Mash tun / stripping still

[Bolverk]

Not sure if it would be of any help or applicable, but I recall a thread by Teluride a while ago when he was creating a continuous. Unfortunately he passed away, but I believe the thread still exists for informational purposes. I can't recall if it was here or at artisan or SD. Seem to recall he also went with a 4" spool. It may be helpful, at least the steam generator part.

I'm very familiar with the thread. I'm pretty sure he is directly responsible for early adoption of using a tube for a steam boiler. Funny enough, that's when I started looking into building one, it just took a few years to feel like I had the practical knowledge to do it safely. My idea is directly taken from his old design, just modified a bit to fit my needs a bit better.

[Bolverk]

Ok, so I had a few mins

I filled the tun with 5 gal of 125f water and turned on the steam. Once the steam started going, I started adding grain. I end up adding 2 additional gallons of water as it was getting too hard to stir.

Grain bill was:
30% flaked rye
30% malted rye
32% Wheat
8% oats.

Cooked the grain up to 150f, killed power, and let mash for 1 hour. At this point, my total volume was about 9.5 gals. I drained the grain out of the bottom of the tun and transferred it to a 15 gal fermentor. Uncorrected SG was 1.070. Added 3 gals of room temp water, and it dropped the temp down to 110f, SG was 1.045. I'll let the temp come down overnight... I'm hoping for a little more conversion

Yeah, I got some dilution from steam condensing, and I added a little too much water to cool it down... I still need to play with how much water to add and also account for the water from steam.

I'll pitch yeast in the morning.

No issues with pressure or over filling the reservoir. The generator worked flawlessly. Mashing on steam is so easy it should be illegal

[Bolverk]

Update: the overnight rest aided in conversion, when I pitched my yeast this morning the SG was 1.058... 7.48% potential abv... I'll take that all day on a 2.2 lbs per gallon 100% natural mash.

[Bolverk]

Another observation worth noting

The educator worked very well up to about 1.5 lbs per gallon. After that, the mash just got too thick, and it needed manual stirring. I think the educator might work with all the grain if I had a finer grind, so the next purchase will be a good grain mill. Then I can do a rough flour... this will also help its efficiency, and I may only need 2lbs per gallon.

[NorthWoodsAb]

Man you have put a lot of thought and effort into this project with video on both success and "not quite there yet". This thread will be a gem for many for some time to come.
Thank you for all this and congratulations.

Cheers
Oms

[Bolverk]

Thanks!

I hope to start seeing more and more people getting interested in steam. Its really not that hard... you have to respect how dangerous steam can be if you're not being safe.

All that said, I can't emphasize enough how much easier it is to mash and run on steam than directly with an element... it is an absolute game changer.

The one thing to remember is that if you're stripping at too high of a power you will get a lot of water (steam) carrying over in your low wines, so you need to remember to turn the power down so that all the steam is condensing in your beer. This part was pretty simple, my 7% beer should be about 45% off the spout, if you pulling it off lower than you're running too much steam.

If you don't already have this it's is a handy thing to save.

[Bolverk]

New addition to the setup

I added a wand to mash in an external barrel

[Bolverk]

I did 2 7 gal stripping runs with the steam stripping still, everything worked well, no issues... I'm happy.

I'll update again when I'm ready to mash with the new external steam wand.