Steam (HERMS + BIAB)

[snowman_fs]

Steam (HERMS + BIAB) = sHERMS + sBIAB; unless there are better ways of communicating this?

Here is a shot directly down into my 50L kettle. The corrugated tube is 304 SS heat exchanger that I can run upto 250°F steam or cold water through. The bottom drain lets me pump recirculation either to a whirlpool fitting in the keg wall or over the top to a sparge arm; using a quick disconnect hose from the pump.

Since I have steam available I can also run direct steam injection into the bag during mashing (sIM?) but I have not built an injection wand yet for it. My previous experience with BIAB and RIMS is that you can't push the bags too far without plugging.

 

[snowman_fs]

Next of the build photos.

This is my on demand steam generator. 5500w element in the bottom of the vertical pipe, level sensor and fill port at the right end of the horizontal pipe. OPV, temp transmitter and output at the top of the vertical section before heading into my plate exchanger and onto the indirect coil within the kettle. I went completely valveless on the steam discharge side with the only "restriction" being an orifice fitting to enable some backpressure; allowing the element at 100% power to reach near 250 F. I also have a smaller orifice fitting on the water fill side after the solenoid to limit cycling of the fill valve since I'm only using the hysteresis of the level switch to maintain level.

I used unions so I can easily re-plumb for an immersion wand or take the plate exchanger off the kettle.

 

[snowman_fs]

Now some plumbing porn.

The steam from my generator, or fresh water (via the valve at the top of the pic) enters the exchanger top right and exits bottom right to provide the heating or cooling. After the plate, either hot or cold working fluid then also goes through the immersion coil within the kettle.

I have it currently shown to pump wort through the other side of the exchanger from bottom left to top left with the hoses but the quick disconnect fittings also let the wort go directly back to the whirlpool. You can also see another temp sensor on the wort discharge side of the plate so I know when let the pump out to fermenter begin.

 

[cyberbackpacker]

"Outside the box" thinking if I've ever seen it; looks great. I'm curious to learn and see more!

 

[snowman_fs]

I finally generated steam! General startup/build issues but I eventually generated 110 Deg C steam and ran that way for 30 minutes.

My only real concern is that the makeup water wasn't fast enough but I can't tell for sure until I run again with some sort of fill valve indicator. I also need to ramp upto full temp of 124 Deg C and see if it keeps up.

I'm going to use it to boil maple syrup tomorrow and see what happens.

 

[snowman_fs]

I ran my system to reduce some maple sap to maple syrup and discovered an issue.

My makeup water was never turning off. At first, I thought I was not flowing enough feedwater and I increased the flow; but I now think it's due to a bubble within my level sensor Tee. This would prevent the float from rising and turning the switch off. So I was flooding the system with too much water and not able to reach temps above 110 C, (impossible to reach a rolling boil with only 110 C). So I ended up reverting to my immersion element after an hour holding at a sloo..oo..ow simmer.

I'm going to invert the Tee and try again. Still not sold on steam as a method for boiling, but general temp control for mashing etc. seems great.

 

[snowman_fs]

The inverted Tee with the level sensor did solve the water level issue. A minor second issue was solved by re-plumbing the fresh inlet to horizontal vs vertical that prevented flooding the top section.

Now the issue is that an open circuit 5500w steam system does not deliver enough power for a boil. There are too many losses from heating the makup water. My next goal for this steam system is to close the circuit and hopefully get a gravity return to the boiler.

I'm sure a keg sized steam boiler with 5500w has plenty of power as it has time to "bank" potential steam energy. But this thing heats from ambient to boiling in less than a minute and presents no real hazard of being a steam bomb with such a small volume, temperature limit and pressure limit. So I think it's still worth the effort to continue development.