Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

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As-Ol-Joe
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Post by As-Ol-Joe »

casamayor wrote:Rum and Flour are a good mixture!
:? :?
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Post by casamayor »

Yesterday i made a run with my pot still sealed by flour( the boiler and the lens) great working, no leaks!
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Post by Grimturtle »

I have been having some trouble cleaning the baked-on flour off my pot after distilling. Takes a hell of a lot of elbow grease with the pot scrubber. I know this is probably a basic kitchen question but does anyone know of an easier way to clean the baked flour off?
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vajravarahi
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water

Post by vajravarahi »

Water. Hot water. I turn my pot over and soak it in hot water. 10 minutes later it's usually soft enough to remove. If not, repeat.

It's just baked on bread, so it will get soft.
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Post by CoopsOz »

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ChillinDistilln
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Post by ChillinDistilln »

Grimturtle wrote:I have been having some trouble cleaning the baked-on flour off my pot after distilling. Takes a hell of a lot of elbow grease with the pot scrubber. I know this is probably a basic kitchen question but does anyone know of an easier way to clean the baked flour off?
Same here, but a soak in hot water will make it soft enough to peel off and then clean up with your scrubber.
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Post by mbasketcase13 »

i just use a wet dish towel lay it on for awhile the dough soaks up the water and doesn't dry out before i'm ready to go to work cleaning up
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Post by mikeac »

Butter knife, I just chip away at it till there's only very little left then a little hot water.
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Post by spud »

Soak over night in cold water it just dissolves
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Post by theholymackerel »

If a small shaped charge doesn't work, I leave my pot in the back alley for the ferral children to gnaw clean.
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Post by Husker »

theholymackerel wrote:If a small shaped charge doesn't work, I leave my pot in the back alley for the ferral children to gnaw clean.
Holy, haven't you yet learned, if you keep feeding them, they will never go away.

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Post by mikeac »

If they go away who will clean his still?
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carlos castenada
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by carlos castenada »

i've started making a larger than needed amout of flour/water mix and then freezing to save hassle
one the next few runs. work great and defrosts in ten mins in the air

cheers.
Four20
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by Four20 »

Im runing a 12 gal boiler and found that the flour just wont hold up to the long times it runs. We found an old recipe and found it works great.
1 part flour (any type will do)
1 part charred wood finely ground (now my boiler is woodfired so i got plenty of charred chunks of wood. It has to be a soft chunk easily broken up and ground as finely as possible. Try to avoid using ash in the mix.)
The liquid parts will be:
1 part water
2 parts vegetable oil
mix all this into a sticky dough yet firm. and use water to help with the stickyness on your fingers and helps with smoothing the paste. Once this dries it becomes hard, but wont crack.
just tryin to live the kuntry life
MisterSteve124
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by MisterSteve124 »

Does anyone ever find their distillate tasting like bread or dough? I find mine does and smells like it too and I think it's because of the flour paste. I'm thinking about switching to cork.
StabbyJoe
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by StabbyJoe »

I am of the belief that white bread should not be ingested by human beings...
Flour and water paste dries rock solid... if you take a piece of white bread stick the whole lot in your mouth it will eventually form into a giant hard ball you cannot chew anymore O_o...

No wonder the stuff can make a solid seal for a still...
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by absinthe »

as long as you don't overwork the gluten (don't "knead" to much) it will be a bit easier to work with and i have found that a tiny drop of dish washing detergent in the dough will help it stick to the stainless much better
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ArcticTern
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by ArcticTern »

i use flour dough on every run....regular flour dough with just enough water to make a paste. use a fork to mix er all together, and when she's stiking to the fork; add abit more flour; i do this in a bowl. when applying to the bop; i whet the seal that needs a sealing with water; or even slime; spit, whet it; the floru dough stiks like good. the bestest is to ensure you have abit of heat on the bop before applying
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by ArcticTern »

forgot to add:
check the seal prior to the heat witch makes yer likker; if thar's a leak; the pudding will stay soft; it should form a hard tack on the form prior to the inners being hard. i.e it will stay soft if thars a leak...hope this helps

arctictern
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Post by blanikdog »

spud wrote:Soak over night in cold water it just dissolves
Yairsss spud. Can't get much easier than that.

We aussies are a weird mob.

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inspeedway
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by inspeedway »

i use my flour paste 2 to 3 times if the bowl comes off good --- wife just puts
more on the mixing bowl and use it again with now leaks at all so u dont have to clean the boiler
every time u make a run!!!!!!
bugga
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by bugga »

Yes, this works very well. I had to custom make a lid to fit my 15 gal pot. I tried cork to make the seal to begin with, this resulted in a leak I could not overcome. Tried the flour paste at 2 parts flour 1 part water for a sticky paste. Did not have the first leak. I will use this for now on.
ChillinDistilln
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by ChillinDistilln »

Just my opinion, but based upon the pics in this post, if your's looks like this then you are using way too much dough. The stuff you see is just waste and adds to the cleanup time.

Think of a computer chip and it's heatsink. Thermal compound is added to seal it completely so that all of the heat is transfered. Most manuals will have you put a big blob on and squish it down (so it smooshes out the sides like the pics of the dough). Serious overclockers know that this is inefficient and instead go for a very fine film, no blobs.

If a lid fits flush on a pot with no imperfections, then why seal at all? Vapor will always take the path of least resistance. Given that Pots and covers aren't perfect then a seal is in order. But I've found that a very thin coat of paste is just as good as a blob, and much, much, much easier to clean. I could post pics of my rig with paste... but you wouldn't see anything but a pot, lid, etc.. no dough blobs visible.
Hack
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by Hack »

Even if the lid fits flush on the pot, I'd still be sealing it with something. Escaping ethanol vapor is usually not visible, and always highly flammable. I don't think I'd risk getting myself hurt to save on clean up time.

For the most part what you say is true. It doesn't usually take much paste to seal a still. One exception is when you run a thumper which creates a small amount of back pressure in the boiler. When I started running a thumper I had to use a bit more paste to seal the head on my rig. My head is a mixing bowl that I strap to the top of my beer keg boiler with a bungie cord. There isn't much mating surface where the rim of the mixing bowl meets the keg. Before I started using a thumper I would strap the head on and put the dough on around the outside and it would work fine. When I started using a thumper the slight pressure in the boiler was enough to cause lots of problems with the seal weeping. I found that rolling up a bead of dough and sticking it to the rim of the mixing bowl before I strapped it to the boiler so that it acted as a gasket between the head and the boiler worked much better. This leaves a bit of dough inside of the head that the pressure pushes against the gap, instead of just dough on the outside where the pressure tends to push the seal away. In this case it's important not to be stingy with the amount of dough used to seal the head.
Mossyokk
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by Mossyokk »

oatmeal mixed with flour dough works pretty good
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by Magnum »

Mossyokk wrote:oatmeal mixed with flour dough works pretty good
Hmmm :idea: :?: :?:
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Savagesfolly
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by Savagesfolly »

I did not read the entire thread, but i like canned biscuits. already mixed, easy to mold like play doe and easy clean up.
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by LWTCS »

Bet that works well.

But its really not that time consuming.

And after a few batches it gets real easy to get it just right. Including a small reserve for emergency patch jobs.

I'd rather eat the biscuits.

Either way, a good tip :wink:
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rumlover
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by rumlover »

My wife calls those whop biscuits....You have to "whop" them on the edge of the counter to get em out of the can....
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Re: Flour Dough/Paste for sealing

Post by blanikdog »

Some time back someone - I think it may have been Coops - suggested adding a bit of Vege oil to the mix. I do that all the time now and it's never a problem to remove, and the chooks fight over it when it's tossed out. I'd never make a paste without it.

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