condensate stack ideas needed

[joshesmusica]

I don't do too many DIY projects, mainly because I just rent things and my brew set up is fairly simple. It works beautifully in the warmer months with my 36L biab equipment. The problem is that in the cold months I've got to move inside into my tiny little apartment. The induction stove top would never be able to power the boil in the kettle, and my brewing induction plate plus kettle won't fit under the vent hood. After being able to brew with a local brewery that had a condensate stack, I thought that is something that I could easily do. As of right now I have to separate it into two separate boils, which is time consuming and kind of a pain in the arse (although worth it to have homebrewed beer).

I attempted to find some stuff to be able to just make a fairly ghetto setup, but there wasn't really much I could find to make the hood portion of the stack.

Anyways, has anybody had experience with attempting to make something like this?

 

[joshesmusica]

Just to clarify the brew space is in a basement, but it's our apartment. I could easily just run the vent and open a window and turn on a small fan, but our apartment's air system is connected to the main part of the house, and I don't think the landlords would appreciate us cooling the house down so much - but most importantly, I don't think my wife would appreciate having it near freezing in the house for that long. Plus I wouldn't want to risk any condensation damage that could potentially come from attempting that. This is why my only option for using my 36L kettle is outside, or with a condensate stack.

 

[BrunDog]

With an open window, done right you could have incoming and exhausting air vented through the window. That wouldn't cause much change in the remainder of the house. Sorry that doesn't answer your original question - I don't know the stack. But that heat has to go somewhere, so my guess is it's not a perfect solution.

 

[joshesmusica]

With an open window, done right you could have incoming and exhausting air vented through the window. That wouldn't cause much change in the remainder of the house. Sorry that doesn't answer your original question - I don't know the stack. But that heat has to go somewhere, so my guess is it's not a perfect solution.

I wasn't worried about the heat it would create, but the 30f air temp infiltrating the house.

 

[BrunDog]

That's my point. An ideal exhaust system brings in the same amount it exhausts. It captures the steam on the way. Most exhaust systems vent out only, but that air volume has to come from somewhere (the house, as you said). The intake ventilation prevents that.

 

[joshesmusica]

That's my point. An ideal exhaust system brings in the same amount it exhausts. It captures the steam on the way. Most exhaust systems vent out only, but that air volume has to come from somewhere (the house, as you said). The intake ventilation prevents that.

Ok, I suppose I see your point that it shouldn't affect the entire house, but in my experience it still just sends all the warm air out of the room and drags in cold air. This makes the entire living room incredibly cold incredibly quickly. I've tried doing it this way, the reason why I know it doesn't work.

And that's why I'd love to build a condensate stack. Steam free fairly easily, except that I don't have any ideas on how to build one. But it seems like most people are just venting when they're brewing in basements. So maybe no one on here has experience with it.

 

[Wizard_of_Frobozz]

It's not a bad idea - winter brewing in very cold areas can be challenging with moisture control while keeping your brew space from getting too cold.

Typically, moisture removal is done by ventilation - if you remove the moist air above your kettle, you remove the moisture with it. This is the usual method, as it is the simplest. As Brundog points out, however, if you remove air from a space, air has to come in from somewhere to replace it. Since that somewhere is outside, it can get very cold.

It sounds like you are trying to remove the moisture without ventilation. I won't go into detail on psychrometrics - you can read all about it here - (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychrometrics). Basically, moisture will condense out onto a surface if the temperature of that surface is below the dewpoint of the air in contact with it. Assuming that air is coming directly off your kettle, it should be pretty close to 100% relative humidity, and at a temperature higher than your room conditions. So...if you have a large metal surface that the air is pulled across, it will condense the moisture out. However, the metal surface also heats up as it does this, and (without any means to cool it) will eventually warm up to the point where moisture won't condense anymore.

In short, it can be done but you ultimately need a LOT of surface area and a means to cool it. I would try a long metal duct pipe with a fan to pull the warm air off your kettle through it. Set up circulation fan(s) to blow the relatively cooler air from the room onto the outside of the pipe. Slope the pipe so that the condensed water will collect somewhere (don't let it fall back into your kettle). You might find you need just a little bit of outside air to keep the pipe cool enough, but for a 60-90 minute boil, it should work fairly well.

It's probably something you'll need to experiment with to get it so your moisture is acceptable. Give it a shot and let us know how it works - you may be breaking new ground that could help a lot of brewers in really cold climates!

You've got me thinking about the reverse situation - I live in a very humid area in the summer. Ventilating my brew room makes it very hot and humid in summer. A condensate removal system would work for that, since I will have an air conditioner keeping the room cool enough for condensation.

 

[Newsman]

Sounds like you need an air to air heat exchanger... not something I would think would be easy to DYI.... OTOH, you might be able to pull it off by making a large metal box that has incoming air dumping into it, and the vent duct coiled around in it to provide the maximum opportunity to shed heat. You'll probably build up a LOT Of moisture so you'd need some way to drain it occasionally as you brew.

 

[joshesmusica]

I guess I should've explained exactly what I was thinking - a condensate stack - with some pictures and links, and maybe ideas could flow from there?

http://conical-fermenter.com/Condensate-Stack.html

 

[joshesmusica]

It would basically need to be able to be something I can just attach after I pull the bag and drain it. Something small enough to fit in the bathroom. Basically I could have a hole at the top that sprays down into a side pipe of some sort that is connected to my sink, which would be the cold source. So basically I was thinking something like this, but without the price tag.

Since you mentioned something about even just a metal sheet acting as the precipitation point, it got me thinking if it would even work to just make a "triangle roof" out of two sheets of metal, and then even just have the cold water misting over the top of that, which would keep it cool enough. This would allow both the condensed water and the spray water to drip down and outside of the pot. I could essentially brew in my shower, which is a typical European closet type.

Basically looks like this:

 

[Wizard_of_Frobozz]

Hmm...those look like they are designed mainly to keep condensation from dripping back into your kettle - which is a good thing, but not necessarily all that you want (if I understand what you are trying to do, that is).

You could attach more piping to the top of the pictured stack, attach an inline duct fan (like this:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EIRU2YU/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=27NBZSNS5UL2V&coliid=IEH7T24H5CZRN) , and pull the air through more piping and vent it back into your room. Keep the vent pipe cool by blowing cooler air across the outside, and the moisture will condense out on the inside, and drain back into the condensate stack. You have to be careful about how much piping, elbows, etc. are used, as they will reduce the airflow of the fan by a lot, which will reduce the effectiveness of the moisture removal. The fan curve for the above fan is here: http://vortexpowerfans.com/s-line Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see it - the flow (CFM) drops pretty fast for higher static pressure (smaller pipe, more elbows = higher static pressure).

Bottom line - to remove moisture from air, you need to move the air across a cooled surface. The bigger and cooler the surface is, the more moisture is condensed.

I don't think those pictured stacks would be big enough to keep the condensation off all the walls and ceiling in your basement. Some food for thought - typical boil off losses are 10-20% of your boil volume. So, depending on your batch size and boil off rate, you are putting somewhere between 2 to 10 liters of water into the air. That's how much you need to remove to keep your brew room air the same.

 

[Wizard_of_Frobozz]

This would allow both the condensed water and the spray water to drip down and outside of the pot.

I didn't think about using water as your cooling source. You'll use a lot more water in cooling than you will pull out of the air, but if you are ok with that, it will definitely keep the surface cool. I think you would want to keep the cooling water separate from the side where condensation is occurring - you want to remove moisture, and flooding the condensing surface with another water source would be counter-productive.

 

[flars]

A copper coil, like an immersion chiller, inside a 4" diameter length of air duct. Low CFM fan to pull the steam from the kettle into the duct. A low volume pond pump to circulate ice water from and back to a picnic cooler through the copper coil. Condensation on the coil should occur fairly quickly when it is near freezing temperature. Might need to replenish the ice in the cooler for a 60 to 90 minute boil.

 

[joshesmusica]

I didn't think about using water as your cooling source. You'll use a lot more water in cooling than you will pull out of the air, but if you are ok with that, it will definitely keep the surface cool. I think you would want to keep the cooling water separate from the side where condensation is occurring - you want to remove moisture, and flooding the condensing surface with another water source would be counter-productive.

Now that I looked at most of those pictures again, I see what you're saying. The smaller versions are hooked up to a vent still, which is not what I'm looking to do. Not wanting to make any big purchases besides possibly some pipe and somehow getting a mettle hood over the kettle.

Basically the second picture is the idea I'm going for, and I've seen in action. You can see they've got a cold water line hooked up to just where the joint straightens out and connects to the bigger pipe or stack or whatever you want to call that. That condenses the steam, and it just drips down into the yellow tubing at the bottom. I'm not sure what that pipe is with the three connections into the stack, but possibly more cold water being sprayed in - it's hard to see with that tubing in the way.

The main problem is I don't have the money to buy a pre-made one, and I'm no welder, so making something like that would likely be tough.

As far as what I was thinking with the slanted roof idea was that the steam would be hitting the bottom, then the cold water would be hitting the top. But I'm not sure that would condense enough of the steam. I do boil at a lower rate, and that often varies between 30-60 minutes.

 

[joshesmusica]

A copper coil, like an immersion chiller, inside a 4" diameter length of air duct. Low CFM fan to pull the steam from the kettle into the duct. A low volume pond pump to circulate ice water from and back to a picnic cooler through the copper coil. Condensation on the coil should occur fairly quickly when it is near freezing temperature. Might need to replenish the ice in the cooler for a 60 to 90 minute boil.

Good idea, just don't necessarily have the money to buy all that extra stuff. Also, they don't really sell bags of ice here (though the tap water in the winter is like 4-5C).

 

[c673986]

Some double wall vent flue with an in-line fan would work good. Usually sold as gas flue. The double wall will allow outside air to come in between one of the walls of the pipe and not create a draft through all the other area of air infiltration of your home. You'll want a 90 straight off of the the fan and make sure that the condensate inside the pipe drains. The condensate will contain pure DMS and or other bad things if you buy galvanized duct.

 

[Newsman]

Some double wall vent flue with an in-line fan would work good. Usually sold as gas flue. The double wall will allow outside air to come in between one of the walls of the pipe and not create a draft through all the other area of air infiltration of your home. You'll want a 90 straight off of the the fan and make sure that the condensate inside the pipe drains. The condensate will contain pure DMS and or other bad things if you buy galvanized duct.

Poor man's air/air heat exchanger.