Fasten your seatbelts. Let's build the Mashimizer !

[Fart Vader]

Ok, finally making more progress.

I welded the top cover with the 4" ferrule.
The 8" hole opposite the ferrule is for the manway.

Top Vies

A bit of sugaring on the top, that will be buffed away.

Here's a side view.
The inner cylinder is complete with top and bottom. Passed the leak test with flying colors!

Side View

Hmm, notice the angle of my 4" ferrule ? Damn did that top cover ever distort.
I need to figure out how to straighten that out
I can pry it strait using a 2x2 as leverage. I need to figure out how to make it permanent.

Here's my stack of dimes as TIG welders call it.

Weld shot

Ok, ok.
Maybe not a stack of dimes.
A stack of dimes, nickels and quarters maybe?


Next on the list. Prepare the outer jacket.
Drill holes for the sight glass, element ferrules, other goodies.
Then weld the outer shell to the boiler and add the bottom.

Slowly but surely ...
BTW so far that's roughly 13 feet of welds !!!

[corene1]

It is very hard to stop warping on very thin material, especially if you make one long continuous weld. One thing I do that helps is to tack the piece out with small tacks. Then do a short weld , maybe 3 inches then move to another spot and do 3 inches and so forth so the heat does not build up as high in one area. Another thing you can do is after your tack up the piece do your 3 inch weld and wait a minuet then start your next weld 3 inches in front of the existing weld and bring it back to the first weld. A lot of body shops do this to reduce warping of auto body modifications.

[Fart Vader]

A little more progress last weekend.

Ferrule for the heater element and nipples for the sight gauge.

My welds are getting better. At least I think so

Sight gauge

This coming weekend I should be able to weld the outer jacket to the inner jacket thereby completing the boiler as such.
Slow going, but hey at least there's some progress.

[Fart Vader]

Almost ready!

Slow going with this whole "I have to go to work" and SWMBO responsibilities. Sheesh.

Here are a couple of mostly finished pictures.

Here's a side view in which you can see the check valve feeding the steam from the outer jacket to the inner vessel as well as the vacuum relief valve holder.

Side view

This is an inside view of the vessel. On the left is the steam injection port, on the right is the mash temperature probe.

Inside

I haven't cleaned out the vessel yet, so you can see some drill shards in there as well as some sugaring from welding without purge gas.

The next step is to passivate the welds with some citric acid.
I actually stumbled upon a NASA report that investigated stainless passivation using citric acid. The conclusion of that report was that a 4% solution at 180F for 2hrs was better at passivating stainless than any other means.
If it's good enough for NASA, it's good enough for me. So the plan is to mix up a 4% solution, partly fill the boiler (outer jacket) with the solution, put some more solution in the inner vessel and fire the unit up using the internal element to heat up both the jacket and inner vessel citric solution to 180F for 2 hrs.

I think I will be in a position to actually fire this puppy up next weekend!
Whoohoo !

[Fart Vader]

Whoohoo!
It's been a long time coming, but the Mashimizer is alive and so far, exceeding my expectations.

I built a support frame for the Mashimizer so that I can wheel this thing around. The boiler just sits on the parallel bars and tilts very easily. Makes dumping the contents effortless

Back view

I ran a 4% citric acid solution at 180F for 2hrs in both the inner and outer vessels to passivate my welds. That went well, I did discover a pinhole leak in the outer vessel. That was fixed in a jiffy.

Here's a front view with my super-duper levelling device. This makes sure that my (not built yet) column is perfectly vertical and stabilises the boiler.

Levelling device

Ok, so far so good. Now for the real test.
I loaded up the boiler section with water. I then leaded the mash section with about 5 gallons of water for the next test.

Powered up the unit at 100% power, 5500W element.
After about 1 hr the contents were at 88C (I loaded her up with the hot water tap @60C).
At 92C the boiler was actually boiling, you could definitely hear it and the steam began to flow through the check valve into the vessel.
It then took about 1/2hr for the water temperature to go up to 98C. I normally stop my runs at 98C, so this is definitely a successful test.
Water at my elevation normally boils at 99C.

Boiling

Here's a shot of the controller.

Success!

I've got a batch of wheated bourbon ready for a stripping run.
I'm going to transfer the whole shabang to the Mashimizer and strip it on the grain. I'm hoping to increase my yield by about 30%

Yea baby. YEAH.

Oh, yea I almost forgot ...
Is anybody following this?
I'm feeling pretty lonely here

[yakattack]

Hell ya buddy. Just been watching and waiting for the results. Looking good so far.

[frunobulax]

Awesomeness! I'm Following.

[shadylane]

I'm following you, Mr. FV
I've even upgraded you from Fart

[Fart Vader]

All right, nice to know I'm not on this journey all alone.
Yeah, Fart Vader. Should have chosen something else.
Oh well, it is original I guess.

Luke, let go your feelings ... smell the fart!

[shadylane]

Didja use the mashimizer to mash the wheated bourbon

[Fart Vader]

Nope. Finished the unit today.
Got another 55lbs of corn just waiting though.
That will be the full treatment.
Mash, ferment and distill in a single go.

[shadylane]

You going to use malt or enzymes

[yakattack]

Now all you need is a mounted sealed agitator to cut down on hot pockets and to reduce heat up times

You wouldn't by chance happen to be is soutwestern ontario would ya?

[Fart Vader]

Yup. Enzymes all the way even with my home malted wheat. The agitator is there, just not pictured. Coming soon.

BTW, just outside of Ottawa.

[shadylane]

Mash, ferment and distill in a single go.

You might even use the rig as an aging reactor

[Fart Vader]

That's part of the plan too.
Have you noticed an improvement using Google the method?

BTW I just loaded her up with 30 gallons of beer, spent grains and yeast. Just transfered the whole shebang as is. So far the temperature is going up by about 1C every 2 minutes. Stripping temp in about an hour and a half. Sure will be nice to strip 30 gallons in a single load rather than 3!

[Fart Vader]

Stupid phone autocorrect. Not the Google method, the reactor method.
Pretty funny though.

[shadylane]

Have you noticed an improvement using the reactor method

There's a definite improvement, But forget about getting 20 years worth of aging in a month

[bronctoad]

hi F.V. you can color me drunk, jealous, and very happy for you Now you just gotta let the dog eat
P.S. following when I can
bronctoad

[Fart Vader]

Ok. Time for another update.
Last night I had my first test drive of the Mashimizer, 30 gallon stripping run.
2.5hrs to reach boiling @90C (Both boiler water and beer at 20C starting).
2.5hrs to strip 19L.

Seems like a long time, but I didn't have to filter and transfer the mash, let the solids settle, load up three charges in the keggle... You get the picture.
I used to strip at 80% (of 5500W) power. Last night was full rip. I was a little concerned about puking since the level was about 4-5 inches from the top. It was not an issue.

I ran out of cash during the build and couldn't afford a manhole.
I did however find a stainless kitchen pot that fit in the hole perfectly. It was made for this job. A little flour gasket and everything was good.

Manhole cover.

Here's a shot of the whole shebang.

The Mashimizer.

Good thing to have the vacuum break valve installed. Once the element was powered off I could hear the valve working within a minute or so.

An interesting observation about this stripping run.
This was a mucky load, grains, yeast, everything. The distillate is crystal clear.
All of my previous stripping runs yielded cloudy distillate.
Here's what I mean.http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =3&t=64817

The only difference is that the beer wasn't in contact with the element.
Makes sense?

[Fart Vader]

A quick update.
I just went downstairs and saw that last night's distillate is cloudy.
It was warm last night, probably around 30C and crystal clear.
Today at 20C it's cloudy as it's always been.
Hmm.

[shadylane]

I'll bet good money, that's the first dog bowl, manhole idea posted here
Your the man FV
Did your run slow down much towards the end
Posting with FV

[Fart Vader]

Did your run slow down much towards the end ?

Yes it did, as it usually does.

[Oldvine Zin]

Well done FV What type of column do you have sitting on top of that beast?

OVZ

[Bushman]

You have put a lot of thought into this, I especially like your stand that allows you to tilt the vessel for cleaning. Sorry if I missed it but when my boiler has heated up it tends to wobble a bit as my outbuilding floor has a slight slope thus I level my boiler with shims. Just wondering if you can lock the tilting part to stabilize the boiler.

PS: Very nice documentation, these are the types of threads that are beneficial to all members.

[HDNB]

Nice work! very interesting read. my only comment would be if the strip wasn't cloudy i'd be more concerned about leaving flavour behind. I'm sure it will clean up on the spirit run.

i'd imagine you could speed the whole thing up with a larger pipe instead of reducing, iffn you wanted to.

[Fart Vader]

Thanks for encouragement everyone.

What type of column do you have sitting on top of that beast?

Plain 0le 2" pot still with a 40" 3/4" over 1/2" leibig. I do have dreams of a plated column, that's why I have a 4" to 2" reducer already in place.

Just wondering if you can lock the tilting part to stabilize the boiler.

If you look up a couple of posts you'll see a picture of the hydraulic car jack i'm using to "adjust and stabilize" the boiler. Overkill, but I had it and it's working great.

if the strip wasn't cloudy i'd be more concerned about leaving flavour behind

It turns out that once the distillate cooled down a bit (from 30C to 20C) is was the usual cloudy strip I'm used to.

I was thinking about insulating the outside of the boiler. I don't think I'll bother, 24hrs later and she was still warm. Lot's of thermal mass there with all the liquid.
Roughly 12 gallons in the outer jacket plus the 30 gallons of beer (-19L of devil's share).

[Fart Vader]

One more update.

Here are some actual performance numbers on Maximizing my mash with the Mashimizer!

I poured out some backset from the first stripping run for my next batch. I use it for pH adjustment.
Dumped the remainder.

I then loaded up the boiler with the bottom of the barrel (literally) from the ferment. This is the stuff that I normally dump because it's just not worth the effort.
I've been using 55gallon plastic drums for fermentation.
My typical runs have been 160L (43ish gallons).

I measured out the trub that I loaded and it was 16.5 gallons. This stuff was so thick I couldn't use my funnel to load the boiler.
Out of this last load I managed to strip out another 11 L of goodness. Yea baby, YEA!

So in conclusion.
First load was roughly 29 gallons with a yield of 19 L
Second load was 16.5 gallons with a yield of 11 L
Overall: 160 L mash -> 30 L of 38% low wines. ~19% yield.

In all my previous runs, I've been wasting 10 to 12 litres because I couldn't clear it well enough (for the effort going into it anyhow).

Needless to say, I'm extremely satisfied with my creation.
Going to do a spirit run tomorrow, then I'll load 'er up for an A to Z run.

Cheers !
FV

[MichiganCornhusker]

Excellent concept and build, Fart! It is inspiring to see the ideas around here come together in builds like this.
I really like this whole contraption and would like to build something like it someday myself.

And +1 for style points:

Let me recommend to swap your idea of a 10" manway, to a 12" tri clamp tri clamp and cap if you can afford it, for hookups to your column down the road.

Sheesh, have you seen the price of 12" hardware?

I'll bet good money, that's the first dog bowl, manhole idea posted here
Your the man FV

[shadylane]

Just wait until you ferment in the mashimizer.
Yeast LOVES the constant temp that a water jacketed fermenter supplies.
Mash, ferment and strip
And be able to do it twiced a week