Steam continuous stripper idea

[Bolverk]

Howdy all,

Here's an idea I'm working on that I'd love for someone to try. I've already got my steam boiler, so I dont exactly need this anymore.

This is kind of a cross between my steam boiler and the auto top off from AndyNZ boiler.

My steam boiler thread:
viewtopic.php?t=92012

AndyNZs thread:
viewtopic.php?t=92612

So the way I see it, continuous distillation has a few really big benefits.
1. being the ability to process more beer with less wattage.
2. Minimal water usage
3. Quick heat up time
4. The ability to easily stop and start more easily than with batch distillation. (As someone with a young kid, i don't always have 3-4 hours to dedicate to a run, so having the ability to fire this up run for an hour for a few days is huge to me)

Adding steam allows us to process beer with solids.

So the idea is that you can use a 5 gal water cooler water jug as an auto top off into a 4" sight window. It feeds into a 2" spool with a 1650w element, feeds into a 4" 4 plate column to strip your grain in beer. This isn't going to win any awards for speed as it will only process roughly 4 gals of beer per hour (using Larrys 408w pg/ph). It could do more with more heat recovery, but that starts to layer on more complexity, so for the ease of building this, just use the vapor path heat as the beer HX. Beer is the green line. It enters the bottom of the dephleg sized condenser,  then goes into the PC and then into the column. The small hx is to prevent heat channeling and make sure you have complete condensation of the vapor.

Uses the SD 4" perf plates so you can strip on grain.

At 1650w, you'll only be using .69 gph (2.64l/ph) of water for steam, so this 5 gal (20l) water bottle will last hours.

(Built roughly to scale, 1 square = 1")

Steam continuous distillation has been used for over 200 years, i think it's time we start using this at the hobby level.

[Steve Broady]

If you build it, they will come.

[tjsc5f]

What kind of pump would you use for beer with solids?

[Bolverk]

What kind of pump would you use for beer with solids?

peristaltic pump adjustable flow rate 114-500ml/min with adaptor
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mr3ZBzS

[LWTCS]

What kind of pump would you use for beer with solids?

peristaltic pump adjustable flow rate 114-500ml/min with adaptor
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mr3ZBzS

That's a really good value.

[tjsc5f]

Uses the SD 4" perf plates so you can strip on grain.

Do you have a link to these? I went looking on their website but only saw the bubble/pro cap style plates.

[Bolverk]

Do you have a link to these? I went looking on their website but only saw the bubble/pro cap style plates.

I dont believe they are posted on the site but if you request a quote they can help out. Just need to request the 4" stripping plates. They are more open than the plates that are designed for hold up if memory serves

Larry?!

[tommysb]

Hey I really hope this comes off - I have been thinking about the steam feed for continuous strippers quite a lot. I played with a couple of continuous columns, and always had issues with the wash exit surging, but I was directly heating the wash which led me to look at steam - and followed and enjoyed your thread, and the youtube videos of all the tests - very rigourous!

What's the idea of using the water jug (AndyNZ style) rather than just a water feed as in your previous build?

you posted a video in this thread, where the guy seems to use a non-return valve to insert steam into the bottom of the column - and he uses the wort outflow to preheat the water going into his steam generator. Do you want to do anything like that?

viewtopic.php?t=93402


Cheers!

[Bolverk]

So Andy's idea is brilliantly simple, it uses basically the same concept as a water cooler with the 5 gal jug on top.

It works 100% by gravity and as water is removed via steam it would glug and send down a small slug of water into the tube boiler. The boiler in my thread relies on needing to be hooked up to an active water line and needs a float valve... it works great but is seriously over kill considering it only uses at most 120ml per min of water at 4500w. I'd venture most us are coming by our 220/240 30a circuit because we can use the clothes drier plug . But you still need active water and this becomes a pain in the ass tapping off a washer line... Unless you're lucky enough have a dedicated space.

This design in the opening post you'd need to fill you 5 gallon jug with water and that's it. It relys on your incoming beer to cool your vapor. No running water at all.

This design also as a "non-return" as the steam entry is above the effluent drain. You'd need to get one of these from SD or make your own.

The guy in the video (Alex) that keg is same concept as the tube boiler just executed differently.

[Bolverk]

I played with a couple of continuous columns, and always had issues with the wash exit surging, but I was directly heating the wash which led me to look at steam

I wanted to address this separately... Ok so the surging best I have been able to find is a product of an imbalanced column. The pressure differential between the water head going out the top and what's existing out the bottom. In a reboiler set up this balance becomes critical because you could inadvertently run your boiler dry and expose the element or you choke the column and this thing collapses.

It's best to run a continuous column where the heat source is unaffected by the beer, your heat input should be a stable constant that you can rely on. This allows us to really dial in and maximize our system perform by simply adjusting the feed rate.

If you feed too fast, you'll get a higher percentage abv of low wines because you're saturating the column, BUT you will also have more alcohol in your effluent. Or you are under feeding and your low wines are diluted with steam vapor, but you have almost no alcohol in the effluent.

The happy medium is about 1% alcohol in the effluent... way better than the 2-3 let in the boiler on both the stripping and spirit runs.

[jonnys_spirit]

This is very interesting. I'd caution against using a glass carboy. While I use them often I don't lift full ones regularly.

This would be very cool for producing AG low wines that will be run in a 1.5 pot still scenario and just use the pot still as your collection vessel.

Cheers,
jonny

[Bolverk]

This is very interesting. I'd caution against using a glass carboy. While I use them often I don't lift full ones regularly.

This would be very cool for producing AG low wines that will be run in a 1.5 pot still scenario and just use the pot still as your collection vessel.

Cheers,
jonny

Agreed, glass is completely unnecessary. A regular ole plasic water jug will do perfectly fine.

100% this is just a stripping column, you will absolutely need to run the low wines in a pot and make your cuts.

[LWTCS]

Do you have a link to these? I went looking on their website but only saw the bubble/pro cap style plates.

I dont believe they are posted on the site but if you request a quote they can help out. Just need to request the 4" stripping plates. They are more open than the plates that are designed for hold up if memory serves

Larry?!

Hi. Sorry for the delay.
SD does not typically make these in bulk. There just isn't much demand (yet) for a 4" perf plate for a continuous system capable of coping with solids.
Also, downcomer lengths / weir design seems to vary with every application so it makes it difficult to make a one size fits all solution for these and not end up with a bunch of inventory sitting on the shelf indefinitely.

[tommysb]

Hi @Bolverk, could you elaborate on this

This design also as a "non-return" as the steam entry is above the effluent drain. You'd need to get one of these from SD or make your own.

-

In the piece you showed a picture of, there is no moving parts, is that correct? The waste liquids simply flow out of the 2" TC port on the side. And steam enters above that, so liquid doesn't return through the steam inlet, as it (basically) has a path of less resistance to flow out the bottom, and not to exit through a smaller steam inlet against the pressure of the steam entering the column - is that correct?

[Bolverk]

Hi @Bolverk, could you elaborate on this

This design also as a "non-return" as the steam entry is above the effluent drain. You'd need to get one of these from SD or make your own.

-

In the piece you showed a picture of, there is no moving parts, is that correct? The waste liquids simply flow out of the 2" TC port on the side. And steam enters above that, so liquid doesn't return through the steam inlet, as it (basically) has a path of less resistance to flow out the bottom, and not to exit through a smaller steam inlet against the pressure of the steam entering the column - is that correct?

Correct, no moving parts so to speak

I should have put more labels on the drawing, my bad.

Does this make more sense now?

[Yummyrum]

Bolverk
Not sure if you saw my painful attempts , but I feel you may have a simplistic theoretical approach to all this .
I don’t mean that in a derogatory way .

When you get “hands on” you will see what I mean .

Product condensing alone does not “quite” meet the wash heating required .
This is why waste (bottoms) heat waste is also required to raise the feed temp .

You will also find that ……Oh fuck ….. there is vapour coming out the PC …….. wooow ……. And that is why you need an auxillary Condenser on the PC to deal with what …..will happen .


It’s a balancing act that you have no idea of until it’s in your face .

But I have no doubt that you will nail it

[tommysb]

I should have put more labels on the drawing, my bad.

Bolverk mate, you are in no way obliged to present this in a way that I am able to understand it, please don't feel bad at all!

Bolverk

Product condensing alone does not “quite” meet the wash heating required .
This is why waste (bottoms) heat waste is also required to raise the feed temp .

It’s a balancing act that you have no idea of until it’s in your face .

I half agree with yummy here - my feeling is that the more heat exchange/recovery you can do, the better. If we look at Alex's video, and see how long his Heat-Xchanger product condenser is, it's a clue.

I have to admit, I don't love the water-jug approach, as it doesn't lend itself well to heat recovery, or that the jug feels like a 'closed' part of a continuous system. I was thinking about heat recovery from the effluent output, into the water input, and whilst it would be possible with the jug (e.g. a coil or something inside the jug), the heat of the input water feed would increase over time. If we have water fed with a pump, (grabbing energy from the effluent, also) then it is more likely to reach a kind of steady-state in terms of operating point. Is there some way to add an inlet into the water jug? So that it is 'topped off' with water that have been heated by a H-Xchanger from the effluent?

(also, I must admit that I don't really know how the water cooler works, so I may be missing something here).

Here's my terrible drawing trying to explain what I'm getting at - using the same kind of float valve you used on your last steam build.

But I have no doubt that you will nail it

Like he said!

[Bolverk]

Bolverk
Not sure if you saw my painful attempts , but I feel you may have a simplistic theoretical approach to all this .
I don’t mean that in a derogatory way .

When you get “hands on” you will see what I mean .

Product condensing alone does not “quite” meet the wash heating required .
This is why waste (bottoms) heat waste is also required to raise the feed temp .

You will also find that ……Oh fuck ….. there is vapour coming out the PC …….. wooow ……. And that is why you need an auxillary Condenser on the PC to deal with what …..will happen .


It’s a balancing act that you have no idea of until it’s in your face .

But I have no doubt that you will nail it

Not taken in a derogatory way at all man! We're all just trying to help each other get better.

Yes, Ive read your thread a dozen times at least.

Don't take the following as criticism or in a derogatory way...
I think your challenges were compounding issues between inconsistent feed rate, fluctuating power, reboiler as opposed to steam, and environmental changes (being that you're column was outside it was subject to wind and temp variations) these combined just made it too damn difficult to let you get dialed in. You were also using simple tube in shell condenser for an HX where a shotgun is way more efficient.

While i agree this is all theoretical, it backed up to some degree by others experiments. Mickieboys epic thread on SD shows that with a simple shotgun PC and no heat recovery from the effluent was possible to get 1l/pm feed rate (id argue he was running more power too, but the point I think still stands lower feed rate/lower power).

The dephleg hx serving as a pre hx would have arguably lower temps than the main PC hx and I think with the PC taking the bulk of the heat out the dephleg hx on the end would be enough to just make sure all the vapor is a liquid. It may be warm, but it will be fully condensed... i could be wrong here but nothing adding a safety hx wouldn't resolve.

[Bolverk]

I half agree with yummy here - my feeling is that the more heat exchange/recovery you can do, the better. If we look at Alex's video, and see how long his Heat-Xchanger product condenser is, it's a clue.

I have to admit, I don't love the water-jug approach, as it doesn't lend itself well to heat recovery, or that the jug feels like a 'closed' part of a continuous system. I was thinking about heat recovery from the effluent output, into the water input, and whilst it would be possible with the jug (e.g. a coil or something inside the jug), the heat of the input water feed would increase over time. If we have water fed with a pump, (grabbing energy from the effluent, also) then it is more likely to reach a kind of steady-state in terms of operating point. Is there some way to add an inlet into the water jug? So that it is 'topped off' with water that have been heated by a H-Xchanger from the effluent?

(also, I must admit that I don't really know how the water cooler works, so I may be missing something here).

Here's my terrible drawing trying to explain what I'm getting at - using the same kind of float valve you used on your last steam build.

So the water cooler works by creating a negative pressure in the bottle onces you drop the water level it lest a little water through until the negative pressure is restored, the water in the reservoir serves as a vapor lock. Its really it quite ingenious.


I dont disagree with you at all! Recovering heat from the effluent would boost the efficiency... it also makes things more complicated.

If we're being honest it takes what, a few watts at most to get 63ml of room temp water from 70f to 212f in a min? You could easily spend $100+ in parts, tubing, etc just to preheat the water a bit, and sure that's a boost for sure but at our level its wasted effort in my opinion.

This idea was to get people stripping on grain in as easy of a fashion as possible, so that's a boost of another type of efficiency at the alcohol recovery level so it's a trade off for sure. Then once dialed in, they could start expanding on the system and really push the limits of what the small stripper is capable of.

[jonnys_spirit]

Stripping "On-Grain" ->

I don't feel like the peristaltic pump and on-grain-beer path won't get clogged in this layout.

I use a similar peristaltic dosing pump for a different application and there's no way you can put fermented mash/solids through it much less the PC path...

Cheers,
jonny

[tjsc5f]

I use a similar peristaltic dosing pump for a different application and there's no way you can put fermented mash/solids through it much less the PC path...

I was imagining a clogged up PC too, would be a nightmare to clean.

[Bolverk]

Stripping "On-Grain" ->

I don't feel like the peristaltic pump and on-grain-beer path won't get clogged in this layout.

I use a similar peristaltic dosing pump for a different application and there's no way you can put fermented mash/solids through it much less the PC path...

Cheers,
jonny

Your mash is definitely going to need to be agitated as you pump to keep the solids im suspension and you'll need to grind to flour for sure

[jonnys_spirit]

Here's a link to the internal tubing I needed to spec out for maintenance on my peristaltic pump internals 3x5mm:

https://a.co/d/1VCBBly

I can't imagine it not clogging with any fermented mash material.

Cheers,
jonny

[pipes+hose]

I agree with yummy about needing an auxiliary PC (and still do despite the later edits to clarify).

<edit: the following isn't true, i made an error in my calculation.>
The amount of energy to condense your low wines is greater than the incoming beer can hold without boiling (unless your input beer is (edit not higher, it must be lower) lower than 10% abv and/or your low wines are very high abv).

I also think (my opinion, I've never seen anyone else say this, so don't take it as accepted fact) that if your condenser hx can knock down everything it's getting that it becomes too susceptible to fluctuations, due to the feedback loop of more heat to the hx, more heat to the beer, more heat to the column, more heat to the hx... (And the opposite of that with cooling).

<edit: the following may not be the correct percentage, i made an error in my calculation.>
If you're heating and boiling water it's about 13% to get it up to boiling temp (from 20 to 100c) then the other 87% to vaporize it. I think that's a fine way to start and if things work out you can make a heat exchanger if you want to reclaim some of that efficiency. You'll also lose a little bit of energy in voltage sag and heat to the surrounding air, so you might be putting out 2.2L/hr steam. Just mentioning this is case you were interested in how much that effected it.

What abv low wines do you expect/hope to get to with this?

[Bolverk]

I dunno man

This guy is clearly getting his beer up to temp with just the dephleg

[Bolverk]

We've talked about this video a bunch, and he's running a flour slurry and has no clogging issues

[Bolverk]

What abv low wines do you expect/hope to get to with this?

8% beer should yield a 45-50% low wine

[tommysb]

We've talked about this video a bunch, and he's running a flour slurry and has no clogging issues

Is there any other sources or information on this video? Does the author talk about it anywhere else? I have been wondering what kind of power he has to throw at it.
How do you know it's a flour slurry? I thought there might be some other info floating around somewhere!

I had thought about using a slurry for continuous. One thought was to make a slurry from grain using a commercial food blender. I think there's a plan somewhere on here for a recirculating sink waste-disposal unit that people were discussing using with green malt. That should work too!

[Bolverk]

We've talked about this video a bunch, and he's running a flour slurry and has no clogging issues

Is there any other sources or information on this video? Does the author talk about it anywhere else? I have been wondering what kind of power he has to throw at it.
How do you know it's a flour slurry? I thought there might be some other info floating around somewhere!

I had thought about using a slurry for continuous. One thought was to make a slurry from grain using a commercial food blender. I think there's a plan somewhere on here for a recirculating sink waste-disposal unit that people were discussing using with green malt. That should work too!

Ive asked him questions in the post but he long stop replying.

He's running 6kw, and about 3 l/pm, in other videos it shows him making the mash. He does a wheat flour vodka.

Most professionals I've seen use a hammer mill to get down to flour. Can't say how that blender would work. There are a few mid size stone grinders for $250-300 that'll get to down to flour

[pipes+hose]

I dunno man

This guy is clearly getting his beer up to temp with just the dephleg

Sorry i should have been more clear, i meant to say that i was agreeing with yummy that you needed an aux PC because this quote from yummy:

You will also find that ……Oh fuck ….. there is vapour coming out the PC …….. wooow ……. And that is why you need an auxillary Condenser on the PC to deal with what …..will happen .

I think you can get your beer temp up high enough <edit: the following isn't true, i made an error in my calculation.> but that you'll end up with vapors coming out because your beer can't condense enough vapors, because the beer can't get any hotter before it boils.

<edit: the following isn't correct, i made an error in my calculation.>
For example warming 10L of 10%abv beer from 20 to 92C (92 is the boiling temp of 10% abv) takes about 815 watt hours. Condensing the 2L of 50% low wines (that you get out of 10L of beer) means removing around 1350watt hours of heat. So you have 1350 wh of low wines heat to remove, 815 can go to your beer but there's still 535wh of heat/vapour left to condense. You may even have to worry about adding too much heat to the beer and boiling it in the preheating condenser because your 50% low wines condense at 93C.
Edit: I just noticed you said 8%, if that's 8% abv then your spare vapors that needs condensing might be more like 240 wh than the above mentioned 535. And you likely don't have to worry about boiling it in the pre heat.

I can't view that age restricted video unfortunately. I'll try too see if i can watch it at home tonight or tomorrow.