Issue with water collecting on intake of vented hood

[kevreh]

I ran my first batch in my new ebrewery a few weeks ago. I have a temporary hood made of foam, with an inline fan. Its a strong fan, and did a good job pulling the moist air out of my basement brewery. Now I need to build a real hood. Only problem is that water collected at the 4" round inlet hole in the hood when the fan was on. So much so that it was drawing into the motor, not to mention dropping into the beer when turned off.

How have others dealt with this? Must be a simple solution.

 

[kevreh]

Jeeze....100 views and no replies. Maybe I should have posted in another subforum.

 

[sumbrewindude]

Well, it could be a reasonably complicated response that is affected by a lot of things -

1) Hood design
2) CFM of the fan
3) duct diameter (which apparently is 4")

but there's always a few givens, you're going to have some moisture accumulation in the hood no matter what you do - you're condensing the vapor to the ducting. Most folks that have hoods also put some form of a catch trough or gutter around the perimeter of the hood to channel that condensation away from the pot. You can tip that channel away from the pot so that it drains at a corner of the hood.

If you're getting condensation in the ducting, you've either not got enough CFM pulling the air through, or your ducting is too small/long and needs to go up to 6". Any restriction will cause the condensation to liquify and pool water.

See what I mean about no simple answer? Sometimes it takes a bit for a response or two, as folks are trying to dissect the question to get a helpful answer out.

Sometimes you don't get any response at all, it happens.

 

[evanmars]

Where is the hole in the hood? Where is the fan in relation to the hood? How many CFM's does your fan move? What is the static pressure rating of your fan? How long is your ducting? How many bends does your ducting have?

Maybe have your fan offset from the center of the hood, closer to the edge. Slant the sides of your hood so any condensation on it drips down the inside of the hood, then into channel at the bottom lip of the hood. Put a fitting in the channel at the lowest point and attach a hose from that into a sink/bucket/etc. Keep the outlet of the duct at the lowest point in the exhaust path (from hood to outlet) so that any condensation in it will drain out the outlet and not pool in the duct or drip out the hood end.

 

[kevreh]

I'll check all the specs asked for above. Maybe post a picture too. Either way I think the baffle idea with a chanel and drain is a good idea.