Zeus's rebirth. Non typical, all steam brew stand.

This is interesting if you feel like making a free log in... http://www.esmagazine.com/articles/97570-designing-a-steam-systems-for-a-brewery?

They say that commercial breweries operate at 12-14.5 psi steam pressure.... 15psi is the threshold where it becomes a power boiler ( higher ASME class) which increases boiler and installation costs a bunch... They said over 50bbl, you need to go over the 15 psi limit....

Things aren't looking good at this point, I hope he's ok, as it's been about 6 months since Brewman's been back. Really looking forward to him picking up where he left off, as I will be trying to make the same thing as he did this winter once I have my brew cave (literally) finished.

Brewman, just thought I would post a quick ping here in case you might get the email notification of new posts to this thread, and if you might pop in and post an update to the brewery. Hope everything is ok for you.

Hi guys.

Everything is fine with me. I hope to be brewing again soon, as a matter of fact. We recently rewired the electrical panels in the house and the garage so that I now have spare breaker slots to run an electric brewing system. I'm also taking time to work on an electric brewing system. I hope to have it running in the near future.

Big Announcement.

I have ceased working on the steam project and have started to dismantle it and sell off the pieces.

I stopped working on it for 2 reasons and 2 reasons only.

#1) Steam is friggin dangerous.

With enough people using steam over a long enough time, sooner or later someone is bound to experience a leak. Maybe a fitting gets left undone, maybe a hose breaks, maybe a compression ferrule slips. It is inevitable.

Steam is very unforgiving safety wise. It will burn skin instantly. If you breathe it in, it will scald your lungs. It can displace the oxygen in a room quickly if the leak is big.

I couldn't live with those risks in my house, with my family nearby. And I was apprehensive about sharing the details of the project and assisting other people to use steam.

With propane you can brew outdoors where accumulations simply blow away. And you'll smell it before anything bad happens. With electric you have a GCFI that will trip before anything bad happens.

There is no warning with steam. You could be stirring a mash, accidentally bump the steam coil. It could disconnect, blowing a big volume of mash onto you.

This hobby isn't worth the risk of injury, especially when there are other heating methods that are safer.

#2) Steam isn't portable.

I have a wife and 3 young kids. While brewing in the basement would be a huge step forward versus brewing in the garage as far as being able to interact with my family while brewing, brewing in the kitchen would be even better.

My house is laid out such that I could run a steam line from the basement brewery to the kitchen, but I decided that wasn't very practical. I also decided that I would like to brew in spring and fall and who wants to be stuck in a basement when the weather is nice outside ? We just built a very nice patio on the front of our house. I would like to brew there on nice days as well. That isn't feasible with steam.

I also have a couple friends that are getting into brewing. We want to do group brewing at each others houses and for that I need a portable brewing system. Steam doesn't allow that either.

For these reasons, I have stopped work on this project. I have no doubt about the technical aspects that were presented in this thread, but for me there are better ways to brew.

I am working on an innovative eBrewery. I'll probably write it up when it is closer to completion.

Brewman, happy to hear all is well with you! All great reasons to switch things up. You will love going electric. I converted to electric and I love my rig and brewing on it. Good luck on your new conversion and system!

John

Thanks for the reply and well wishes, John.

I was just looking at your build the other day. I loved the pictures that illustrated finishing the inside of the Triclamp ports. And you didn't seem to purge the other side while welding ?

I'm just about to start welding fittings into my vessels... looking for all the help I can get.

Morning, Brewman. I follow your thinking for choosing not to continue to pursue your build in this direction, you laid out your concerns and issues with it logically, and I think your changes are perfectly understandable. For myself, I am going to continue my build, as in my situation, I'm confident in my fabrication abilities and it makes sense for my location and setup. I will certainly respect it, but with proper design and installation, I believe the risks can be minimized to a acceptable level, because I have no desire to experience the things you mentioned in your post! Nothing is perfect obviously, but you have a solid design, and I think it would be a productive rig for me for many years to come.

I understand that you are selling off the items that you have already purchased, if you would like to PM me with what you have to sell, and the costs, I would certainly be interested in much of it, especially the smaller items. I already have the water heater, and that would obviously be uneconomical to ship across the country, but much of the rest would likely make sense to source from you. Glad to hear that you are ok, and that you are back to moving forward with your project! Good luck on it and keep us informed as to it's progress.

brewman ! said:

Thanks for the reply and well wishes, John.

I was just looking at your build the other day. I loved the pictures that illustrated finishing the inside of the Triclamp ports. And you didn't seem to purge the other side while welding ?

I'm just about to start welding fittings into my vessels... looking for all the help I can get.

Click to expand...

Thanks I had fun documenting the build and taking the pics. The person doing the welding is Jay Lesher who is a professional welder. I took my kegs to him to have the 2 inch tri clamp ports for the electric elements sanitary tig welded to them. If I remember correctly Jay attached a fitting he made to the ferrule he was welding with another tri clamp. The end of the fitting had the hose attached that ran to his gas tank. The gas was on and purging and flowed down through the fitting into the ferrule and surrounded the weld from the inside. That was sufficient and as you can see the welds came out beautiful. If you have any other questions pm me. Jay loves to talk welding (he even teaches classes) and I can ask him about his process more.

John

Alha: I understand why you want to pursue steam heating. But I should mention that I think we are on the cusp of an explosion in induction heating. The brewing system I'm working on uses induction heating. I tested it on the weekend and I'm thoroughly impressed.

- very fast heating rate
- ultra low watts/in^2
- no element in the vessel
- very efficient
- portable, as long as you have 240VAC electricity
- safe

I don't really want to sell any of my steam parts, not yet, anyway.

All my thoughts on the steam system are in this thread. The only thing I did recently was purchase some Hoffman 17C steam traps because they are smaller and easier to work with, packaging wise, though they are limited to 25 PSIG.

Brewman, it's funny you mention this, I purchased about 4-5 years ago four new single burner built in induction cooktops, I think they are 12 or 14" but I haven't looked at them in years, that I had thought about building a brewstand out of. I think that I had even pursued it here, and after discussing the power ratings/available wattage, etc, I pretty much back burnered it, because I would have needed to add an immersion heating element the pot to make it heat at a reasonable rate.

What size is your pot that you have tested heating it with? Also, one issue I ran into at the time was finding a SS pot that was magnetic and worked efficiently with and induction setup. Not sure what your plans are for this, but I am looking forward to hearing what you have come up with, and how it is working out for you once you get it all together.

My Bayou Classic 1044 pots are magnetic and seem to work well on induction cooktops, both the Kitchen Aid we have in our kitchen and my homebrew induction system.

I brought 5 gallons to a boil on the weekend for testing purposes. My 1044 pot holds 11 gallons. I'll be doing 6 gallon batches with it. I'm building an all in one system, full sparge. Not a BIAB system.