›

Bain-Marie Setup

DeltaArtisan
edited April 2023 in Beginner's Talk

Hi all,

I am setting up my 380L bain-marie for the first time after spending a year running my base wines through my live steam fed stripping column. I have deposited all kinds of deposits on my steam generator elements because I was feeding my generated steam directly into the bottom of the stripping column. I don't want to have the same buildup inside my bain-marie since I have new clean elements. I was planning on using RO water in the bain-marie, but was wondering if I also needed to use a sacrificial anode or other boiler treatment as well. I would appreciate any advice. I did not find any best practices in my search through the forum.

Tagged:

Comments

  • SmaugSmaug

    Make sure you are well grounded and familiarize yourself with water maintenance for steam boilers. As I recall the reservoir is only about 24 gallons. Easy and cheap enough to change very regularly

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • CothermanDistilling

    I have had great luck with just RO in the BM, but RO/DI would also be great..

    I also use the RO in a steam generator which has bare elements like the B-M, is total loss (inject the steam into molasses to heat it, and top-off the keggle each time, and I have zero deposits with RO, but tons of white stuff stuck to elements and side of keggle and deposits on bottom when just just carbon filtered.. I have thought about using a 1/2" NPT Magnesium RV anode, but have not implemented..

  • DeltaArtisan

    Thanks, Mike. I am going to go pick up a cheap RO from Costco. It has taken me a week to clean the crust from my elements from with muriatic/HCL acid.
    You run your steam generator with a fixed water volume? It must not evaporate much. I have always run my steam generator with a continuous feed since I run 60 KW on my 8" Stripping column. But the feed is only 2 turns on a needle valve. I am going to try feeding RO from a full keg of RO water since I doubt I feed much water let alone 15.5 gal over the course of the day. Actually I will just measure the flow rate over time for the needle valve to calculate the feed rate.

  • CothermanDistilling

    Very weak acid like vinegar overnight gently removes the white calcium deposits from using regular water.

    My steam generator runs about 16.5kw and is 'total loss', that is, it boils off about 5 gallons an hour I guess? Math for 1.5hp at says 22Kg(L), so that seems right. It is a keggle itself and i just try to stay above the top of the three 5.5kw elements... I have a feed line and stainless float switch with dual floats installed but not utilized yet, and might hook up the RO to it, I need to see how much it flows under 10psi of back pressure, and my current RO will only run 2gal/hr, so will need a bit bigger one, I could use a pump and a tank, but that adds a LOT of complexity to what is basically an electric teakettle..

    When I go to power my 12" (built to 8" equivalent open area to start) continuous stripping column, I will need more than I have, but not 60kw, I will focus on heat recovery, thinking a 12" spool with 4x 9kw elements in it and a side chamber for fill-level detection like Abbott discussed on the forum a few years back...

  • grim
    edited May 2023

    RO does make things easier since you don't necessarily need to worry about calcium/mineral buildup, or at least worry about it more than once a year if you have a good RO system.

    Backpressure kills the efficiency of RO systems, that's why pressure tank systems generally worse rejection rate ratios compared to open tank systems. Maybe a non-issue if you are only talking about a couple of gallons of water.

    Adding in tanks, and pumps that can handle the backpressure - yeah that's a headache. You'll need check valves if you aren't using something like a peristaltic to feed, or you'll end up blowing steam back through the pump, and killing the pump (I did this already, destroyed the impeller and pump head.

  • DeltaArtisan
    edited May 2023

    Thank you for the input, @grim and @CothermanDistilling. I will change the setup to use a RO water supply tank decoupled from the RO rather than feeding directly into the steam generator. Looks like I will need to use a 50 gallon tank or so based upon Mike's evap rate. I need to improve the heat exchange system to get greater heat up from the waste feed and less from the PC.

    The anodes I ordered are threaded in and now installed in both the bain-marie and steam generator, likely overkill but it was a pain to clean the elements and steam generator with acid and I don't want to do it again as it took so much time and attention. We will see if that improves it.

  • DeltaArtisan
    edited May 2023

    You can see the amount of mineral deposits coating on the steam generator tank. I was able to get some cannabis spool parts cheap and repurpose them into my steam generator.

    image

    image1.jpg
    600 x 800 - 57K
  • DeltaArtisan
    edited May 2023

    This is the second version at 12" diameter and 5 heating elements for 70 KW of heat. This should push me up to 100 GPH feed into my 8 " stripper. I am also switching out my ProCaps to a perf type plate system as I have silted up my prolapse with all the lees and other solids I pumped into the top of my stripper. We learn by doing.

    image

    image2.jpg
    600 x 800 - 77K
  • DonMateo

    A couple of days ago I took the three heating elements that I had in a small boiler that I have been using as a mash water heater, that had calcium buildup on them and I soaked them in white Vinegar. Overnight the calcuium dissappeared and went into solution. On a couple there were a bit of residue left that flaked off with a bit of steel wire.

  • crozdogcrozdog

    @DeltaArtisan said: I have silted up my prolapse

    Sounds painful. lol

  • DeltaArtisan
    edited May 2023

    Lol. F'in autocorrect. PROCAPS NOT prolapse and Yes quite painful as I had to tear apart the column and disassemble and clean all 48 procaps then reassemble. I am changing to a type of perforated plate for my stripping still instead of ProCaps.

  • SmaugSmaug
    edited May 2023

    @DeltaArtisan said: Lol. F'in autocorrect. PROCAPS NOT prolapse and Yes quite painful as I had to tear apart the column and disassemble and clean all 48 procaps then reassemble. I am changing to a type of perforated plate for my stripping still instead of ProCaps.

    A "type of perforated plate"? Pics?

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • DeltaArtisan
    edited May 2023

    It's the same design as the ones I bought from you. One large downcomer hole and much smaller holes to allow vapor up. Pictures of the ones I bought from you attached. Not sure if this is truly considered a "perf" plate . What would you call it?

    image

    image.jpg
    600 x 800 - 65K
  • DeltaArtisan
    edited May 2023

    Please don't misunderstand what I am saying, the ProCaps work great, but after running about 5,000 gallons of wine both with heavy lees from fermentation and also different wine with bits of cork and foil from decanted case goods wine I want a stripper plate that can handle some chunks and grit.

  • SmaugSmaug
    edited May 2023

    @DeltaArtisan said: Please don't misunderstand what I am saying, the ProCaps work great, but after running about 5,000 gallons of wine both with heavy lees from fermentation and also different wine with bits of cork and foil from decanted case goods wine I want a stripper plate that can handle some chunks and grit.

    Not to worry.

    It's logical that you want a system that can resist fouling when fouling is likely to occur.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • MoonshineMoonshine
    edited May 2023

    @Smaug said: Edit: sorry I wasn't wearing my glasses when I accidentally edited your post. My intention was to hit the Quote button and inquire about the perf plate that you referenced. Larry.

    @punkin said: I'd forgotten we even had those buttons moonshine does such a good job.

    @Smaug said: 100%

    Dang, wasn't even clear what went down here... Corrected and cleaned up for better readability. ;)

    Your Place to be >>> www.StillDragon.org <<< Home of the StillDragon® Community Forum

  • SmaugSmaug

    @DeltaArtisan, what size perfs are those?

    Pics in action?

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • DeltaArtisan

    these are the 4" , I am scaling up to 8". I tried to upload a file of them in action but it won't let me upload a .mp4 file.

  • SmaugSmaug

    Can up load to You Tube then post link.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • Bolverk

    @DeltaArtisan said: It's the same design as the ones I bought from you. One large downcomer hole and much smaller holes to allow vapor up. Pictures of the ones I bought from you attached. Not sure if this is truly considered a "perf" plate . What would you call it?

    image

    Can I ask what size holes and downcomer is used on these plates?

Sign In or Register to comment.