How Do You Heat Your Still/Cooker?

[Vokurka]

I thought a steam boiler was the way to go, but I've seen quite a few different methods lately and I'm wondering what everyone is using and what is the most efficient, most practical, and safest. Oh, and how is the heat up time with your system?

Here is what I have seen to date:

Steam-jacketed stills and cookers

Oil jackets that are heated with electricity

Home-made mini boilers that consist of kegs of water heated with electricity

Electric hot plates

Propane burners

Natural gas burners

Any issues with local fire codes or with the ttb on heat sources? Anyone actually burning wood under a still?

Thanks for the input.

[coop]

I thought a steam boiler was the way to go, but I've seen quite a few different methods lately and I'm wondering what everyone is using and what is the most efficient, most practical, and safest. Oh, and how is the heat up time with your system?

Here is what I have seen to date:

Steam-jacketed stills and cookers

Oil jackets that are heated with electricity

Home-made mini boilers that consist of kegs of water heated with electricity

Electric hot plates

Propane burners

Natural gas burners

Any issues with local fire codes or with the ttb on heat sources? Anyone actually burning wood under a still?

Thanks for the input.

We use steam here for everything. Very efficient and cost effective. I do not like flames or open fire around alcohol. The ttb does not care how or what you use to heat with but all local agencies do. Do it your self things can get you into many problems you do not need. Coop

[Stillcooker.com]

I thought a steam boiler was the way to go, but I've seen quite a few different methods lately and I'm wondering what everyone is using and what is the most efficient, most practical, and safest. Oh, and how is the heat up time with your system?

Here is what I have seen to date:

Steam-jacketed stills and cookers

Oil jackets that are heated with electricity

Home-made mini boilers that consist of kegs of water heated with electricity

Electric hot plates

Propane burners

Natural gas burners

Any issues with local fire codes or with the ttb on heat sources? Anyone actually burning wood under a still?

Thanks for the input.

Steam is for sure the most safe and probably the most economical. I still use natural gasburners and no steam, but when I will upgrade my boiler to a larger size - I will for sure go for steam heated!!

www.stillcooker.com / still cookin'

[KBFreeRange]

Not to be a broken record, but steam is the ticket, hands down. You can select a unit that puts out the BTUs you need, and if you stay low pressure (under 15psi) you can side step a boiler inspection (depending upon your state laws) and don't need to have your equipment rated for high pressure, which adds a lot of cost. Ours if fired electrically, 789,000 BTUs, and it comes up to temp in under 10 minutes. The time it takes to bring the equipment up to temp depends on what we are doing. We decided to avoid flames of any kind in the still room, so gas fired (and wood fired) were never a consideration. Follow the lead of your equipment manufacturer - most still agitators have motors that are cased to be explosion proof so you don't have any open sparks in the presence of high proof vapor coming off the product outlet.

Some of the heat sources you mentioned seem like they are more commonly used in home distilling - are you setting up a legit DSP or working off the grid?

[Vokurka]

Nope...not home distilling here. I have seen each of the heat sources that I have listed at use in legitimate DSP's. You have to remember that not every DSP out there is using new, professionally constructed equipment. Hell, I bet half of them don't have built-in agitators on cookers or stills. I'm just concerned with the cost of gas and a boiler and a boiler inspection and boiler maintenance.

I know some guys out there using electrically heated oil jackets on some pretty big stills and I know that Vendome has made some 30 and 50 gallon oil jacketed stills. I wonder if they are costly to run and what the heat up time is.

Just trying to weigh some pro's and con's.

Thanks.

[Absinthe Pete]

The differences with heating a still or cooker basically boils down, no pun intended, to temp control.

I would never use direct fire, if you look at videos of scotch DSPs you see their fire box is separated by a floor so any escaping vapors can't come in contact with the flames.

As far as heating the still there are three common professional methods, one being steam, which seems to be the most popular but higher up front cost. There are permits for installation and in some cases such as the recent work shop at the Petaluma, CA location they needed to build a separate fire proof room around their boiler, totally enclosed with ventilation, and there will be many inspections and you have to make sure your rig is setup for that kind of pressure, don't be fooled 15 psi in a sealed system is still a lot of pressure. The next method is electrically or natural gas fired oil that can be circulated or static. I've never used this type but just the idea of oil makes me cringe. Let's say you got a leak or something else it would be a pain to clean up or disposal of the oil. The next method is the cheapest by far and that's a water bath electrically heated. You can set it up yourself, if you know what you're doing.

The pros and cons of each come down to temp control. Most distillers will tell you the way to go is steam. You can adjust the temp real quick and it will register right away, not in the wash but in the steam temp, if you want to drop or raise and oil or water bath it will take a while, if you want to drop the temp of the oil by a couple of degrees it won't happen right away. Also at the end of the run you turn off the steam and release the pressure and the system is no longer being heated. With oil and water it will still be hot the next day.

[JohnD]

I believe (haven't read the book I'm thinking of in a while) the only time it is necessary to use direct fire is in those industries that are cooking up additional reactions in the pot with extremely high heating temps. Ex: cognac, armagnac.

[Absinthe Pete]

Actually, a lot of the Scots use direct fire to heat their stills so as to get a nice carmelization of residual sugars still left in the wash, or at least that's the way they talk about it.