Using steam to control mash

[bobsbeer]

Anyone seen this machine? HERE

It's an automatic brewing system made by Brumas. Expensive (about £2000), but the interesting part is that it uses a steam injector into the mash to control the temperature. The steam bubbles agitate the mash. This method looks easy to lift the temp if doing staged mash brews or just bring it up to sparge temp at the end. The video is in German so difficult to follow if you don't understand German, but the pictures give an idea of what's going on.

But could a similar system be set up using a steam generator such as a wallpaper stripper hooked up via a pid system to control the mash? I have never used a HERMS system but pumping steam looks easier to do than plumb/make a herms.

 

[Devonhomebrew]

Hmmm copper pipe with some slits in it like a false bottom but set up to pump steam into the mash. Or a copper coil in the mash with steam being pumped through it sort of like an element but itll only reach 100c so it wont burn the grains to the coil. Almost like a chileer but the opposite way around? Steam like you said from a wall paper stripper i use them to steam clean my copper flux soldering the steam blows from one way out of the other.

Very interesting. :wha: Enough to make your head spin.

 

[bobsbeer]

I suppose they use steam to boil milk in coffee shops, which does it fairly quickly. So why not control a mash. Whether a wall paper stripper would create enough steam I don't know, but I may give my one a try. I could attach a piece of V's most excellent silicone hose to the end and see how it does. Quite where to site the pt100 probe may be a bit tricky, and may need a bit of a play to get it right. I could use a plastic bucket and put a thermometer in various locations to test the temp. But the steam should circulate the liquid mixing it up to stop stratification.

 

[Devonhomebrew]

Just watch the temps i might build something like this to bubble steam through my mash for my wheat beers as ive been doing decoction with boiling the grains and i dont want that all the time im so glad you made this discovery i need to build some more magic brewing equipment out of copper tubing anyway hahahaa

 

[bobsbeer]

The only problem with a wallpaper stripper might be the reservoir capacity. I'll have to dig it out without SWMBO seeing it as she might get other ideas. Like stripping wallpaper. :lol:

 

[graysalchemy]

I have used one to try and raise the temp of a mash which was below target, it didn't work to well though I was only using a nozel on the end and not some new fangled manifold :lol: :lol:

 

[Devonhomebrew]

Hahahahaha i use the steam to clean my kegs at home because no bacteria will survive it. Steam is bloody hot so the theory is here im sure it will work if i set it up correct. Bloody people making me make even more equipment that i dont need but it looks so much better when it is being used i blame you bob ahahahahahaa.

 

[bobsbeer]

I was thinking like a length of 10mm pipe fitted to the end of the steam hose

 

[Devonhomebrew]

I was thinking something like this. Where the steamer is connected to come copper piping with had got lots fo holes of the copper pipe like a sparger or false bottom and just pump steam through to heat up when required. Good idea or a load of ****?

 

[bobsbeer]

Looks good to me. I'm going to dig out the steamer tomorrow to see what I can do with it.

 

[Dronfieldbrewer]

What about condensation. ...some of the steam will condense into water thus bolloxing your calculations a bit?

 

[pittsy]

After using my manual controlled gas heated herms system ( i stand there adjusting gas flow by hand while monitoring the temps, which was actually very easy) And because i also started at 35c and i also wanted to raise temps slowly (1 c a min ) to several other temps i learned a few things which may be useful here ,
Raising the temp in the mash tun at low temps like 35c needs the temp in the herms to be just a few degrees warmer than mash temp but by the time the mash temp is around 60c the herms temp needs to be 15 to 20c hotter and by the time you want your mash temp to reach say 76c the herms temp needs to be around 20c plus
hotter than mash temp.
So my thoughts are steam will be too hot to do gentle low temp rises , i would of thought it would go from low to hot quickly (to quickly) and you may as well of done an infusion mash if you just want a set temp .

 

[MacKiwi]

My experience using a wall-paper stripper for steam generation (for bottle sterilization in my case) - it added a very distinct plastic flavor to the beer (the only batch I've ever had to tip down the sink). I'm sure different makes/models are different, but they are not made from food grade plastic, so I'm concerned about what is in the steam aside from water.

My initial reaction was similar to Dronfieldbrewer's - won't most of the steam condense out to water in your mash? And in that case, is it really any different than simply adding boiling water to raise your mash temperature? I guess steam has more energy in it than the boiling water (being in a gaseous state), but given the volume of steam produced by a wall paper stripper, I suspect you'd have to run it for a long time to get the same affect as dumping a litre of boiling water in your mash...

 

[bobsbeer]

Like most things, it will depend on volume to be heated and the volume of steam required to raise the temp. Energy is energy. How much steam is generated by a wallpaper stripper I don't know. The body of the stripper looks fine, but not sure about the black plastic hose. Condensation should not be too much of an issue. 1 liter of water makes a lot of steam, so the extra volume should not make that much difference. And could be factored into the calculations. Also the agitation of the mash should help with the extraction, but may also extract other things. All unknown territory to me.

 

[Cyclops]

I think this is why commercial breweries do not do it this way, they have a steam jacket around the MT instead, using this to alter temp and maintain it. You could make a type of steam jacket with the use of say 8 or 10mm pipe flattened a little to create more surface area on the MT and insulate it after with it in place.

Or simply just Create a HERMS or a RIMS

 

[bobsbeer]

Well first experiment finished. I used an unmodified domestic type wallpaper stripper, 2.3kw, as the steam generator. I placed the end of the steam tube in the pan and letting it rip. I used the full length of tube so there would have been some heat loss in the steam line. The end of the tube was about 3" from the surface but it still directed the water in a circular manner thereby mixing the water and preventing stratification.

Results

Initial water volume in pan 7.5lt
Starting temp 11C
5 mins 28
10 mins 46
15 mins 64
20 mins 78
25 mins 90

So this method raised the temp by nearly 80 c in 25 mins.
Temp measurements were taken by a floating thermometer left in the pan throughout.
However there was an increase in water volume of about a liter, (not sure what expansion factor to use), and to start with it was as noisy as hell.

I can see this method having promise with a bit of tinkering with the steam delivery tube. Ie get rid of the black plastic hose and substitute it with a shorter silicone hose. Then use a copper pipe in the water directing the steam outlet around the bottom in a circular motion. With a pt100 probe in the bucket controlling the temp it should be easy to adjust temps up as required by just resetting the pid. Once it's up to temp the steam is not going to be continuous so the addition rate will be less than my experiment.

 

[Cyclops]

You have to be careful to not scorch the grains Bob, The problem i can see with this is that you will stop the mashing activity with the steam. Remember that at 78C the conversion of sugars from the grain will be halted so any steam hitting this may well be stopping the conversion.

Best thing to do is try it with a small batch and measure the efficiency :) :

 

[bobsbeer]

The problem i can see with this is that you will stop the mashing activity with the steam. Remember that at 78C the conversion of sugars from the grain will be halted so any steam hitting this may well be stopping the conversion.

True. But the contact around the steam outlet is going to be small. And once it's up to temp the running time will be little. Especially if it's in an insulated MT. I might have to increase the water volume to make the mash more liquid. Not sure how that will effect things too. But it's pouring down with rain and I've nothing better to do. :lol:

Second experiment

This time I let the water cool to 64c and ran it up to 66c. I did this twice as the steamer had also cooled.

1st run = 4 mins
2nd run = 2 mins
Edit: 3rd run = 1.30 min to raise 2 deg. On the third run I waited till steam was properly running then dipped in, then turned off after 1 min. This speeded up the time, but how practical this is in practice I'm not sure.

One thing I did notice while doing this is that there is a time lag of about 30 seconds from when the steamer is switched off to steam stopping, and this raised the temp another 1c. On the second run I allowed for this and hit the temp spot on. Not sure how to figure this into the PID settings as it will need to allow for the time lag.

 

[troutie]

This topic did intrigue me also as do want to dabble in wheat beers and step mashes

so hooked up the wallpaper stripper to the mash tun filter to see what happens
first test raised the water temp quite quick with no misshaps so filled the tun to 16 litre mark and raised the temp to 40c




then put the stopwatch on it and it hit 60 c in 9 mins 45 secs




There was no steam leaving the filter at these temps so I guess all the water was condensing in the copper filter
there was also a small increase in volume .
I have not measured the capacity of the stripper yet but it used about three quarters of that to raise the 16 litres from tap cold to 60c in about 25 minutes ish

There is a slight plasticy smell in the tun now so it may be the pipe needs changing to silicon hi temp stuff.

 

[bobsbeer]

There is a slight plasticy smell in the tun now so it may be the pipe needs changing to silicon hi temp stuff.

That was my thinking and it would also shorten the steam pipe, reducing heat loss. Another idea is to control the steam via a valve. The steamer I have has safety blow off, both on the cap as well as in the body to prevent over pressure. By shutting the valve and then shutting the steamer off you get instant control.