Steam generator test

[WIski]

I was looking at another steam generator brand and they were quoting 3.6 gallons an hour water usage on their 9 kw unit. That would be within what your estimates were. Any updates on performance of this steamer?

[copperlover1]

It's still going strong. I'm not sure how many batches he has done but no issues. He had to put a big sign on it "steam generator" because so many people asked him what it was.

[cadillac7985]

CL1 said his generator was rated at 7kw and that he was able to go from I believe 40 gallons at 100F to 190F in 1.5 hrs. Assuming everything else is the same and you doubled the power with a 14kw generator, would that cut the cook time in half? Not sure how to figure scaling power size and speed or if it gets into the realm of diminishing returns after a certain point.

[seamusm53]

CL1 said his generator was rated at 7kw and that he was able to go from I believe 40 gallons at 100F to 190F in 1.5 hrs. Assuming everything else is the same and you doubled the power with a 14kw generator, would that cut the cook time in half? Not sure how to figure scaling power size and speed or if it gets into the realm of diminishing returns after a certain point.

While the time needed to get to 190 would be significantly reduced (have no idea if it would be halved) the cook time at 190 wouldn't change. Corn (I presume the grain) will take the same time to cook at 190 regardless of the length of time it took to get there.

Now if you could pressure cook the grain.....but I think creating a bomb would probably not be desired. I say the latter only half jokingly. There are a few unresolved threads here about using a kitchen pressure cooker to cook grain but the small volume of these devices would seem to make this pretty much unworkable.

[cadillac7985]

Thanks seamusm53,

I misused cook I meant the heat up time. If it heats up so much faster does the "twice as fast" also mean twice as much water being added to the mash? I would think that yes it is adding that much more volume but because the time is shorter the volume of water added remains similar? If however you need to hold the temp at 190f for a certain time, the larger steam unit would then add more water to the mash or it goes back to the larger unit would run for less time?

[BackwoodsBrewer]

Very interested in hearing any long term info from this thread.