Time to heat from sparging to boil

[renezig]

Dear brewers,

I have a 5 bbl brewhouse with steam jacketed on bottom of the kettle and since I bought this equipment I never got a acceptable time to boil from lautering temperature, around 76C, to boiling temp, it is normal to take more than 4 hours, or 10 to 15 minutes por degree Celcius.

My boiler is a 630,000 BTU (19bHP) oversized unit, with 3" steam head and 1" drops. According to the engineer that projected the pipping, from Spirax Sarco, I should raise the temp in 1C every 80 seconds, but it never happened. Also, in another forum, I received all kinds of suggestions, as cleaning strainers to confirm size of return pipe, and nothing really improved the speed.

Could you confirm the temperature of your wort after lautering, and how long it takes to boil?

Thank you

Rene

[Todd Hicks]

You have plenty of hp.

Why no side jackets on the kettle?

Need more surface area. On any system, you should be boiling by the time the kettle is full.

[mswebb]

what is the setup of your condensate return?

When our brewhouse supplier laid out what we needed and "designed" the system, the didn't account for proper condensate return from the jacketed tanks to the boiler. As the steam hits the jackets and starts to cool, it creates condensate (water). This water sits in the bottom of the jacket and interferes with the high-temp steams ability to heat the jacket, creating more condensate. The condensate should not be building up in the jacket, it should be routed down and back to a condensate return tank.

Many suppliers try to get away with moving the condensate with the pressure of the boiler but that quite frequently fails to happen effectively. In our case we had to build a condensate trap with a compressed air driven blow out to get the condensate moving properly. Now the condensate drains into a small reservoir with a float switch (two reservoirs actually), when the float switch actuates, compressed air blasts the liquid along the line to the condensate tank. This keeps the jackets completely free of condensate while in use. If we didn't have the blower system, I think our kettle would hit boil in roughly that 4 hour time period you mention, if it actually happens. Sadly, the blow out system alone was a $3000 custom boiler build piece and then there's the installation on top.

[idylldon]

I've got a 7.5HP boiler on a 5BBL system and can get to a boil in about 30 minutes. The kettle has a jacket and an internal calandra. I agree that you should make sure you have adequate condensate return. When I first turn on my jacket and calandra, I open a mud leg in my condensate return to flush all the water left over from the condensation that builds up after I turn the steam off at the end of the previous boil. Before I did this, my low-pressure system had difficulty pushing that water into the condensate return tank with the supplied condensate steam-actuated pumps. Once I figured this out, it has worked quite efficiently.

Cheers,
--
Don

[beerguy1]

I've got a 7.5HP boiler on a 5BBL system and can get to a boil in about 30 minutes. The kettle has a jacket and an internal calandra. I agree that you should make sure you have adequate condensate return. When I first turn on my jacket and calandra, I open a mud leg in my condensate return to flush all the water left over from the condensation that builds up after I turn the steam off at the end of the previous boil. Before I did this, my low-pressure system had difficulty pushing that water into the condensate return tank with the supplied condensate steam-actuated pumps. Once I figured this out, it has worked quite efficiently.

Cheers,
--
Don

Don, I hope you have a good water treatment in place seems that you have to add quite a bit of fresh water instead of reusing that condensate water. maybe I just dont quite follow what you are doing

[idylldon]

Don, I hope you have a good water treatment in place seems that you have to add quite a bit of fresh water instead of reusing that condensate water. maybe I just dont quite follow what you are doing

I might dump a gallon or so at the most to clear the jacket. I do have good water treatment in place (water softener and chemical injection) and haven't had any issues. I keep a boiler log and the numbers are always within the guidelines set by my boiler guy.

Cheers,
--
Don

[nationramps]

good water treatment in place

[BrewinLou]

Rene, Does your condensate return system have traps on it? Do you turn the jackets on at first wort? Sounds like you have an issue for sure. With the power you have it should heat a lot faster than that. I would check to see if your valves are opening all the way. You can check flow by opening the trap drain while steam is turned on to the jacket. Steam should blow out at a good rate.

[Starcat]

Steam Considerations

If you want assistance from people in the USA we need degrees F, not C.
19 HP is enough to run a 15 BBL Brewhouse.
If Spirax did the design and it was installed correctly, there are questions about your configuration that have to answered.
If you are not transferring much heat on that steam load [isolated] it will not be making much condensate.
Its necessary to be sure you have full steam infeed to the jacket in question and that the piping is correct and the trap is working.
The trap in this case should be an F&T style.

[dick murton]

Oh. Come on Warren. Give us a break. Virtually all of, if not all of, the rest of the world has to translate from modified Imperial (i.e. for some reason, not the same as the original UK imperial values), to metric