one while your back was turned.

@Telluride mentioned a sight glass to visually monitor the water level - another great idea. Adding another port to have a low water cut-off switch is also good.

So what are all of the potential uses for this?
Mashing.
Heating a boiler.
Cleaning.
Anything else?

grim

Yeah like I said, don't get me wrong, there are some brilliant folks here that would absolutely pull something like this off in a very smart way, and never have a problem, not worried about those guys.

Telluride

For a low level cutoff you could use 2 liquid level switches mounted on that same 2" triclamp plate, one facing up for the solenoid valve and one facing down for the cutoff, both in the still well

Lloyd

What size fittings? Two 1/2" couplings on a 2" end cap is a very tight fit, but maybe possible.

Telluride

I just drilled a 7/16" hole i believe, though it could have been smaller, its an m10x1.5 and i just drilled the hole and used a couple gaskets. I wont change mine, i dont forsee an issue, although just a forewarning, drilling into one of those 2" triclamp plates is a bitch even with a drill press, nice new bits and the oil to keep the temp down...

Lloyd

Ah, lots of room for a pair of m10 holes.

About your element... one element to mash 570 liters?

Telluride

1 x 5500 watt element, no problem, my water comes in at 140ish fahrenheit and my mash tun is not insulated

Drunkas

@punkin probably not that hard to stock parts for a build like @Telluride. Use steam grade pipe fittings and cut and threaded pipe this would eliminate any welding. It would be no different then selling diy power controllers. Just parts and what people do with them is up to them.

PS if my PC had not shit it self I would get on cad and put something together.

grim

Thought this might be relevant to the discussion, was perusing to find documentation on burst pressures. The discussion on clamps looks to be the right one. On the 2" it looks to be less relevant than if you were using a 4" tube/fitting as the body. Looks like even with rubber gaskets, high pressure bolt triclamps will handle 800psi at 250F in 2" or 4", which is plenty, the stainless itself should be greater than 2000psi unless you have a big weld or seam problem.

What is the pressure rating of sanitary tube and fittings? It Depends. @ Holland Applied Technologies

Cambo

@Lloyd said: So we are aware of the risks, this looks less dangerous than the "herb" extractor from a few months ago. And who here has not cooked a liquid that's upward of 30% alcohol and dealt with explosive vapors? And usually hidden from view.
The use of high pressure clamps would be a nice touch, if just to insure that some fool didn't come along and loosen one while your back was turned.

Telluride mentioned a sight glass to visually monitor the water level - another great idea. Adding another port to have a low water cut-off switch is also good.

So what are all of the potential uses for this?
Mashing.

Heating a boiler. DING DING DING DING

Cleaning.
Anything else?

Now mashing and distilling with direct steam injection would be the greatest thing ever!!! Mash on the grain, Ferment on the grain, and Distill on the grain!!! No tired forearms during all grain "grain" squeezing. That would be the life. And you could grind your grains to flour consistency and get better conversions which would help offset the dilution from steam condensation.

grim

Heck yes, Feed direct steam right into the still boiler for distillation, poor mans steam setup. Add a small calandra or injector through the tc element port.

You'll need to do a trial run or some math to know how much additional headroom to account for the condensate.

punkin

Ultimate Steam Injected Mash Pot/Fermenter/Stripping Still @ AD

If i could have got the lid to seal properly i'd still be using this and doing all grain.

Cambo

^^^^^Exactly. I'm trying to think of ways to measure it beforehand, but a trial run would be best.... I wonder if you could have a pressure relief valve just before the "wand" or manifold under the surface to give a greater pressure differential, i.e temp differential to gain faster heatup times.

Say you had the 25psi safety blow off valve on top of the steam generator for safety, and below the surface of the mash you had one at 15 psi that connected to the wand to give a steam temp of around 257*F

grim

Punkin interesting that you had a bad steam hammer problem. Given the issue you had, I'd say running an injector through the triclamp port, with a check valve immediately outside the tank would probably be the best bet.

Something like a small metal tank mixing eductor. This would provide for the steam injection as well as provide some agitation/mixing. Sizing one will probably be a challenge though.

Something like this guy:

STAINLESS STEEL EDUCTORS @ BEX (PDF)

Looking around to try to find where to get one, easy to find plastic ones (they are used in ponds and aquariums), but not much luck finding a stainless one.

If you could get one to mount through a 2" TC, with the check valve immediately outside the tank, you'd have a pretty sweet steam injection setup. You'll probably be generating some additional head pressure besides the depth here, so something to consider.

Cambo

@grim =Brilliant, i was envisioning a sparge wand that would have to be snaked through the opening in the boiler and then some how threaded to the top mounted steam inlet in the boiler with alien hands.... But a side mounted TC fitting with the eductor threaded on the inside would be the shit. And incredibly easy to disassemble and clean. Then all you need is some steam/pressure rated hose from Mcmaster-Carr and you would be set

punkin

I just used two unions either side of a socket welded through the pot.

Did you notice the jacketed parrot?...Didn't work really well either.

Lloyd

grim

Terrible sketch, on my Mac this morning and I have no idea how to use Adobe.

Now that I've slept on it, the big issue I think with the eductor is that for it to work effectively, you'll need to build much more pressure than if you simply had an open pipe/steam wand type setup. Not sure how I feel about this, I could see something like this needing you to push 10psi or more to really be more than a bunch of bubbles streaming out of a very expensive nozzle. Which leads to the second problem, the stainless ones are very expensive, at over $100 probably too expensive to even experiment with. Kynar/PVDF might be an option depending on the PSI needed, but you would be running pretty close to the line there.

Myles

My last thumper build is virtually silent in use. Very noisy for the 1st 5 mins untill the charge has heated up. I used a 1" vapour injector fitted with a cap to leave 4 horizontal slits, and a single hole in the centre of the cap.

If you used 6 or 8 simple steam injectors, mounted equally round the circumferance of the pot, say 1/4" bore, you wold get small bubbles and good agitation of the contents.

Might be an alternative to a steam wand.

The steam injector that Lloyd put up does the same job with just a single steam injector into the vessel. They do recommend fairly high steam pressure for them though.

It would be fairly easy though to build one onto a 2" blanking cap so it could be removeable for cleaning.

DocPorter

Spirax Sarco has a design that may be easier to replicate. The IN15 (the long skinny one) has a 1/2" NPT inlet and 1" NPT that would screw into the tank sidewall:

Steam injectors (PFD)

Just food for thought..

punkin

I got some prices from spirax when i was building tha sat me on my arse for injectors. That's why i went the way i did.

albtraum

@Telluride said: I also really like the steam dragon naming

How about Dragon's Breath?

bachman

I am gathering the pieces to put together a telluride steam generator, to replace my keg steam generator, and I am thinking about using some dragon water lines for the feed line and pressure equalization line. Does anyone know the working temp and pressure rating? The reason being just for ease of breakdown.

Smaug

I'll get that for you as soon as I get back to the warehouse on Monday morning.

bachman

Thanks, I am basically going all copper for ease of fabrication and I already had about 30" of 4" copper laying around

cunnyfunt

Very nice work @crozdog and @Telluride. I have read through this thread about 100 times and a few others and have a quick question.

I maybe stating the obvious but I take it Telluride is maintaining pressure/ temperature by cycling the element on and off. Why did you do it this way instead of a pressure relief valve?

I'm really sorry if I missed it previously but from my understanding, your pid is reading temps at the top which cycles your element controlling temp/pressure. Open the needle valve to bring mash up to temp. Turn valve off when mash is at temp which will then increase temp in the generator and cut off element because the temp/ pressure has hit its upper limit set on the pid? Is that right? If so. What is your upper limit set? Why not just have the generator running with a pressure relief valve set at 15psi? Or is this not as efficient

grim

The pressure release valve isn't a regulator, it's an emergency bypass. You don't want the PRV cycling, mainly because it's going to make a mess, spraying steam and water, but is also dangerous if you happen to be standing near the output.

Cycling the element in this way is exactly how commercial electric steam boilers do it, pretty much the de-facto standard.

cunnyfunt

Ok thanks good to know. I was overthinking how my pressure cooker maintains temps while being constantly heated. It just seems more efficient to me than cycling the element.