heating your wash "off the grid"

[choppy]

I have a mate who I am talking around to the distilling way of thinking.

He is completely off the grid and does not have a solar set up yet, and may not have one for another year or two.

He has a generator that he will use when he runs the still, but I am not sure how he can keep his fermenter warm enough for the yeast to do their thing.

The options I thought of are;

1. Only distill in the warmer months (he lives in an area that gets frosts in winter and top temps of 20 on a good day)
2. Talk one of his neighbours into allowing him to do the fermenting on their property and pay for the power usage of the aquarium heater/s.
3. Use a low temperature yeast in winter and be patient - if so which yeast would be best (he reckons he keeps his beer at 15 degrees in winter through insulating the fermenter)

He will be making TPW's only.

Thanks

[1 2many]

I would run the still of gas rather than run a noisy generator, and surly the guy has heating in the house, just ferment indoors.

[Zak Griffin]

EC1118 likes a cooler ferment... :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I would be definitely using gas as well!

I'm sure the 'off the grid' guys here that are off the grid will pop in soon enough and let us know how they do things off the grid, too :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[bt1]

Use a low temperature yeast in winter and be patient - if so which yeast would be best (he reckons he keeps his beer at 15 degrees in winter through insulating the fermenter)

:text-+1:
In winter I use a Euro lager yeast. The first generation is a slow bastard upto 5 plus weeks to finish and needs about 12c - 15c temp ambient so a normal room indoors would do nicely.

By the time you've re cycled the yeast to gen 3 and increased the yeast volumes(yeast bomb and starters) along the way it's a well trained yeastie and finishes off in about two weeks like a normal heated ferment.
I refuse to pay for heating for a basic wash...Better flavours and well settled washes are two bonuses. When well trained it worth considering washing and long term storage to save the ramp up time with a first gen.

bt1

[choppy]

It's not so much a house 1 2 Many, more a big farm shed.

I told him about gas, but he has is not keen on the idea. They have their home brew kegs in a converted chest freezer so he starts up the genny each arvo for an hour or so to get the beer cold. I think they get smashed each arvo so they don't feel the cold...

They're not the most conventional people I know.

I think the plan is to save up to get a good solar set up going.

I know there's a few guys on here operating off the grid, so I thought I'd see what came to mind.

Thanks bt1, his missus does all the brewing in the house, so I can probably show her how to achieve what you are doing and it might be just the trick for them.

[wynnum1]

Old school wood stove.

[Andy]

there are briefcase solar panels you can get. using one of them hooked to a car battery and running a light inside the insulated fermenter is a way of doing it. a lot of arsing around though.

but as bt said go a lager yeast. several varieties of larger yeast are optimum at 10-13degrees.

[Muppet]

Something like a solar pool heating set up comes to mind. Black poly tube with water circulating with control of sorts.

[northernbrewer]

Immersion coil (like used for chilling beer wort) with old solar hot water panels and a circulation pump. Or set it up with the panels below the tanks and let it act with a thermosyphon setup.

[dogbreath vodka]

Sold my 4" still to a bloke "off the grid"
He is using gas and is happy as a pig in muck.
Making booze as a hobby has got his grey cells going again.
Drops in from time to time and gets more ideas on what to do.

Convince your mate about using gas to distill.
Unless you are using bigger than a 4" - it would be perfect.

DBV

[choppy]

I've got a spare 200ah battery that I am taking up next weekend for him, I think an insulated fermenting box with a globe might be just the trick if he wants to use bakers yeast.

Thanks for all your ideas.

[woodduck]

An insulated box with a piece of glass for a lid will heat up real well when put in the sun even in winter. I use an old "streets" ice cream glass top freezer to heat my buckets of honey and i can tell you it can get darn hot in there. I once melted my plastic thermometer in there. It should work well if he keeps an eye on it.

[Marbled]

Move to North Queensland like I did and worry about keeping the thing cool.

[choppy]

There is only one problem with that Marbled - it's full of Queenslanders.

[dogbreath vodka]

There is only one problem with that Marbled - it's full of Queenslanders.

Popcorn Sutton.jpg

:laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :D :D

[hillzabilly]

Just remembered a mate in Albany lived in a shed no power he used an old kero heater under his copper for hot water and cooking crabs etc ,never heard of a kero powered still :think: maybe a risky idear but the little thing put out a bit of heat had basic control and kero is not too expensive.cheers hillzabilly :think:

[hillzabilly]

Check out this on kero heater-cooker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0HHZsOK0BE .cheers hillzabilly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Meatheadinc]

would love to see a still run off a couple of parabolic mirrors :))

[1 2many]

No go the Fresnel lens :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Oz Rocket]

Well this wasn't where I thought I'd put up my first post, but the topic is of interest so why not 'jump-in'

My nick is 'Oz Rocket' which is really about my interest in 'Rocket Stove Technology'

Dr Larry Winiarski invented the rocket stove some years ago and the development of the technology has been furthered by the Aprovecho Research Centre (and many others since) and even entered into mainstream as being the stove technology behind the Biolite Range of hiking/camping products. It's a massive topic and I haven't scratched the surface, nor can I hope to in a single post.

Ok, the thing is this technology is being developed to assist third world countries replace the very common but extremely toxic 'three stone Fire'. The technology really lends itself to building and operating stoves, ovens, bread ovens, water heaters, space heaters, food drying, Central heating, etc, etc. for people 'off-grid' the technology offers many worthwhile benefits.

Anyway, that's a very long and convoluted answer/suggestion to the question of heating a wash off-grid.

It's easy-peasy with rocket stove technology.

Before I get jumped on, I will go to the noob's thread and fill out an introduction, just not yet.
I'm moving house next weekend and being a Tradie and a builder, I have a dozen truckloads of stuff to move, and that's just to clean out the shed's. Somewhere in there is my reflux still and boiler and next project will be converting it to use rocket stove technology. I'm a reasonable welder and fabricator, so it will be a shotgun type heat-exchanger built into the base of the keg/boiler, but as they say in the movies.... That's another story...

PS. The really stunning aspect of all rocket stove technology is that it's all open source- well from Aprovecho anyway...
I strongly suggest looking at their downloadable library... There's a lot of really good information available if your friend has any interest in looking further into this. But be warned, it's very, very addidictive...