Steam powered brewing

Hi,

I am thinking of building a brew setup heated completely by steam.

So far I was thinking of using steam injection into the wort for mashing and a steam jacket for the Boil Kettle.

I would be looking at making about no more than 11 gallon batches as that is the capacity my kegs, but I could always build bigger now in case of up-sizing.

The question I have is how do a figure about what size my pressure cooker needs to be and, in addition am I doing wrong?

The steam into wort step heating works well but the pressure cooker steam source has some limitations on continous steam generation. For step mashing it will work but for boiling you will be better off direct firing the boil kettle. The main limitation for pressure cookers is the suggested heat source size based on the relief valve's ability to maintain a safe maximum pressure. Some folks put the pressure cookers over larger burners and get away with it, but if the water in the pressure cooker is splashed up the hot wall of the cooker they may get a chance to be in the darwin awards when the pressure cooker explodes.

I was looking to go all electric as this will be an automated system and it is probably easier to control electric than gas.

I could just do injection, and heat the BK directly if that makes more sense.

If you are looking at electric you might consider a tandem RIMS system with 2 elements in series in a longer chamber to get more heat transfer area and higher wattage into wort. If gas is a consideration then there are ways of controlling burner firing rate for direct fired mash tuns.
What degree of automation are you considering, off the shelf systems, or a DIY system from industrial hardware.

I am looking at using the Sanguino based BrewTroller for automation. I have a friend who is a fitter and turner and can fabricate many parts for me, if required.

I am looking at automation of temperature control and all movement of the wort initially. Eventually I'd like to add some more fancy stuff.

Gas is certainly an option, though it will be indoors, under a old stove vent.

Depending on power availability for electric system, the electric approach would be the preferred route for indoor brewing. A traditional 3 vessel system should be fairly easy to assemble from all the examples on this board. If power limitations are a factor then LP or NG is the alternative but it is better suited to outdoor operation, a mobile rig is preferable. The need for step mashing is minimal unless you are into high gravity wheat beers, almost everything else does fine with single infusion mashing.

Cheers, I will look all the options. I think that I want the capability for step mashing, even if I do not always use it - flexibility is important.

Has anyone looked into steam heating just the preboil full wort volume to a boil? I'm thinking about building a hybrid electric/steam system: steam to bring the runoff wort collected in the kettle to a boil (or near boil) and electric heating element in my keggle to maintain the boil. Two 9000 btu stovetop burners would act as backup/extra heat source if needed to maintain boil as I'd have the keggle on the stovetop anyway.

The steam would come into play because I have only 120V service and would thus be limited to probably only 1500w for the heating element on my kitchen 20 amp circuit. Just that element alone would of course take forever to heat up a 13 gal preboil volume. I'm thinking that I would apply steam from a pressure cooker to heat the keggle from mash out temps to boiling or near boiling, saving a ton of time. A nice bonus would of course be that I could also do steam injected step mashes if I desire.

Bad idea? Suggestions?

How much steam would be needed to bring ~13 gallons from 170ish to 212? Too much to make it feasible? Any calculators out there?

Thanks,
jjwp

JJWP said:

How much steam would be needed to bring ~13 gallons from 170ish to 212? Too much to make it feasible? Any calculators out there?

Thanks,
jjwp

Click to expand...

More than you could safely generate on your stove top, I would imagine.

steam works, be careful /URL]

Steam scares me. I was attracted to the idea once upon a time, but after giving it a lot of thought I decided against it. Mostly for safety reasons.