Chemical Treated Steam to Culinary Steam?

[Josh]

Hi,

Hoping for some guidance here. We use a chemical treated steam boiler system for our jacketed stills and jacketed mash tun. I am starting to look for a new, larger mash tun and like the concept of direct steam injection for heating efficiency and to lower the mash tun replacement cost. Does anyone know of a way, or process, to filter/strip the chemically injected steam so that it's safe for mash/food purposes (DSI)? I don't want to use untreated water in the boiler because of boiler useful life reduction, but would rather just treat the steam only for the one appliance that needs it (the DSI mash tun). Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Josh

[SlickFloss]

I don't think it is advisable without stainless steel lines but someone more well versed can chime in for sure

[Josh]

That's a good point. We already have black iron pipe installed. 

 

[Southernhighlander]

Josh,

 

What you want to do is doable.  Contact Spirex Sarco about a steam sparger and filters.  They should be able to answer your technical questions and get you lined out on how to plumb your mash tunetc.  If you would like a price on a steam injected mash tun with crash cooling email me paul@distillery-equipment.com.

 

[Silk City Distillers]

We have a Spirax culinary steam filter on our DSI tun, however we don’t treat.

Its not the filtration that’s an issue, it’s the boiler chemicals.

It’s arguable that you don’t need filtered steam for mashing, since it’s not technically direct food contact.  Particulate won’t pass through distillation.

[Beach Time]

A culinary boiler is another (probably less desirable) option, these are basically a steam fired water still.

If the piping system is properly designed and the boiler chemistry correct, you should be able to get extremely high purity steam off a conventional fire tube (Scotch Marine) boiler.  A steam generator like Miura & Clayton will not produce high quality steam, they are very efficient but high carry-over (low quality) is the trade-off.  Other boiler designs with low surface area to BTU ratios will not perform as well as the Scotch Marine.  Any boiler will spit out low quality steam if the load swings wildly.  Separators & filters can help but proper distribution and condensate trapping are key.  Another option if you are real paranoid is a super heater, but that is probably over-kill.

[admiralty]

I have a direct injection tun with agitator and a filter that turns out was way outsized for me and not as good a fit for my program as I thought. 

Pm me if you want jake@admiraltydistillers.com

[Josh]

On 3/24/2020 at 8:37 AM, Silk City Distillers said:

We have a Spirax culinary steam filter on our DSI tun, however we don’t treat.

Its not the filtration that’s an issue, it’s the boiler chemicals.

It’s arguable that you don’t need filtered steam for mashing, since it’s not technically direct food contact.  Particulate won’t pass through distillation.

I appreciate the responses. Silk City, do you do any routine maintenance on the boiler system to reduce scaling since you aren't treating with chemicals, like a monthly flush and drain type of thing. Do you use a water softener, or is it straight from the source, be it municipal or well? I'm trying to balance the idea between a lower cost mash tun ($10k DSI vs $25k jacketed) or a shorter boiler lifespan. The boiler is the backbone of the operation, so not treating it seems like a risk, but then again, the most expensive part of the boiler was not the boiler itself, but the plumbing, accessories, traps, etc.

Thanks for your help on the matter, appreciate it.