Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Been thinking about getting a single or multi inner tubes stuck up my kegs bum, open at the burner end and closed at the end inside the keg. heat goes up into the tube heating the area around it, the inner part of the wash. Make sense?. Do you think.it be viable or just a waist of time and money?.

So how would that be different to an element which is a solid SS tube that applies heat :? I would be thinking you would have a lot less control too.

Whatever is cheaper/easier for you mate...

edit: Possibly an issue pressure wise too...the tube couldn't be sealed to the burner or you would have a bomb, and if it is open at the burner end, all heat will hit the end and come back out which would cause some violent huffing of your gas flame...would be extremely difficult to gain any form of control I would be thinking...

Some good points mate, I did think about flash back so to speak, I was thinking once the tube filled with heat it world be stable?. closing the end at the burner end wouldn't be a.silly idea either, heat would transfer up the tube :think:

I like your thinking mate...just remember hot air expands, so without a physics degree and working out how much pressure would build, you'd need to be concerned about it being sealed and exploding... :think:

The idea of a steam filled coil excites me :drool:

For an element, probably no point, but for a gas burner, different story.

If the tubes went all the way through, with an open end they could conduct the heat straight through the wash. Might get hot and scorch the top end if the boiler was not full enough. And if they tapered a little (wider at the bottom) it would help slow the hot gasses through the tubes, giving more time to transfer heat.
They would have to help heat up time.

We used to make turbo kettles (there are some good things about night shift, but I don't miss it), a billy with a tapered hole in the centre, they could boil in a minute or two on a wood fire, faster on a camp burner.

They could be made from copper and installed in a stainless boiler, if one was brave.

Thats pretty good thinking Googe, i recon even if you belted the hell out of the bottom of your keg boiler to concave it, that would improve your heating if your on gas ;-)

WineGlass wrote:If the tubes went all the way through, with an open end they could conduct the heat straight through the wash. Might get hot and scorch the top end if the boiler was not full enough.

Empty that would be the way to do it if it were done, Ive seen this idea discussed on other forums at some stage, there seems to be some concern that if the top part of the tube was above the wash and got hot enough there could be a nasty accident, as in the tube getting hotter than the flash point of the vapors in the boiler.
Got a feeling that might be why the big distilleries use steam if they are going to run anything through tubes.

As said dont make a closed hole. It will explode. That is why you have to have a good look at your kegs when you get them and make sure they have the holes in to bottom ring or if not you will need to drill them in there. I know there have been cases of them tearing apart and shooting shrapnel everywhere I think the one I seen was in america and all the ones I got here have had holes in them, But you can never be to sure.

I dunno if this idea would be worth the effort. Your prob best making a shroud around the whole keg so that most of the hot air is trapped around the walls of the keg. I think mac has a picture of one out of a 44gal drum.

Good idea kimbo :handgestures-thumbupleft: . I reckon that's the idea empty, right through. Good point about the flashpoint with vapours. Never thought about that with the base of the keg with no holes Kelby!, yeah I've got a shroad that I need to cut and fit, just thought of this lastnight while waiting for a run to heat up and wanted some opinions. Would have to think alot about safety side of it before doing by the look of it. Thanks for the feed back fellas.

hey dude. Someone shove mentioned a turbokettle or Thermette http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Kettle :think:
Would be Very efficient with a gas rig. Thought about this a lot myself

I apologize for lack of clarity of above post. stupid auto correct

kiwikeg wrote:Someone shove mentioned a turbokettle

Your still dealing with the same problem, those kettles start to draw, Ive seen them working, flames coming out the top. Not saying a gas flame will do the same thing, but if it does heat the tube to an extreme temp at a point higher than the wash level whats gunna happen???

Edit: especially early in the heat up before any things coming out the product tube, at that point whats in the boiler is probably at its most volatile, a mix of oxygen, acetone, ethanol vapors just to name a couple, at least a bit latter in the show there's very little if any oxygen in there, so its a bit less likely to go bang.

Good point SBB, I only thought of sugars scorching, grain cooking on them and the like, didn't realy think of the plainly obvious.
I guess you could run some tubes somewhere about the bottom where the flame is and run them out to the sides, say half way up, so they are always below the wash charge, but the saftey aspect is a bit touch and go.
In a perfect world, the heat would be sucked out of the tubes by the wash before it got to flashpoint, but some big donny burners under there and I'm sure they would get too hot.

Googe, a shroud helps. I made this one when I was mucking around with a wash preheating coil that turned out useless, but the shroud is a winner. Helps lots.


Helps most of the heat go where its needed.

I think it could be done, but the rooting around factor would be large and the cost pretty high, You would need to keep the "heating tube" right at the bottom of the keg.
You could do this by coiling it like a rope mat, if ya know what I mean. To be very efficient you'd need to make the coil out of something like 2 inch copper pipe......which would be a bastard of a job in its self. On the inlet side you'd have to make up some sort of single engine Cessna version of a BD burner to blast a flame up the pipe, Your also going to need an "exhaust" of some sort, low down in the keg at another point on the boiler. I think your also going to need some sort of chimney attached to this exit / exhaust to help create a draft to encourage the flame/heat through the full length of the coil. To get the whole affair in there you might need to cut the keg in half, then weld it back up,more rooting around. Ive seen large commercial Boilers / coppers in butcher shops that use the same principle,They use them for cooking Frankfurt's , Corned meats that sort of thing . They will heat a shit load of water and cook anything immersed in the water in no time at all.
Just my idea of how it might work........or maybe Ive just had to many rums.
Then you could still be left with this problem

WineGlass wrote:I only thought of sugars scorching, grain cooking on them and the like,

Not to mention that a chimney up the side of you still might look pretty daggy :))

Thats nice empty!, wish I had a welder, then again I could probably just bolt it on :think: I see what you mean about the old kettles now, member them from years ago!. I dunno sbb, I chimney would be cool lol. the butcher boiler you mentioned reminds me of some of the boilers we had at the cheese factory I worked at, steam heated. From memory they had pipes coming in from the side and bent down ward inside the boiler, heated up amazingly fast. Thanks for all the info fellas, brought back some memories, will have to have a think about the old boilers from the factory, see if I can find some pics.

googe wrote: will have to have a think about the old boilers from the factory, see if I can find some pics.

This just sounds wrong googe :wtf:

:shock: :))