Boil kettle condenser - no overhead ventilation needed

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Just got the Brew-boss condenser for my 1bbl pilot system and tested it out yesterday. It worked fine, condensed the steam, lowered the electrical usage requirements, etc. but it did have a low evaporation rate as has been noted before. I tested it at 20 gallons and the rate was fine, I think 8%, but at 40 gallons I'm guessing there is just too much restriction with the smaller camlock. Generally 4% is the minimum target, which is about what I hit when I tested it at 40 gallons, but I would prefer to be in the 6-8% range. The other option is to just boil for longer, but 30 extra minutes every batch adds up.

This is a commercial version of a condenser https://conical-fermenter.com/SP500CONDENSER-1325-Condenser.html , which is what made me figure that the diameter of the kettle outlet can make a big difference. Imagine if you were to just create a steam stack on your lid to go out the roof or wall, you wouldn't expect a 1/2" camlock to be able to vent enough steam but for the smaller pots a tri-clamp seems to be about proportionally right compared to larger systems. Going from a 1/2" camlock to even a 1" ID tri-clamp is 4x the area.

I have a dual 1bbl pilot system as well as a smaller 1/2bbl tank that I'll use for wort for yeast propagation, so at the least I'll be able to use the brew-boss for that. For the 1bbl tanks, I'm making a tri-clamp version like the ones that other people have mentioned on here and will let you guys know how the testing goes.
 
ingchr1 said:
I'm just going to add mine at flame out and turn the water on after it's been in there for 10 minutes, I'll also have the kettle whirlpooling during this time.
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BrunDog said:
This makes good sense. Once you add the IC, the temp of the wort will drop slightly, and steam production will drop dramatically.
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Ok, that handles the sanitation and steam. Will sitting at somewhere just-under-boiling down to wherever it cools by itself for 10 minutes cause any side effects we don't want? I know typically we want to cool as fast as possible and stay sanitary.

Like Auggie said, an external chiller may be better in this specific case/setup, but plate chillers and CFCs have their downsides compared to the Jaded chiller I was considering. I'm pretty dead set against a plate chiller, too many negative opinions on them, but I've left the door open for a CFC, if it were logically a better fit in this condenser setup. I don't want to start a general IC/CFC/PC discussion here, but picking the appropriate chiller for this specific setup is crossing my mind.
 
enormous13 said:
Will sitting at somewhere just-under-boiling down to wherever it cools by itself for 10 minutes cause any side effects we don't want? I know typically we want to cool as fast as possible and stay sanitary.
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I don't think there's any danger, assuming you're still above ~160°F, and probably higher. This is similar to a commercial brewer's whirlpool temperatures. Just take into account the isomerization you'll get at these temperatures if you're adding flameout hops.

I currently whirlpool with temps dropping as low as 140° for 30-45 minutes for many IPAs. It's the lower temperatures that are ideal for bacteria and bugs that you should be most concerned with getting through as fast as possible.
 
enormous13 said:
Ok, that handles the sanitation and steam. Will sitting at somewhere just-under-boiling down to wherever it cools by itself for 10 minutes cause any side effects we don't want? I know typically we want to cool as fast as possible and stay sanitary.

Like Auggie said, an external chiller may be better in this specific case/setup, but plate chillers and CFCs have their downsides compared to the Jaded chiller I was considering. I'm pretty dead set against a plate chiller, too many negative opinions on them, but I've left the door open for a CFC, if it were logically a better fit in this condenser setup. I don't want to start a general IC/CFC/PC discussion here, but picking the appropriate chiller for this specific setup is crossing my mind.
Click to expand...

I bought the Jaded Cyclone CFC and have been very happy with it this far. I get 6 gallons down to 66f in around 11-13 min
 
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20180224_093224.jpg

Hope to actually test it tomorrow on a brew.
Used to run around 78% power with ezboil controller. Anyone have a suggestion for power level with the lid on using this and / or boil off rate? Its the 9+GPH mister...
 
My guess is you will be roughly half of that.

One piece of advice I have for anyone using this who will inevitably find they need to dial the power way back... usually you have a power setting that is >60%. If your duty cycle length is 3 seconds, you may find the boil starts to appear pulsing more when you dial back the power. I think this is because less heat gets built into the element carrying it over between Off->On periods plus the element is off for long-ish period of times. So I suggest you drop the duty cycle time to 1 second. The element will turn on/off more frequently and stress the SSR a bit more, but it shouldn’t be a problem assuming that SSR is of reasonable quality and mounted to a decent heat sink.
 
Thanks BrunDog. Gives me a starting point. I'll get out the EZ Boil controller manual and see how to change the duty cycle.
May hold off the brew session till next week. Instead, I'll try and change duty cycle, and boil some water for an hour. See what kind of boil off i end up with and it should be a good test for the condenser. I did get the 6GPH mister as well, if i feel the 9 is overkill. No clue what the water pressure is here.
 
BudgetBrewer said:
Thanks BrunDog. Gives me a starting point. I'll get out the EZ Boil controller manual and see how to change the duty cycle.
May hold off the brew session till next week. Instead, I'll try and change duty cycle, and boil some water for an hour. See what kind of boil off i end up with and it should be a good test for the condenser. I did get the 6GPH mister as well, if i feel the 9 is overkill. No clue what the water pressure is here.
Click to expand...
You don't need to change the duty cycle for an EZBoil. It modulates the current slightly differently than most PID's. EZBoils by default try to even out the current switching.

Brew on :mug:
 
You were right!

Forgive a rather lengthy summation of my findings from this test on this particular Boil Condenser Unit, but hope it helps corroborate findings.

Test Environment:
Garage, 60 deg ambient, 48 deg groundwater temp, 18 gal. BK, 5500w element, Auberins EZ Boil controller, chugger pump. 8 gal. pure water only used. Lid left on kettle throughout test, with several times removing lid to ensure a full boil and vaccuum from condensing effect etc.

11:19 am. 8 gal. in BK, turn on element. Lid on BK.
11:56 am. 200 degree alarm sounded on controller. Power was reduced to the 66% power it was previously set to.
11:58 am. Opened water valve to mister, temp 208 deg.
12:02. Bk water at 210 deg. Noticed steam escaping BK around lid.
Investigated and found water exit hose was submerged in waste water. lifted hose above waste water level and noticed escaping steam had stopped within maybe 30 seconds. 154 deg coolant water exit temp
12:08 Controller power to 60% output water temp @ 129 deg.
12:12 Turned power on controller back to 55%
Definate suction when removing lid to check for rolling boil.
12:15 Temp still 210 deg, drop power to 45%
12:23 Coolant water pail was at 5-1/2 gal. exit waste water roughly 113 deg.
1:02 Turned off BK Element.
7.5 gal water remaining = 1/2 gal boil off
12.5 gal spent cooling water in pails minus 1/2 gal boiloff = 12 gal cooling water used over 64 minutes. Possibly higher water pressure here than rated 45psi?

Conclusion:
No condensate in brew environment.
MUST leave condensate exit tubing above collection vessel waterline to avoid losing vaccuum effect.
Power used significantly reduced although higher than expected usage of water. If you can use this to clean the system afterwards, that loss is regained.
Final test would be an actual brew day with full volumes. Im sure I'll have to increase power on the controller for 13 gal boil volume.
Biggest challenge will be how to account for .5 - .7 gal less boil off. I guess less sparge water...
Overall, very happy and excited at the possibilities. Less electricity consumption, less steam to extract later with a dehumidifier. The drop in current used may even make back to back brews possible with this 40A rig.

[emoji122] Thank you for the inspiration and guidance BrunDog!
 
Not sure if this has been mentioned somewhere yet, but I was recently at a very large brewery.

They have a similar condenser method and route the steam back into their HLT.

Could be a sweet setup on a Homebrew scale for B2B batches...
 
Yes, works just fine. Lifting the lid for hops, salts, etc. was kind of a pain with the added weight, fortunately I had another port in the lid that I was able to position over a basket for hops.
 
Finally got to try out my new condenser last weekend. It's a 2" lid mounted version that I'm using on my EBIAB kettle. I went lid mount because I would have lost too much sidewall for the boil. If I were planing a new system, I would probably get a little bigger pot and go side mount. I added a second 2" port for adding hops. The condenser worked very well. I have an exhaust hood and fan that I normally use that does a satisfactory job, but it's pretty loud when running full on. It was wonderful to have it quiet for a change and especially nice not to have to suck what heat I have out of my garage in these colder months. I can definitely see the advantage to having a pot mounted condenser, it makes the lid a little heavy and cumbersome to remove. In the past, I have used mostly whole hops for the boil placed in a stainless hop spider. With this set up I'm going to try using mainly hop pellets loose in the boil as my spider will not fit with the lid on. I use conical fermenters, so I can dump the boil and WP hops out the bottom before pitching yeast. I may eventually build a different spider, but for now I will use hop bags if I add whole hops. I had a boil off rate of about .75 GPH and a very strong boil at about 35% with a 5500w element. In the past it was about 1.1 GPH at close to 55%. I only had some minor issues, the weight of the condenser makes the other side of the lid want to raise slightly but I cured that with a paper clip over the edge of the lid. I also had some steam trying to escape where I had a piece of stainless wire that was attached to my false bottom coming out of the pot. Fixed that with a couple more paper clips. I don't really need it, so it will be gone in the future. The other issue I had was when I pulled the lid up near the end of the boil, I found that there was a lot of hop matter stuck to the sidewalls above the boil. Fortunately, they were mostly late additions, so I don't think I lost much utilization before I scraped them back in.

I used the 6.32 GPH mister and I believe it used about 6.5 GPH. I had to change buckets about every half hour or so. I found that the bucket put off quite a bit of steam so I used a lid with a hole drilled in it to run the hose into. I have a TIG welder, so I drilled the tri clover cap and used a 4 1/2" long 1/8" pipe nipple welded directly. The nipple could have been 3 1/2", but I wasn't sure what I needed when I ordered the parts. My TIG skills are still somewhat limited, and my lid very thin, so there is a fair amount of distortion around the tri clover ports. They're still fully functional, if not beautiful. :)

I also have a 10 gal 3 vessel system that I will be adapting it to eventually, just have to decide if I will do lid or side mount for it.

Thanks again BrunDog for this great idea! :bravo:

Here's a few pics of the system. I included one of my counter flow chiller that I recirculate through as I recall someone asking about chilling methods when using the condenser...

Chiller.jpg
Condenser1.jpg
Condenser2.jpg
Condenser3.jpg
Condenser4.jpg
 
Just did my first brewday with BrunDog’s condenser design on the side of the pot in my non-ventilated basement. Much as everyone said - it captured all the steam produced, and probably cut smells down by at least 75%. I captured about 12 gals of water over an hour boil (I have the 9 gph nozzle but apparently crazy high water pressure, I had the valve only 1/3 open)

Bunch of lessons learned (that I think other people have posted some/most of these):

* significant drop in boil power (from 3500W on my induction burner down to 1500W)

* boil was more aggressive then usual - hops/trub was all over sides of pot and bottom of lid. Next time I’m putting all the hops in bags or a basket.

* had some issues keeping the lid fully on and not getting steam escaping around the lid, had to put weights around the lid. (Finally a use of those barbells I bought years ago!) next time making a gasket by slitting a silicon tube.

* I was worried since my nozzle seemed a little low, some of the spray lands on the portion of the T leading toward the pot. But with the steam from the boil, none of this water seemed to enter the pot.

Thanks for the awesome design - this makes electric indoor brewing possible in a space that’s super difficult to install an outside vent.
 
Brett Goldstein said:
Bunch of lessons learned (that I think other people have posted some/most of these):

* significant drop in boil power (from 3500W on my induction burner down to 1500W)

* boil was more aggressive then usual - hops/trub was all over sides of pot and bottom of lid. Next time I’m putting all the hops in bags or a basket.
Click to expand...
This is really exciting to hear. I have a 20G kettle that I typically have had 10-15G at the start of boil. I have a 3500W induction burner, but have always supplemented with a 1500W hotrod heatstick, which will no longer be usable with the lid on. Obviously, my boil-off will be reduced so the water volume will decrease, but it sounds like with the increase in efficiency that I should have no problem with the induction power alone. Can't wait to try this out.
 
Glad to hear it guys. I think we have yet to learn how to boil with the lid on. I think the power requirements are even lower than we may think. If we’re getting hops up the sides of the pot, the boil may still be too aggressive. It’s hard to adjust when you can’t see it of course, but I am finding that even a few percent on the duty cycle makes a big difference.
 
I bought and installed the Brew Boss steam condenser a couple of weeks ago and was able to use it in a brew two weekends ago.

It comes with a gasket that is nothing more than a piece of 1/2” silicon hose that has a slit in it. Cut to fit your kettle. It does help seal the lid.

Once at a boil for my 11.5 gallons of wort, I was able to reduce my boil to 30% of my 4500watt capacity and was getting a good, full boil. I do have a partial glass lid so was able to judge the boil. I’m certain I could reduce it further.

I have high water pressure, 70psi, and in testing filled a 5 gallon bucket pretty quickly. Adding a hose to the bottom of the unit allowed me to send the waste to the drain.

Before anyone gets bent out of shape about my water usage, the Mississippi will have to show notable drops in level to influence how I brew.

Overall the unit performed quite well. I boiled off 0.5 gallons. And I also used a hop basket (cut off the hanger and used neodymium magnets inside and outside to hold the basket.

Now I need a lid for my mash tun since I did get some dripping condensation from my water supply lines.
 
stlbeer said:
I boiled off 0.5 gallons.
Click to expand...

You boiled off 0.5 gallons from an 11.5 gallon initial volume? That's 4.3%, and definitely pushing the lower limit of what you need to drive off DMS precursors. Safe range is typically 6-8%.

If you don't mind, please chime back in when you've had a chance to taste the final product. I'm very interested to hear how it turns out.
 
TexasWine said:
You boiled off 0.5 gallons from an 11.5 gallon initial volume? That's 4.3%, and definitely pushing the lower limit of what you need to drive off DMS precursors. Safe range is typically 6-8%.

If you don't mind, please chime back in when you've had a chance to taste the final product. I'm very interested to hear how it turns out.
Click to expand...

Will do.
 
I’m certainly not contesting @TexasWine ‘s statement, but do we know that 6-8% yields the ideal flashing of volatiles or is that just the number commercial breweries target?

A half gallon does sound a tad low for an hour boil but I think mine is not terribly dissimilar. You can always boil a bit longer for malts that need it, assuming you adjust the hop schedules accordingly.
 
BrunDog said:
but do we know that 6-8% yields the ideal flashing of volatiles or is that just the number commercial breweries target?
Click to expand...

Very good question. I have only one data point, and that's @Die_Beerery. If I recall correctly, with boil off in the 4-5% range he had DMS issues.

The way the steam is removed from a system like this may have an impact on the % that you can get by with. It'll be interesting to test to lower limits.
 
It's pH dependent as well. With my lid, I use a 3750 watt boil coil, which I run at 45% and that gets my about 6% boil off. My cut out would be equivalent of a 4" opening. I still see my boil temp at 212. SO, for me 5.4pH to start, 45% on the 3750 boil coil, with 6% boil off and grists as high as 95% pils, I do not see any DMS. Same exact setup at 4% I do, if I lower pH I need to boil 70 minutes even with 6%. That what I have put together over a few hundred batches.
 
Just did my first batch and the condenser worked very well. I have a 3750W BoilCoil and had the power set at 50% (Brew Boss Controller). I measured 0.75 gallons of boil off. I peeked in through the side of the lid and the boil looked fine. I had hops up the side of the kettle, but it was from the boil up that happened when I dumped them in.

I use a collection kettle for the condensate and the condensate did have a distinct odor to it.

Here's my build thread, post #6 has details on the condenser setup: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...11-gallon-bayou-classic-with-boilcoil.643196/
 
I'm ready to buy parts to build this, but have an aluminum kettle.
Do I need to find aluminum TC parts? Are they even available?
Or, can I use stainless parts if I JB Weld the flange onto the kettle?
I'm looking for direction on building this, considering I have an aluminum kettle (about 4mm thick).
Thanks.
 
rkhanso said:
I'm ready to buy parts to build this, but have an aluminum kettle.
Do I need to find aluminum TC parts? Are they even available?
Or, can I use stainless parts if I JB Weld the flange onto the kettle?
I'm looking for direction on building this, considering I have an aluminum kettle (about 4mm thick).
Thanks.
Click to expand...
One of these might take care of you: https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/tc15wlf.htm
 
The weldless bulkhead fittings are all out-of-stock. Crud.
But, if I can just use JB Weld, then I should be able to get by with this much cheaper fitting, right? Or This One? Even though it's just under 1" in length, I suspect that's long enough to work.
Just drill a hole in the kettle and let this stick through enough to give a good seal with the JB Weld all around. Good to go?
 
Last edited:
For people on a 3 vessel HERMs, do you just hook this up to the boil kettle or also the HLT?
 
Well, did my first actual brewday with this condenser. I did a water test run thru a cpl weeks ago, with only 8 gal water just to get a feel for what to expect. On the test, i had cut power back to even 45% power and maintained a good boil as long as i wasnt removing the lid often. This recipe called for 13.2gal boil volume, which i cut back to 12.5 gal with the experience of only boiling off 1/2 gal on the test.
Today, i dialed in the boil power to 60% figuring a larger starting volume, and wanted higher than 1/2 gal boiloff to increase odds of eliminating DMS.
I ended up with 11 gals in the fermenter, and a good gallon boiloff. I think im close.
Observations...
I definately got the DMS smell from the runoff from the condenser. Fairly strong.
Some serious hop ring at the boil level in the kettle after boil was complete despite using a hop sock.
Boiloff was a little high, will modify power to 50% next time and compare results.
Conclusions...
I love the lower humidity, and the reduction in power usage.
Not a fan of wasting all that water. Initially intended to use it for cleanup, but as Brundog suggested, im not sure i'd want to use it for real cleaning after i got the full effect of the smell of the output water.
Will likely try the 6 gph tip instead of the 10 gph next time.
Overall, im impressed and will continue using this equipment, until such time as i have a reason not to... ie, the DMS taste in the beer. Time will answer that.
Time to drink a couple, relax and watch some baseball. Cheers all.
 

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