Making a Steam Wand

[Backwoods Distillers]

I need a way to heat about 20+ gallons of mash without burning the mash. I read some posts that mentions steam wands.
Does anyone have plans on building such a wand? Safety concerns?
Thanks in advance for your reply.

[Husker]

here is a wonderful method. Think this one is gonna get a sticky for a while. It took a while to find.

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4767" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

H.

[IdahoMole]

I recently made a steam masher and I love it. Only ran it once so I am sure it will only get better. I used a large ice chest and a pressure cooker that I already had. I made a "U" shaped steam "wand" out of half inch copper that sits in the bottom of the ice chest and added a brass valve to the pressure cooker, connected the two with braided hose. All of the safety gear is still on the cooker so no worries there. No scorching, larger batches, and cheaper than a BOP.

Mole

[muckanic]

I need a way to heat about 20+ gallons of mash without burning the mash.

Do you mean you want to boil something viscous like corn for an extended period, or just heat it to mashing temperatures? If the latter, my take on it is that you really only need steam for step mashing. Otherwise, just dump an appropriate amount of hot water onto the grain in the mash tun and be done with it. Temperature losses over time are usually not much of a problem, especially in an insulated mash tun. Even with step mashing, some brewers do it simply by adding boiling water, although there can be objections about diluting the mash and impacting the action of the enzymes.

If you're planning to sparge, the options get interesting. Apart from a false bottom in the mash tun, the usual other thing to do is to use some sort of manifold, either made out of stainless hose sheath (like in the link Husker posted) or slotted copper pipe. The manifold is normally there to strain off wort from the grain, but with another valve fitted it can also be designed to receive steam that rises up through the mash. Obviously, the steam boiler level needs to be higher than the mash liquid level, so the steam has to run downhill for a short distance. Insulated delivery lines can improve the efficiency quite a lot. Another design issue is whether the steam output is adequate for the number of holes in the manifold. If not, then the bubbling occurs all in one spot rather than being distributed evenly around the base of the mash tun. This can be overcome with constant stirring, which is probably a good idea regardless.

[Backwoods Distillers]

Thanks everyone for your ideas.
muckanic,
Right now,I boil about 10 gallons of water, then I add the corn and rye. I let it sit for a hour or so, stirring every 15mins. This is the most I can boil because of the size of my boiler. I was thinking of using a large plastic container or cooler and using the steam wand to boil the water in this container.
I don't like to sparge the grains for making whiskey. I also ferment with the grains. I believe you get better flavor.

Thanks

[raildog]

I guess I missed the plans for the steam wand............saw the keg mods for the mash tun, really nice work.