Glad to hear it! Happy that brewers are having success with it.
Brundog, thank you for the inspiration. I have made it to page 10 of the discussion, but have to get to bed and want to ask my question before I get too groggy and lost my thoughts.
I hate wasting water. I was thinking I could use the waste water line from my RO water filter as the supply for the spray nozzle. I usually make water for my next brew while I am brewing anyways.
My question is, does anyone have an idea what the pressure on the waste side of an RO filter is? I have asked the googles, but must not be wording my searches right, because, I haven't found an answer.
I could always collect the waste water in a bucket and use a pump to boost pressure to feed the assembly, but I like the idea of having everything hard plumbed.
My questions are A: is the pressure on the waste line high enough to be effective and B: will the nozzle put too much back pressure on the RO membrane rendering it useless. I am worrried that B is true, but I was an Econ major so I will defer to the engineers on this one. Thank you in advance.
I guess I may not be understanding correctly. I thought the RO system makes and wastes water when filling up the typical 2-3 gallon holding tank. So, if the holding tank is full, there is no waste water since no water is being forced through the RO membrane.
If you are either using the 6gph or 9gph nozzle, you would have to be able to hold that much water. Plus, you would need a pump to get the water pressure above 40 psi.
How about using your hose bib or water faucet like normal and use that waste water created on plants or something else?
I’m not an expert on RO but there are people on this forum who are.
That said, I think the higher the waste back pressure, the less effective the membrane. You would need a steady pressure and adequate volume. So given those variables, you would probably ensure success by using a boost pump, and I don’t think that would cost you much in terms or dollars nor hardware - just drain to a bucket then pump out of it.
Given a 4:1 waste:RO, you would need a system that can make ~2.5 gph of RO water in order to get the ~9 gph for the sprayer. Also keep in mind that water will have an increased concentration of minerals, so long term performance of the nozzle should be monitored.
Good eye! The picture is pretty close to the finished design but I'll post some pics of the final one very soon. The tee is more like an instrument tee, but the side port is closer to the top to leave more space for the condensing. The bottom skips the TC flange, clamp and gasket and just has a 5/8" hose barb welded. Instead of a compression fitting as shown on the top, there will be a 90 degree shutoff valve with a push to connect fitting for the water supply. I'm planning to include some length of PE tubing and a female garden hose fitting on the far end. The sprayer tip is threaded in to a tube that is welded to the TC cap/adapter. The whole plan was to make it as compact and inexpensive as possible. I had great success running the 6gpm @ 40psi and reducing my normal power input of 60% down to 30%.
View attachment 577652
Bobby,
Any update on when these will be rolled out? Just checked your site and couldn't find them. Since I can't find the 2" TC 1/2" NPT full coupling anywhere, I might as well give your solution a shot.
Shipment got delayed by a few days but should be arriving this week. 100 pieces so no fighting necessary.
Intro price is $99 not including the clamp and gasket to attach to the pot.Can you let us know what price will be? Don't want to wait a few days to start a ordering pieces if the price is going to be too high.
It's not made from off the shelf parts so it would be a hard comparison to make to other vendors or even a pile of parts that I sell.Curious to see all the parts included with yours. This is still on my list to make/buy so I can move fully indoors, and my initial list of parts has it cheaper to buy the piece parts separate.
Just keep in mind with a sprayer the condensate gets loaded into the spray water. If you want to do a closed loop which doesn’t contaminate internally, you would need to mount up a heat exchanger like an air:water or air:water:air radiator. I had thought of testing this as a next generation system for those who are really concerned about wasting water, but haven’t yet started to do the math and source appropriate parts.
It's not made from off the shelf parts so it would be a hard comparison to make to other vendors or even a pile of parts that I sell.
Garden hose to 1/4" tube adapter, 6ft of water supply tubing, tube adapter to water valve.
Custom TC flange with long tube into which the included 6GPH sprayer threads into.
Tc clamp and gasket for top.
Custom main body tee with an integrated bottom hose barb for condensate drain.
3ft of silicone tubing and a clip to hold it to the catch bucket.
Detailed instructions for use.
The good news is that I've been using it on every brew since the first prototype and 2 of the beers took gold medals. I'm convinced enough that the boil is driving off things like DMS.
Just keep in mind with a sprayer the condensate gets loaded into the spray water. If you want to do a closed loop which doesn’t contaminate internally, you would need to mount up a heat exchanger like an air:water or air:water:air radiator. I had thought of testing this as a next generation system for those who are really concerned about wasting water, but haven’t yet started to do the math and source appropriate parts.
It's not made from off the shelf parts so it would be a hard comparison to make to other vendors or even a pile of parts that I sell.
Garden hose to 1/4" tube adapter, 6ft of water supply tubing, tube adapter to water valve.
Custom TC flange with long tube into which the included 6GPH sprayer threads into.
Tc clamp and gasket for top.
Custom main body tee with an integrated bottom hose barb for condensate drain.
3ft of silicone tubing and a clip to hold it to the catch bucket.
Detailed instructions for use.
The good news is that I've been using it on every brew since the first prototype and 2 of the beers took gold medals. I'm convinced enough that the boil is driving off things like DMS.
Contamination is the boiled off volatiles. May not matter if you dump it after every brew.
Consider the bucket route... 5 gal bucket means it needs to be emptied twice per hour boil time. It’s fairly easy to manage unless carrying it far or up steps.
So.... proof of concept worked flawlessly. For those interested in using the waste line of your RO filter, I was able to get 50 psi by adjusting the flow through the membrane slightly. Flowing freely, the pressure was only 20 psi. The small adjustment on the waste line more than doubled the pressure on the waste line and only resulted in a 5 psi drop across the membrane (60 psi to 55). Since i am going to be sending that water down the drain anyway, now I can redirect it to condense steam!!! View attachment 587649
Devil's advocate. You may plug up the sprayer more often with calcium and/or lime by doing this.Did this impact your RO performance? Flow rate, TDS?
Devil's advocate. You may plug up the sprayer more often with calcium and/or lime by doing this.
Devil's advocate. You may plug up the sprayer more often with calcium and/or lime by doing this.
Flow rate was reduced slightly due to the decrease in pressure to the dirty side of the membrane. No change in TDS. I always get 1 or 2 ppm out of the membrane, but I have pretty soft water. YMMV.Did this impact your RO performance? Flow rate, TDS?
I have very soft water (20 ppm TDS) as input into my RO filter. Even while making water with a 4:1 membrane, my TDS in the waste line should be 25. This is softer than most filtered spring water so I am not super worried about clogging it up. If I notice any change in performance, I will hit it with some CLR.Devil's advocate. You may plug up the sprayer more often with calcium and/or lime by doing this.
It depends on your RO membrane's permeate flow percentage. It has been a few months since I changed my filter, but I believe it is printed on the side.I have pretty hard water. I soften it, but that doesn't do a lot to reduce total dissolved solids. We get a lot of lime deposit on our kitchen sink sprayer.
I wonder how much worst the reject water is than normal water.
Just getting all the content loaded. It will be ready to purchase in an hour.Bobby is your condenser already out of stock or did you just load it to the site?
Just getting all the content loaded. It will be ready to purchase in an hour.
Ordered! Thanks, Bobby.Just getting all the content loaded. It will be ready to purchase in an hour.
So.... proof of concept worked flawlessly. For those interested in using the waste line of your RO filter, I was able to get 50 psi by adjusting the flow through the membrane slightly. Flowing freely, the pressure was only 20 psi. The small adjustment on the waste line more than doubled the pressure on the waste line and only resulted in a 5 psi drop across the membrane (60 psi to 55). Since i am going to be sending that water down the drain anyway, now I can redirect it to condense steam!!! View attachment 587649
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