Well, I have been trying to get my brewery over to a steam injection mode for some time now. I bought a large pressure canner for other purposes and planned on using it for steam injection in my mash tun for correcting temperatures and step mashing when I want to. This morning I am looking at the Krups Bravo espresso maker that never gets used hardly anymore and the idea comes back from a while ago about using it as a steam injector. Just by looking you can start to think, "no way that would work for that big a mash tun." Well, I decided to run a well-enough documented test just to see the power of such a tiny little until. I mean how cool would it be to have a nice tidy bundled up package of a steam injector compared to the big pressure canner/cookers everyone is using? Numbers don't lie, and I am nowhere near smart enough to figure them out so I decided to post and see what people like kladue and others have to say about what is possible or not possible. I am talking about 5 gallon, then 10 gallon, then 15 gallon type numbers back from you guys type of stuff. So, that being stated here are the hard facts for the Krups Bravo experiment.
I started with 2 oz of distilled water inside my espresso machine water reservoir and set up as you normally would to use the steam (ie. the filter was capped with the steam plug). Then, I measured out 32 oz into a glass pitcher that was tall and skinny to allow as much height as possible for the steam to do its thing. I also added a stainless tube to the steamer nozzle of the machine to get me further into the pitcher. Before I did anything else, I checked the temperature of the water pitcher and had 72*F which is pretty normal tap temperature for this time of the year. Ready for the experiment, I opened the steam valve on the Krups unit and flicked the switch as I clicked my stop watch. Wow, after 21 seconds the machine had air bubbles coming out of the steam tube. At 1 minute and 27 seconds there was a solid stream of steam bubbles with no air and a constant thumping scaring me into thinking the glass would break. I figure this is what you would want to count as the steam heat, so I am going with that for now. The machine did its thing for 4 minutes and 32 seconds until it quit and I stirred the thermometer and checked the temperature. I couldn't believe it, 2 oz of steam got 32 oz of water up 58*F in only 4.53 minutes. Now if I could only wrap my head around the numbers to see if I could ever scale this up for step infusion temperatures or simply just to boost a mis-struck mash-in. This would be the part you guys start in and help me out, lol. Starting........now.:rockin:
I started with 2 oz of distilled water inside my espresso machine water reservoir and set up as you normally would to use the steam (ie. the filter was capped with the steam plug). Then, I measured out 32 oz into a glass pitcher that was tall and skinny to allow as much height as possible for the steam to do its thing. I also added a stainless tube to the steamer nozzle of the machine to get me further into the pitcher. Before I did anything else, I checked the temperature of the water pitcher and had 72*F which is pretty normal tap temperature for this time of the year. Ready for the experiment, I opened the steam valve on the Krups unit and flicked the switch as I clicked my stop watch. Wow, after 21 seconds the machine had air bubbles coming out of the steam tube. At 1 minute and 27 seconds there was a solid stream of steam bubbles with no air and a constant thumping scaring me into thinking the glass would break. I figure this is what you would want to count as the steam heat, so I am going with that for now. The machine did its thing for 4 minutes and 32 seconds until it quit and I stirred the thermometer and checked the temperature. I couldn't believe it, 2 oz of steam got 32 oz of water up 58*F in only 4.53 minutes. Now if I could only wrap my head around the numbers to see if I could ever scale this up for step infusion temperatures or simply just to boost a mis-struck mash-in. This would be the part you guys start in and help me out, lol. Starting........now.:rockin: