Silk City Distillers

I've had really good experience with the green Everlast welders. Amazing bang for your buck, 10 years ago a comparable Miller would have set you back near 2 grand.

I've got a PowerTIG 160STH - 160 amp with trigger start and a foot pedal - It's not bad for the money.

It's a bit light for heavy copper though, but for most light sanitary welding - piping, ferrules, sheet work, etc - it's right on.

Suppose it depends on what level of risk you are willing to take, and what level of risk your AHJ is willing to accept you taking.

Not sure why you'd put a copper top on a milk tank, unless you were trying to turn it into a still. We use a big bulk milk tank for mashing, and I wouldn't trade those big open tops for an itsy bitsy manway. Very easy to work with, clean, inspect, sanitize, etc. No sense mucking the whole thing up.

Turning a milk tank into a still though? Maybe one of the smaller round tanks, or a submarine style Zero tank - but most of those things are insulated and copper tube jacketed - so you have little leeway to fabricate. A steam jacketed pasteurizer might be an easier option, but it doesn't sound like that's what you've got.

I'm with Dehner - I won't post what it cost us, but all your quotes are nuts. Did the plumber pull up in a Lamborghini?

Once you get over 1 or 1.5hp - 3 phase is most common, especially in explosion proof variations. I would use their agitator - they presumably have the mounting and geometry setup correctly. That price isn't out of line considering the XP motor and more importantly, and agitator system with a vapor tight seal.

We have single phase as well, and use a VFD/Frequency Drive - We picked up a drive for a few hundred bucks online (Closer to $250) and had our electrician install it in a box outside of the classified area. It's nice since we can adjust the speed as necessary.

Don't forget about the cost of the electrical work - rigid threaded conduit, vapor seals, flexible conduit to the motor, and an explosion proof disconnect near the motor.

Oh wait, direct fire...

You can do a test using solid core copper electrical building wire before you go out and buy the deoxidized copper rod. Purity is not the same as the rods, as typical building wire does contain 0.04% oxygen (C110). I've only ever used this copper to copper - which works fine considering most copper sheet/tubing isn't pure either.

You got a heck of a deal on that, those things are as expensive as the Finex.

One more note, we did test with about 200 gallons, if that's your rough sizing, we went from 55 to 200 in an hour at about 11 psi.

Dave - Yes in the mash tank. No not pointed upwards, we use a converted open top bulk tank, so the injector is horizontal, pointing along the long axis of the tank.

I'll post back once we run the first mash through, but the agitation with only water was significant using just the eductor (no agitator). We'll see how it does with a more viscous mash though.

I'll take a video for you in the next couple of days. The nozzle running about 11 pounds average was pretty loud. We only had the tank 1/3rd full, and only water, so not a good test of heat up time (it's fast, two would be very fast).

Just a follow up, after speaking to the guys at NCI, we went with a single 3/4" - did a test run with water to see how it performed, very impressive. Either this is going to work great, or we've made the worlds largest cappuccino foamer.

Do you have the Hoga documentation? The last time I talked to Mr. DeCosta he provided me with a relatively detailed setup guide that covered heating and cooling. Go there first.

Going through the paperwork I had, 1000 liter Hoga needs 79kw/279lbs of steam per hour to heat up in 2 hours. We have a 1000 liter from another manufacturer which is steam jacketed, and we have a 15hp boiler paired with it - less than 1 hour heat up time, which is in-line.

This is a tremendous amount of power if you are looking for electrical indirect or immersion heating equivalent.

I would argue that 1000 liters is beyond the capacity for electric heating unless you have heavy industrial power - 480v - especially if you need to run a chiller simultaneously. For a 1 hour heatup, assuming 160kw is required (it would actually be about half of this, with immersion elements), you are talking about more than (the equivalent of) 600 amps on a standard 240v service, just to heat (just an example, this isn't actually possible).

You may find that getting a 480v service into the building as well as procuring a large enough heater, is nearly as expensive as a steam boiler.

I am not an engineer.

While a thermocouple should be considered intrinsically safe under normal circumstances, the challenge is in a situation of equipment malfunction, whether or not voltage could be applied to those wires.

IMHO - the easiest approach is to use an Intrinsic Barrier designed for a thermocouple. They are usually small DIN-rail mount barriers. Something like this:

http://www.pepperl-fuchs.us/usa/en/classid_22.htm?view=productdetails&prodid=30689

For a higher level overview of intrinsic safety, probably more than you want to know:

http://www.omega.com/temperature/Z/pdf/z131-148.pdf

We use RTDs - and we did run conduit - our probes use class 1 div 1 housings made by Rosemount.

I'll second the huffing, especially if it goes away under lower power input.

If it doesn't go away under low power, I'm going to bet you have a coiled condenser (worm), and that you have a low point in the vapor piping which is causing liquid to pool and flush.

Our jurisdiction made us do all sorts of interesting things, none of which had anything to do with the boiler. For example, requiring a 3 basin sink plumbed for dish and ware washing (what would be required in a restaurant). They were insistent on a grease trap, until we helped them understand why a grease trap on the floor and 3-basin sink drains was a waste of everyone's time.

But the steam boiler? Honestly he was in the boiler room for all of 2 minutes. Backflow preventer, check, water top off, check, fusible link on the oil line (we run oil), check. He asked about a large heat exchanger we have - on-demand hot water - check, pressure relief on the boiler, check, pressure relief on the still (same one as on the boiler), check. Done.

Failed us on the first inspection. The boiler wasn't on and he couldn't check the temperature of the hand wash sink, he wouldn't wait for the boiler to fire up, so he failed us and came back to test the hand wash temperature.

"Looks good, good luck".

How big is your steam boiler?

Good Idea... We run a 199,000 BTU on demand water heater.

15.6hp - 641,000 BTU on the input

Oh and thanks for the NCI link, I'm going to pick up two of the 3/4" eductors for my 600 gallon mash tank. The engineer was very helpful.

Lenny - What kind of pump? It's going to make a difference, positive displacement will give you much more flexibility than centrifugal.

Spirax CSF26 is what we're using to filter.

Sounds like either 2 3/4 or 4 3/8 for my application. Those guys are just up the road from me so I'll take a ride over.

Tom - What size boiler? HP or Lbs/Hr? Sizing is close to us so it would be helpful.

Thanks, that's helpful. Love to hear how those work. What were the details around sizing?

We use an approach similar to what you are thinking, similar size equip. Weil Mclain cast iron commercial, 15hp. Using steam to lift the condensate up about a foot out of the trap to the return line. The condensate return pitches down to the boiler feed tank. We're using a Hoffman 30VBF boiler feed tank/pump combo. We went with this because it sits right on the floor, as opposed to some of the other boiler feed tanks that sit up on a stand (less lift). The feed tank pump returns into the Hartford loop. Remember, when you use a feed tank, the feed tank is sitting at atmospheric and is vented, so you need a pump to push back the condensate into the boiler, under pressure. Also, your steam trim equipment is going to be a little bit different than what would be used for res/com steam heating (water adder and boiler feed trigger will be a different unit). We're only running the condensate a few feet through a block wall into the boiler room, so the runs are short - hence, not necessary to have another condensate pump at the equipment.

I've heard of guys getting the gravity approach to work, but they had boilers in the basements and could return 100% with gravity. Otherwise you are correct, you'll fill the jacket with condensate and stall.

Stay classy.

Larry and Stilldragon are a great company, nothing but positive things to say about the equipment and the support. Their pro community is robust and growing. The level of collaboration on the pro side is astounding, easily the top online community. It's obvious that the open community model is yielding better results, better products, and provides better support. Their products continue to get better and better, the new stuff is jaw dropping.

For grain, depends on the backset amount used, but we use White Labs WLN1000 at less than recommended dosages, and depending on the S.G. at the midpoint of fermentation, we may add additional DAP. For sugar we use a regime that is very similar to a Mead staggered nutrient protocol, but with a significantly shorter schedule. We've been fermenting to below 1.000 in as little as 72 hours.

By the way, you can get single Big Blue 20x4.5" housings on eBay for $50 shipped, and Big Blue triple housings for half the price of that place. You can find the cartridges much cheaper than that too.

There goes, I saved you enough money to get the test for free.