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Anyone have any experience with electric heating and stills?


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My partnere and I are starting up distilling operations in Pennsylvainia to bring back some of the oldest moonshine made in the region. We are experienced with the use of propane, natural gas, coal and wood for cooking up stills. Our location, which use to be a winery, has more 220 plugs then I have ever seen in my life and while we have a huge propane tank, I just started looking into maybe using those 220 plugs and hooking up some heating elements to cook our mother (mash for those of you who think we might be cannibals).

Anyone know of any reason this might not be a good idea or problems that might arise from the use of electrical heating element over good, ol' fashoned smoke and flame?

Thank you.

- CJ

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We had a 150 gallon (130 gallon charge) oil bath still made and runs off 6 elements for a total of 27,000 watts. Granted, I'd prefer steam but for my size and budget the still seems to be working just fine.

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Electric works for smaller systems. The amperage draw is a limiting factor. Beyond about 150 gallons it becomes impractical for many locations. (27K watts = 120+ amps of 220V)If you do have the power available, though, a double boiler is a good idea. With direct immersion your still would be limited to running cleared washes. This can be problematic for obvious reasons.

Don't direct fire. It's too dangerous.

In your situation I'd first determine production goals, then still size, then electric or steam, and if steam, then fuel source. You could always run a steam boiler on propane. Or even wood pellets for that matter. Don't forget your mashing needs.

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There are 11 distilleries in Tasmania. All except mine run on electric elements, mostly inside copper tubes in the pot. 2 of them have hand-wound elements on the underside of the base.One in a glycol jacket.

All are boiling clear wort.

I use direct fire and cloudy wort.

With "grain in" you would need low density elements, ie. large surface area

In the long term the decision should be based mainly on cost of the energy source

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Skaalvenn, how long is the heatup time with that setup? Do you have an agitator?

No agitator yet (its on the way). Heat up time I'll have to get back to you as my oil temp hasn't dropped below 100 degrees yet. I think about 2 hours?

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Interesting and thank you for the reply.

We are use to old school methods for cooking, mostly air blasted coal fires and thermometers workling on 20 or 50 gallon stills. We are initally moving up to either a 250 or 500 gallon still for our product and most of our runs are sweet corn mashes with just a handful of rye to give it a nice bite.

Since we had so many 220 outlets I was looking at possibly making a fully copper version of a submarine still with 3 eletrical elements, two in copper pockets which will replace where the wood normally goes and a third inside a copper pocket inside the still. Of course that means the sides are going to be hot as hell if I go through with this idea but it might have an interesting effect over tradtional under the still heating, especially with an agitator.

Does that sound feasible for such a large still?

A Double Boiler system I did not think about but since we are running off of spring water and a well that might not be a bad option as we could use thw well water for the boiler and the spring water for the cook.

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250 gallons, realistically, is going to push the limits of a single phase 220v 200a service, or is already beyond it. Larger and you are going to need to go with a larger 3 phase service or a heavy 480v service. You might want to do some math around what your operating cost is going to be to run a 500 gallon tank on electric. Up in my parts, electric is expensive - the 100kw you would need for a 500 gallon tank would cost me $44 just for heat up (100kw x 2 hours x .22 cents per kWh) versus the $10 I would pay today to burn dinosaurs.

You may have a number of 220v outlets, but realize that the 27kw cases mentioned above are probably using something like 5 dedicated 30 amp circuits (or 6 dedicated 25 amp circuits). Most folks running that much juice just run a dedicated sub-panel near the still or cooker and pull off their circuits locally. You aren't going to be able to run extension cords to a number of outlets for this, we're talking serious juice.

For reference, a 20hp steam boiler is going to output somewhere around the equivalent of 200kw of electrical power. That's about the ballpark size.

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For reference, a 20hp steam boiler is going to output somewhere around the equivalent of 200kw of electrical power. That's about the ballpark size.

Is the above a typo? I know very little about steam boiler maths!

but basic physics tells me 20hp equals 25 Kw so how do you need 200 Kw to get 20 hp of steam. Seems very inefficient, did you mean "output" or "input",or have I missed something.

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I have been talking with a few fellow stillmakers and they are now worshiping at the electric altar. I got to fire up an electtric still and it worked rather impressivly. It was even self-agitating. Looks like I am going to start checking out how these 250 electrical gallon stills for our start-up. Once I get a design hashed out it will be time to pull out the old TIG welder and get to working.

Thanks for your input James and I agree with that going with a 500 gallon electrical still is impractical, but the actual running costs using electricity is actually much lower then what you think. Heating the mash will draw upon the most power but after we hit our magic boil point, sustaining that temperture takes far fewer kwh and with my electric coming in at 13 cents per kwh will far outstrip the propane costs and should also reduce any safety hazards with the flames. The main key is to make sure that scorching doesn't happen and that is something i will have to work on.

Thank you again for your responces and good luck.

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I'm not knocking electric, as a lot of people love them, but you might want to recheck your math. At current 2.25 per gallon for propane it's about 1/3 cheaper to operate than electric. If propane stay below 3.50 it will be cheaper than your .13kwh.

Prost

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I'm not knocking electric, as a lot of people love them, but you might want to recheck your math. At current 2.25 per gallon for propane it's about 1/3 cheaper to operate than electric. If propane stay below 3.50 it will be cheaper than your .13kwh.

Prost

Factoring in boiler efficiency (electric is essentially 100% efficient as the energy is directly applied to the wash), the difference isn't quite that dramatic. Closer to $3/gal propane equivalency. Propane was north of $3 a couple winters ago. Electric prices have become fare more stable with the move to natural gas for generation. So yeah, propane is cheaper at the moment but who knows in the near future...

Even with the more expensive electric, remember we're talking under $20 for heating on a 1000L still run.

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I'm not knocking electric, as a lot of people love them, but you might want to recheck your math. At current 2.25 per gallon for propane it's about 1/3 cheaper to operate than electric. If propane stay below 3.50 it will be cheaper than your .13kwh.

Prost

Having now had the honor of running an electric 250 gallon still I found that the power usage fluxuates dramaticly. The start up is the big drain but after we hit temp we are using far less kwh during the still run. Also the fact that it is easier to factor electricity into production costs and that unlike propane we can run an electric still and are not beholden to propane suppliers to refill our propane tank so can run almost 24-7. Add in current electronic advances in controlling and monitoring production runs making it easier to get a consitant product, it is looking like a win-win.

I could be wrong and we will have a 100 gallon old school propane still as well but if this works out it will be a boon for my production, If not I can get a 250 propane cut, welded and up and running in under a week.

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Skaalvenn, how long is the heatup time with that setup? Do you have an agitator?

Just checked it today. From 80 degree oil jacket and 78 degree wash with the agitator it took 2 hours and 10 minutes to reach 170 at the top of our 20 plate column.

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