Glad to see we are both still here
No telling if I will be online this weekend or not, could be a bit maybe.
Simpler still? Electric hot water tank and copper tube?
I worked on my electric water tank a bit today, got what I hope was the last of the sediment out. Old tank, must have never been flushed. DRAIN THOSE TANKS! Most of the scrap yard hot water tanks I get are perfectly fine except for full of sediment. Sometimes, rarely, one will have a leak. Only about $12 for a controll and $10-$15 for an element, so why do so many tanks get tossed when they don't leak?? $25 to repair or $220 to replace, hmmm which would I choose
Anyway after much work on flushing this out again, I connected the juice to it. Looks like a fried element perhaps so no cooking today. Tommorow I hope to get a new element if the local store has one. It's a 110v model. Control worked fine I think, got power but no heat.
So I was looking at this pretty hard today. The temps setting on this one goes up to 170F. Remove a small piece of plastic and I can turn it higher if I want. I am thinking forget the reflux condenser now, for a while anyway. I poked a meat thermometer into a plastic milk jug lid and sat it over the top hole of the tank, filled to top with water. This may be a good way to set the temp control exactly to the correct temp I want. If I go above 170F I am geussing at the setting, most of the newer controls I look at only go to 150F, and most actaully just say warmer and hotter with no real way of knowing any temp at all. Fill with water and gently bump it up till the meat thermometer reads the temp I want.
I think the electric tank may be the way to go for many people. Although I can build a fire or use waste heat, many people can't. So I am looking for something everyone can do. This may be it, small, portable, adjustable temp, 110V available anywhere and many ways. Should cost less than useing it to heat water, and many people use them for that.
If nothing else goes wrong around here, I plan to cook a batch soon as I get the element, tommorow hopefully or at least this weekend. Once I make sure this water tank actaully works and I can use the fuel from it, it goes into one of my trucks.
Preheat wort with waste auto heat, charge batteries while driving, run inverter to power still. Not sure how that will work. Having trouble making my parts or getting work done for the other plan for a driving still, so I will try this idea. Though it will reduce mileage a bit I am sure, it will not cost money for electric. Main thing is it will work when I don't have grid power available.
I think the element is 1250watts so I figure 1500watts to be safe and that is 125 amps at 12V. 6 T105's wired for 12V would be a 600amp bank at 20 hours. Figure the element should be kicking on and off just to maintain temps (not running steady) and the truck should be kicking out at least 25amps charging the T105s steady so it may balance out well. I should be getting far more than 25 amps from the truck but I think 25-30 is all I am getting through the battery isolator, I may wire that differently for this.
My other driving still ideas (more than one) are probably much better ideas, but I can't make the parts right now and again everyone wants to know what it's for when I tell them I want something built. Good grief, doesn't anyone just do work for money anymore without being nosey about it?
Boiling the wort with auto heat I don't think would be a problem, easy to do, controlling it to only 170-180F is the hard part though. Once I get that built, reduction of mileage should be no worse than just having a second or third fuel tank on board. Trucks do that all the time anyway, so no big deal there.
I have barrels of wort ready, maybe next week I won't have to buy gas and will have some money again