HLT free setup with steam?

[Jonnio]

I have been reading and for the most part understand the chemical process in mash/sparge, but I haven't seen anything that could answer a good question from an old thread.

If your using steam could you do the following for your brew process.

Mash like normal
add steam to mashout at 175 or so grainbed temp
drain first runnings
do 2 batch sparges by adding room temp/cold water and turn steam on to bring grainbed back up to mashout temp

This could keep you from needing an hlt at all and from what I have been reading steam could bring the grainbed up from the 60s back to 175 in just a couple minutes.

 

[Joe Camel]

I've used steam to step mash and to mashout, my system maxes out at 3-4F per minute at 10gallon batches, which I've calculated at about 10000btu. It makes more sense for me to heat the sparge water on my burner as it's about 75000 btu and will do the trick in around 8 minutes, which is as long as it takes to drain my tun. It would take closer to 35 or 40 to do what you are thinking about but if you can generate more steam energy, it might work.

 

[Jonnio]

I was estimating if you put 60ish degree water into a 175 degree grainbed it would probably equalize in the 120-130 degree range and require about 10-15 minutes to get back to temp, if you stir throughout it should be ready to drain as soon as it hits temp again I would think.

It might take little too long though, especially if the temp drops lower than the 120s. That and my estimates were from reports on smaller batches.

 

[kladue]

Another alternative is a flash boiler that heats water to strike and sparge water as needed, provides steam for steam RIMs mixer to do step mashing.

 

[aedocw]

Consider heating your strike water in your mash tun with steam. I think you could easily get away without needing a HLT if you have a large enough steam vessel (so you can store enough energy in advance of each temperature step...)

-Christopher

 

[WortMonger]

After reading every thing I have read and taking even more time to figure what I need, I came up with the following idea in pictures (for me). I would like criticism, especially from you kladue. I almost wrote you a PM and figured this would be as good a thread as any to ask a broad question based on some pictures. So... will this work? Man I like to give things names don't I?

So... what do you think? My thoughts are that the burner will be more efficient since you are capturing more heat from it and less is allowed to escape. The heat that does come out I feel would make for a much better updraft around the kettle opening.

 

[WortMonger]

I don't think adding room temperature water for a batch sparge is a good idea, just my $.02. I feel it would take too long to ramp the temperature back up to mash-out. For something that is supposed to be faster like a batch sparge, that seems like unnecessary time added. Not to diminish the steam talk though, lol. I think it is going to be the wave of the future for brewers. It just seems so easy once the learning is out of the way.

I am starting to like kladue's use of a reservoir that is measured and then pumped through the flash boiler/water heater. With that large a volume for steps and things it could be controlled really easy with minor adjustments, and you can measure as your filling. I run out of space and have to refill my HLT before the sparge water is needed, so it is something I am looking into later as well.

 

[kladue]

Using a container for the brewing water makes possible to measure level and calculate volume of water used in each step. Simple pressure transmitter for the electronic control folks, marked sight glass for the rest. If you have a large enough container you can place all the water needed in it to start and transfer water to boiler for heating as needed with out overshooting total water needed for batch. Would prefer to see no back pressure on boiler outlet as water flow and burner fire rate will control steam temperature. Trick to quiet steam injection is to keep the steam bubble size as small as possible, I use SS screen wire for the diffuser in a recirculating mixer and you get a sizzle sound as the steam bubbles are quite small. Trying to boil with steam will work but you could apply more heat directly with a gas burner and get things going faster.