I'm running a garage experiment.

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Maxximus Flavius
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I'm running a garage experiment.

Post by Maxximus Flavius »

I've mentioned before I hate blanket statements about ideas/science being settled. I'm old, but not old enough to remember when the best minds of the day stated that the sun revolved around the earth. So at great cost and time I'm running a garage experiment.

I located two SS water bottles that I will turn into identical heat sources.
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I used some simple fixtures to make them as close to each other as possible, with the limits of my skill set.
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They came out within 2 grams of each other.
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They both started the jets 1 second apart.
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Both stoves made a final exhausting pop within 15 seconds of each other. I suspect I need to weigh the fuel more accurately. In the background is the "keg". I need to drink another can of tomato juice so that I have two kegs. One will be oriented on it's side and the other upright. An equal weight/volume of water in each. This will only demonstrate a bottom gas fired boiler.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Dan P. »

excellent!
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by googe »

Awesome Maxximus. Love these types of experiments, hate theory!!!. what sort of background do you have if you don't mind me asking?, scientist?, mad hatter?. Good luck.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Maxximus Flavius »

googe wrote:Awesome Maxximus. Love these types of experiments, hate theory!!!. what sort of background do you have if you don't mind me asking?, scientist?, mad hatter?. Good luck.
I barely made it out of high school because of interest in girls, cars and airplanes. College was never going to happen and didn't. But I have a healthy skeptical attitude and a highly tuned BS detector. In this case with this experiment, I have no strong feelings either way. I'm more surprised by the rancor that bubbled up. I wouldn't be surprised if I observe no difference. Either way, in my mind the science will be somewhat more settled :ewink:
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Bushman »

I once saw a sticker on a commercial compression/tensil testing machine that quoted "One test is worth a thousand theories".
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by bearriver »

Good job Max!
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by shadylane »

Max, Your experiment will prove whether vertical or horizontal is more efficient from the perspective of transferring the heat of a flame to the boiler. But it won't address whether more surface area for vapor makes a difference.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Maxximus Flavius »

The burners are complete.
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As are the boilers/kegs. I had to store the excess tomato juice in Mason jars. Happened to have a few on hand. The vent hole is 1.25" if anyone cares.
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I plan on filling the cans half full to take advantage of the maximum surface area in the sideways boiler. No time today, real job start time is looming. I just had enough time to put another fuel load through the burners. These little things get hot on alcohol. I've played with these for a while and am thinking that the vegetable steamer enhances the burn. Another test with that coming up:)
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Maxximus Flavius »

One small change. I splurged for another stove bolt, so now both burners are the same. Can you find the new one?
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any predictions on which one will boil first?

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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Dan P. »

Wow, splurge on, splurger!

I predict Sideways Simon will steal the cup!
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by pulsetech »

Experiment is not accurate unless you scale everything including the hole in the top and the charge. Half filling a boiler would not make it practical and if it has a influence on the results. Well you know where I'm going
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Maxximus Flavius »

pulsetech wrote:Experiment is not accurate unless you scale everything including the hole in the top and the charge. Half filling a boiler would not make it practical and if it has a influence on the results. Well you know where I'm going
I'm not sure I understand what you''re suggesting. I went back and re-read the OP's original post to make sure I hadn't mis-remembered. The OP suggested that turning a keg on it's side would among other things, change evaporation rates. There was no mention of type of heating. Many of us use gas, and that for me is a good start. This is not meant to be a scaled down operating still. All I want to do is use two identical heat sources on identical boilers with different orientation as the OP suggested. My statement about filling them half is to utilize the maximum surface area in the side ways can. The area at the half full is 28 square inches. the boiler in normal orientation has a surface area of 6.28 square inches. I'm not going to condense the water vapour driven off. I will weigh the charge in both boilers before and after the fuel is exhausted. The hole in both cans was meant to keep the internal pressures as close to ambient as possible. And it makes it easier to fill.

I fully expect the different orientations will have an effect on the amount of energy absorbed, resulting in a quicker temperature rise in one or the other. I'm wondering if I will be able to measure the burnt paint area to calculate the flame wetted area on both cans. Is flame wetted a valid term?

I will repeat this several times and swap burners under the two setups. As I've mentioned before, I have no pre-conceptions on results. Just mildly curious.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by pulsetech »

Maxximus Flavius wrote:
pulsetech wrote:Experiment is not accurate unless you scale everything including the hole in the top and the charge. Half filling a boiler would not make it practical and if it has a influence on the results. Well you know where I'm going
I'm not sure I understand what you''re suggesting. I went back and re-read the OP's original post to make sure I hadn't mis-remembered. The OP suggested that turning a keg on it's side would among other things, change evaporation rates. There was no mention of type of heating. Many of us use gas, and that for me is a good start. This is not meant to be a scaled down operating still. All I want to do is use two identical heat sources on identical boilers with different orientation as the OP suggested. My statement about filling them half is to utilize the maximum surface area in the side ways can. The area at the half full is 28 square inches. the boiler in normal orientation has a surface area of 6.28 square inches. I'm not going to condense the water vapour driven off. I will weigh the charge in both boilers before and after the fuel is exhausted. The hole in both cans was meant to keep the internal pressures as close to ambient as possible. And it makes it easier to fill.

I fully expect the different orientations will have an effect on the amount of energy absorbed, resulting in a quicker temperature rise in one or the other. I'm wondering if I will be able to measure the burnt paint area to calculate the flame wetted area on both cans. Is flame wetted a valid term?

I will repeat this several times and swap burners under the two setups. As I've mentioned before, I have no pre-conceptions on results. Just mildly curious.
looking forward to your results. if i came off as being negative i apologize. it was not my intention

Just saying the shape and size of the head space in the boiler could have an effect on your outcome. the OP was talking about turning a keg boiler 90 degrees. i would fill both of your containers with the same amount of water. first fill the normal position one to a point similar to a normal boiler charge. weigh it and fill the sideways one to the same weight.
also with the sideways one if you fill it to halfway it will have more surface area than it would if filled to say 90 percent
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by pfshine »

That would be a more precise trial there shady. This way you can account for every btu. Perhaps you could hook up a leibig and fill some jars and measure the amount of a prescribed about of time.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by S-Cackalacky »

Using external vs. internal heat will greatly change the dynamics of the experiment. Applying a flame to the flat end of a vertical boiler won't have the same effect as applying flame heat to a curved horizontal boiler. That is, heating efficiency will skew the experiment to the advantage of one or the other orientations. The only thing the experiment will prove is which of the orientations will heat faster - not necessarily anything that will prove which orientation will produce a faster rate of evaporation (or vaporization). To get anything near a valid experiment, you would need to use a more efficient and reliable heat source - like an internal element.

Something that has already been discussed and is not addressed by the experiment - we distill by applying heat to bring about a rate of "vaporization" to produce a prescribed output rate. If the goal is to produce the same rate of vaporization (or output rate), it would seem that the goal of any experiment would be to measure the heat efficiency - that is, how much fuel is used to produce the same result depending on orientation. The OP already described a valid experiment to measure the "evaporation" rate - two cups of different sizes (i.e., different surface areas). But again, that doesn't prove anything related to the distillation process. Haven't we already discussed the difference between "evaporation" and "vaporization" - "evaporation" rate being the assertion of the OP which has absolutely nothing to do with the distillation process? And so, the snake continues to eat its tail.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by NZChris »

Look up Latent Heat of Vaporization for ethanol and for water. Note how it is expressed:

855 KJ/Kg for ethanol
2260 KJ/Kg for water

Note that there is no allowance in this for area. If area was a factor, it would be expressed as KJ/Kg/M2, (or some other equation that the OP has been keeping to himself).

So, if you are having trouble getting your head around the OP's original post, consider that that might be because the OP's post is rubbish, and not because your education or reasoning abilities are lacking.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Hound Dog »

Max, it looks like a fun experiment. Not really something that people need to get so worked up about trashing other over. Right or wrong it is something cool to think about and it looks like your can experiment will have the best chance at showing a real world result. Remembering this is a hobby and something to play, learn and experiment with is important. Thanks for your efforts Max!
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Maxximus Flavius »

Hound Dog wrote:Max, it looks like a fun experiment. Not really something that people need to get so worked up about trashing other over. Right or wrong it is something cool to think about and it looks like your can experiment will have the best chance at showing a real world result. Remembering this is a hobby and something to play, learn and experiment with is important. Thanks for your efforts Max!
Agreed. This is just something to play with. I get the distinct impression that some LPC (large post count) guys have already discounted this as futile. Meh! I learn from everything I do. For example, I discovered today that I can easily solder brass fittings to tomato juice cans. And discovered that my Walliemart temperature probes/gauges are pretty close in calibration. I'm already way ahead for a hot humid Saturday just before beer time.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Maxximus Flavius »

I had a moderately interesting afternoon in my garage laboratory. Following are the results of "one" experiment with a vertical vs horizontal boiler. This will be duplicated at least one more time, or more, until I get bored.

The particulars:

Air temperature: 30 C
Atmospheric pressure: 102.0 kPa
Humidex: 37

Two "as similar as possible" burners loaded with 100 milliliters of 99% pure methyl hydrate fuel. Both burners exhausted their fuel within 12 seconds of each other. (kind of impressed with that)
Two volumes of 650 milliliters of ultra pure municipal tap water (okay, a stretch).
Two boilers of 1.36 liters capacity, one vertical and one horizontal. Sitting .125" above the burner.
Calibrated test equipment and various tested measured vessels holding fluids.
Sound track to verify that the author has not dropped frames or edited the timeline in any way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec85198 ... sQ&index=5" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Accelerated portions of video are 16X real time verified against the soundtrack timeline.

Before and after weights of the two tested water volumes.
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And the other orientation...
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Here's the continuous video of the event to appease the doubters. Please excuse the shaky video. My production crew is minimal. If you decide to waste 7 minutes of your life watching the video, which you will never get back, please draw your own conclusions. I will not theorize for you. If you have any suggestions on how I can improve the experiment, please respond. I will attempt to modify within reason.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Tater »

was can flattened to give same flat surface area for burner as upright can?
I use a pot still.Sometimes with a thumper
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by pulsetech »

I Like it. watched the whole thing all the way through. what your experiment proves is that is less efficient to heat externally like that.
would love to see this with an internal element. that would truly disprove the op's Assertion. i think with an internal element there will be no difference
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by pfshine »

Well there ya go. Unbiased experiment shows all that matters is BTUs. Build a boiler however you wish. Surface area has nothing to do with it. (Unless we are talking about some crazy carboxal acids).
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Maxximus Flavius »

Tater wrote:was can flattened to give same flat surface area for burner as upright can?
The sideways can wasn't flattened. I was surprised that it heated slower than the upright one. My gut told me otherwise. I will re-run swapping burners. Not sure if that will make a difference as both exhausted their fuel about the same time. That tells me that the energy output was similar with the equal amounts of fuel. Thin skinned steel cans are efficient in transferring heat energy to water. The paint is pristine below the water line and mildly scorched above.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by firewater69 »

very cool experiment max, thanks for your time and efforts.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by pulsetech »

The sideways boiler wasted energy / lost energy around the side. The up right boiler trapped the energy nicely underneath. Your experiment was what I expected. Well done.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Maxximus Flavius »

I couldn't find any issues with current photo permissions. I opened an incognito tab and all the images displayed. Hmmm...

I learned some new stuff this morning. The vegetable steamer enclosure has a huge effect on the burner function. I opened up the leaves and did a duplicate test with all the same volumes/weights etc.
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The sideways boiler took 27 seconds longer than the upright to come to a full boil. The burners stayed lit for 11 minutes longer than the first test for a total of 24 minutes. That gave a much longer boil and a better chance to average the readings. The sideways boiler with the less total boil time came up just 4 grams heavier than the upright with over 170 grams of vapour lost to the atmosphere on both vessels. That's less than the weight of a Canadian nickel. I suspect that falls within experimental error and about what this information is worth :wink:
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Now that I know that I can throttle the heat by the placement of the steamer flaps, I could probably get the two boilers to come up to temperature at the same time. I'm not sure if that's worthwhile. If anything, I been wanting to test the difference in the burner configurations. This thread got me off my duff to do just that.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Edwin Croissant »

Statement: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!
Argument: for more surface area.

If I take a 30 liter euro keg with an internal diameter of 39 cm and internal height of 25 cm:
standing up : evaporation area is 1195 cm2
on it's side: maximum evaporation area is 975 cm2 with the penalty that it can only be filled to half it's capacity.

50 liter euro keg with an internal diameter of 39 cm and internal height of 42 cm:
standing up : evaporation area is 1195 cm2
on it's side max evaporation area is 1636 cm2 with the penalty that it can only be filled to half it's capacity.
If the 50 liter keg is filled so that on its side the evaporation area is the same as standing up the contents is 45 liter and the maximum head space 6 cm. The head space when standing up with 45 liter is 4 cm.

So the area argument isn't valid for a 30 liter euro keg and in my humble opinion building a horizontal keg boiler puts no sods on the dike if you use a 50 liter euro keg.

I think that uniform heating of the content of a still is of more importance.

Now I did find something that might explain the fondness for large diameter low height stills:

From: A Complete Treatise on the Art of Distillation, and Rectification by John Sheridan published in 1830.
Page 70 CHAP. III:

UPON THE STILLS USED IN SCOTLAND, FRANCE, FLANDERS AND HOLLAND

THE stills commonly used in other countries are of large dimensions and very deep, so that much time is necessary to finish one process. Once in the week, for example, is no uncommon period. The same kind of still was used in Scotland till about the year 1787, when the duty began to be levied on the distillers by a license, paid at the commencement of the season upon every still, according to its capacity. To prevent smuggling, the quantity of spirits which a still of given dimensions would produce, was calculated, and the license laid on accordingly. Thus, after the excise officers had gauged the stills, and collected the license duty, they only paid an additional visit to see that no new still of larger dimensions was substituted for the old one.

About the year 1788, Messrs. John and William Sligo, rectifiers at Leith, made an important alteration in the shape of the still, at the suggestion of an Englishman, which greatly increased the rapidity of distillation. They diminished the height of their stills, and increased the diameter of their bottom, so that they were able to throw off the contents in a few hours, instead of once a week, as had formerly been the usual practice. This lucrative improvement they possessed exclusively for about a year; but a secret of such importance could not long be confined to a single house. It became gradually known to other distillers, and was soon imitated by all. In vain the license duty was increased year after year; but in 1799 a. Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to investigate the subject. The bulky report published by that Committee, contains a vast collection ' of curious facts respecting the mode of distillation in Scotland; and the license was not laid upon the still, but upon the distiller. Since that period, 1799, the time of discharging the still was considerably shortened; but the saving in point of time . was attended with such an enormous waste of fuel, that it was doubtful whether the, distiller obtained much more profit than before. In the year 1815, the last of the license duty, a still, holding eighty gallons, could be completely distilled off, emptied, and ready for a new operation in three minutes, or three and a half; and a still of forty gallons in proportion. The license duty was then abolished in Scotland, and the whole levied as in England, on the wash, and the spirits produced. Of course the necessity for rapid distillation continued no longer.

Complete cycle time for a eighty gallon still less then 4 minutes! :crazy:


That puts no sods on the dike is Denglish for: That brings no grist to the mill

Edit: bad ocr, removed a period.
Last edited by Edwin Croissant on Sun Sep 06, 2015 10:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by Maritimer »

Edwin, old bean, you got there first!

Here are some graphs I made using Mathematica:
graph of rectangular are to circular.jpg
graph of rectangular are to circular 2.jpg
The horizontal axis is the height of the liquid measured with the keg on its side. That's with a 16 inch diameter keg.

The vertical axis is the ratio of the rectangular area to the circular area when the keg is vertical.

I don't have a keg, and all I could find were pictures of kegs, so the actual length of the filled volume is a guess. The first graph uses 15.5 gal as the full volume and the second uses 20 inches length = 17.4 gal.

As Edwin noted, there is no advantage to putting the keg on its side.

Edit: I can create graphs for any size keg.
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Re: Now turn those keg boilers 90 degrees please!

Post by MoonBreath »

Thank you Edwin and Maritimer ...Now hopefully any Newbs won't unnecessarily cut and spend extra on their already functional keg as is in the upright position ..I always felt the same keg, same amounts of the same wash, same heat source and same still head would have virtually identical results Standing or On Its Side.
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