Steam Slayer - Steam condenser
Electric brewing systems are specifically designed for safely brewing indoors. However, you still have a tremendous amount of steam generated when boiling that typically condenses on the walls and ceiling, possibly even resulting in surface damage. Not to mention the humidity can be unbearable. To deal with this steam there are really two viable options. One is to install an expensive ventilation hood that exhausts the steam outside of your building. The other option is to outfit your electric brewery with a steam condenser. We’re proud to offer the Steam Slayer wide-body steam condensers from our friends at Brew Hardware as an option on our electric systems.
How a Steam Condenser Works:
Steam condensers operate by using cold tap-water to condense the steam from your boil kettle back into water and into a bucket or suitable drain. On the inside of the chamber there’s a misting nozzle that blends the cold tap water with the steam causing the steam from the kettle to immediately cool and condense back into water droplets within the chamber. The condensed water simply drains out of the bottom through a waste hose. The real magic behind this concept is that steam converted to water decreases in volume by approx 1,700 times. This rapid decrease in volume creates a low pressure area in the steam condenser chamber that effectively causes a small vacuum in the boil kettle pulling more steam into the unit.
What To Expect: (all of our testing at this point has been done on a 1 BBL system with a 35 gallon pre-boil volume)
Water Usage - It takes a significant amount of tap water to effectively cool the steam to a condensation point. On our 1 BBL system it required approx 9 gallons of tap water per 1 hour boil. This water can be captured for re-use, but I will tell you that it smells pretty bad as it has all of the nasty stuff that you purposely boiled out of your wort concentrated into the waste water.
Requires Less Power To Boil - On our 1 BBL systems we typically operate the boil kettle between 60% and 75% output during a lid open boil. We found that running the steam condenser with a lid on the kettle we could maintain a nice rolling boil between 25% and 35% power. Anything above 40% overwhelms the condenser and would require a larger misting nozzle resulting in more waste water. We found that you can actually tune the output percentage by measuring the temp of the waste-water with a quick read thermometer. We also found the unit to be most effective when the waste water was between 130 and 150 degrees F (better at the low end).
Significantly Reduced Boil Off - The typical boil-off rate for our 1 BBL systems with a lid open boil is 4 GPH. Running the steam condenser we’re averaging a 1 GPH boil off rate.
It Has to be Primed - Similar to priming a pump, we found that you need to force steam into the chamber to heat the chamber before it really starts working. This is actually as simple as just pressing down hard on the kettle lid for a few seconds to create a better seal on the lid to force the steam to initially travel through the unit. Once its operating there is no requirement for the lid to have an airtight seal, as the unit creates a small vacuum in the kettle.
Everything is Wicked HOT - Be extremely careful, as steam is nasty stuff and will cause immediate burns. Lifting the kettle lid during a lid-on boil releases a ton of very hot steam. The unit itself is hot enough to burn you during operation. The waste water is also hot enough to burn you. Keep children and pets at a safe distance during operation.
Why Do We Use a Side Port? - Since steam condensers actually pull a vacuum on the kettle it makes absolutely no difference whether the port is mounted on the kettle side or on top of a domed lid. Having this entire thing mounted on a kettle lid makes the lid ridiculously heavy and awkward to use. Having the condenser mounted on the kettle side it’s out of the way and you can easily remove the lid at any time for additions, etc. Just our personal preference based on what makes sense to us.
Have more questions about steam condensers? Give us a call at (970) 673-7829