Scorching - Flammability risk?

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PLAYMP
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Scorching - Flammability risk?

Post by PLAYMP »

Bit of a long story, perhaps entertaining though, that leads to an actual question - skip to the last paragraph for that.

I had my first scorching incident a few weeks ago and have been thinking about it ever since. I use one big pot to mash, ferment, and do stripping runs and I splurged to get one of those Dernord ripple heating elements with the male plug attached so no wiring required. The answer to the first question that's popped into your mind is that I empty out the pot between every step and hose it out. I sanitize before fermenting and then hose out the trub or leftover solids before stripping. The point being I leave the element clamped to the pot at all times.

So I do my usual mashing and fermenting protocol with 100% organic spelt from a farm down the road but I didn't notice that some trub must have been caked on to the underside and inside of the element and I missed it with my hose. So naturally we scorched.

Relatively early into heating up I noticed what I thought was vapor heading up the sight glass. Didn't think much of it, a little early to see that but maybe that's just spelt (never worked with it before). Then that "vapor" started coming through the condenser cold (water was running). "Ok..very weird. Maybe that's...volatiles???." Never had a scorch, never had any idea what to compare it to and went through the run. It absolutely reeked but of course "maybe that's spelt, such interesting...tobacco and burning flesh notes coming through...". Got through the entire run before I opened the pot and inspected my element. Feel free to laugh at my stupidity.

Anyway this brings me to my question. I got to a point where scorching is giving off smoke that's travelling through my system, that implies some sort of combustion no? What if I'm doing gin and the botanical bag I've suspended at the top of the boiler comes apart, botanicals leak everywhere, and I get the same kind of scorching but in a 40% abv charge? What's the flammability risk here? Is this something we need to be warning about or being particularly careful about?
OtisT
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Re: Scorching - Flammability risk?

Post by OtisT »

A scorch is a burn, yes, but there is no flame. I don’t think a scorch adds any added risk of Combustion (Boom). It just ruins your batch.
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Sporacle
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Re: Scorching - Flammability risk?

Post by Sporacle »

In theory the likelihood of the conditions in the boiler to be able to support combustion are very slim.
Unless you ran the boiler dry.
I general terms if 30 percent of an enclosed space is steam then it renders that atmosphere inert.
The possibility of the smoke exiting the still and then posing a fire risk shouldn't occur as the smoke (which is caused by incomplete combustion) would not contain enough chain carriers to support combustion due to the material being heated.
Please note this has nothing to do with ethanol or ethanol vapour, this is a whole different thing
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Saltbush Bill
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Re: Scorching - Flammability risk?

Post by Saltbush Bill »

Another thing to consider is that once the still is running the boiler head space, and the still are filled with ethanol vapour.....oxygen has all been driven from the system.
Things don't burn well without oxygen.
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Deplorable
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Re: Scorching - Flammability risk?

Post by Deplorable »

As others have stated, nothing to fear from the scorch other than a ruined batch of booze.
Unless of course you end up with so much cooked onto your internal element that it fails and trips your GFI.
You ARE running that still in a GFI circuit, right?
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elbono
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Re: Scorching - Flammability risk?

Post by elbono »

It is possible but difficult to start a fire in the boiler evidently. It looks like scorpster managed to create the perfect storm.
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jonnys_spirit
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Re: Scorching - Flammability risk?

Post by jonnys_spirit »

53007251-2AC8-49EE-9CAB-87B904AA0DBB.gif
53007251-2AC8-49EE-9CAB-87B904AA0DBB.gif (5.25 KiB) Viewed 527 times
You need three things for fire.

More likely outside the boiler unless you have O2 inside.

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i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred
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