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Invisiblelaughingsol
Dirt Farmer


Registered: 01/01/12
Posts: 389
Loc: The beautiful hills of Io...
Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit
    #18805333 - 09/05/13 09:41 PM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Here's an untested, nearly finished project I've been working on for preparing sawdust bags for inoculation.  The bags will sit on this product from Farmtek. There will be three layers, separated by the same polypropylene panels, and the whole unit should hold about 216 5lb sawdust bags, or just over 1/2 a ton of sawdust. Let me know what y'all think.

So I started with a 55 gallon stainless steel closed head drum.  4 6" SS threaded on one end pipe nipples were welded on nearish the bottom.


Short SS pipes threaded into the existing bung holes of the drum.


Here I've fitted a 4" thick aluminum sandwiched foam block salvaged from a walk-in cooler over the pipe nipples.


And the drum is now wrapped in the same panels.


Adding some sight glasses to the pipe nipples for water level observation.


Sight glasses and ball valve installed.


A shot of the boiler steam output and a 5 psi blowout valve installed on the smaller pipe.


Close-up of the blowout valve.


The insulated boiler.


This is the 160,000 btu propane burner to heat the boiler water.


The propane burner sits in the bottom of this concrete structure which supports the boiler.


Here's the insulated boiler sitting on the concrete support structure.


Beginning the construction of the table to support the substrate to substrate to be steamed.


And the table is more complete.


A shot of a leg reinforcement.


The bottom insulation block is installed on the table- same stuff as I used to wrap the boiler.


This photo shows the attachment of the steamer box liner (HDPE greenhouse covering remnant) to the steam output of the boiler-  stainless steel worm drive hose clamp.


Steamer box sides installed and the liner pulled out of the way.


All four sides of the steamer box installed and the liner tucked out of the way.


Two photos of the inside corner where the steam enters from the boiler.  The whole table is slanted in the direction of this corner, so condensate should drain back into the boiler.


Three pics of the output from the steamer box.  This is a small stainless steel pipe (1/8, 3 ft) with additional perforations added near each end.


And here is a pic of the finished steamer box.  The output pipe shown above goes inside the plastic steamer box liner and carries excess steam out of the insulated box.  This is an open system- steam goes into the box from the boiler and exits through a much smaller pipe.  I'm hoping this will create a small pressure differential and keep the steam active.


Two angles of the finished low pressure steam sterilization unit.


If you're wondering about the cobbled together fence, it's to protect the unit and the operator from near certain destruction by this demon beast.


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Offlinet3chnobily
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: laughingsol]
    #18806443 - 09/06/13 07:48 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Very pro looking work.  Keep an eye on that poly/hose clamp seal as it will get very soft at temperature and may fail.  A rubber or silicone liner would be better but give it a shot.

What is the capacity of your steam box? 

How are you supporting the farmtek panels?


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Offlinedrake89
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: t3chnobily]
    #18806639 - 09/06/13 09:10 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Not how I would have done it but very cool none the less :zaphod:  +1 for goat pic


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Fiery Fungi (like us on faeboo)


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Invisiblesolarity
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: drake89] * 1
    #18806804 - 09/06/13 10:04 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Very nice, but very expensive I think(the boiler and the goat!)

Are you not worried about those insulation blocks melting/catching on fire?

Also will you not have to babysit the thing for 12hrs? I use a sauna steam generator a few controls and a big tank, I run it overnight to use the cheap electricity. The controls mean it can be set for pasteurise or sterilise


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Commercial exotics farmer for 8 years - now sold up!


Edited by solarity (09/06/13 10:07 AM)


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Invisiblelaughingsol
Dirt Farmer


Registered: 01/01/12
Posts: 389
Loc: The beautiful hills of Io...
Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: solarity]
    #18808200 - 09/06/13 04:49 PM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

t3chnobily said:
Very pro looking work.  Keep an eye on that poly/hose clamp seal as it will get very soft at temperature and may fail.  A rubber or silicone liner would be better but give it a shot.

What is the capacity of your steam box? 

How are you supporting the farmtek panels?




Yeah, if the liner melts, I expect it to be around the hose clamp- no way of knowing just yet.

Capacity is 216 large aloha bags, could potentially stretch that to a fourth layer which would make 288- but my initial experiments will be with 216.

The bottom layer of farmtek panels will sit of the liner- the next two layers will sit on the bags themselves.


Quote:

solarity said:
Very nice, but very expensive I think(the boiler and the goat!)

Are you not worried about those insulation blocks melting/catching on fire?

Also will you not have to babysit the thing for 12hrs? I use a sauna steam generator a few controls and a big tank, I run it overnight to use the cheap electricity. The controls mean it can be set for pasteurise or sterilise




The stainless drum cost about $200 delivered to my door from www.bubbasbarrels.com. ; I have $40 in the TIG welding.  My McMaster Carr order was ~$200.  Greenhouse plastic remnant was $60 from farmtek, and the polypro panels will add about $120 and I put about $40 of concrete into the support. Everything else was salvaged.  So just about 600 federally sanctioned dollars into the project.....
Chai goat, now she's cheap.  I spend about $50 to buy her hay every winter- other than that, shes on her own. I guess it is expensive when she breaks into the house and starts destroying stuff, but she never tries to destroy the stuff I actually care deeply about.

I'm not too worried about the insulation melting, you can pour boiling water into Styrofoam cups after all, and they are faced with aluminum, so the Styrofoam is never actually in contact with the steam even if the liner fails.  They won't catch on fire because they won't ever have a flame near them.  I suppose the pictures don't really show it, but the front insulation panel wrapping the boiler has galvanized steel along the bottom edge and even that will be a good 8" from the propane burner.

I don't really plan on babysitting it.  I figure total runtime to be about 10 hours, which means being home working in the yard/garden for a full day... which is what I do every time I get the chance- I may have to add water once per run, and I'll probably have to change propane tanks once or twice unless I get a new one, but ultimately I'm just boiling water for 8 hours.  It doesn't get a whole lot simpler than that.


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Edited by laughingsol (09/06/13 05:03 PM)


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Invisiblesolarity
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: laughingsol]
    #18810419 - 09/07/13 03:44 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Yep it was the flame next to the foam that I was asking about.

How are you separating your bags? I like to lay mine flat so they are as thin as possible to cut down heat penetration time - esp when making spawn, but I have an issue then with shelving that I have not yet solved completely.


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Commercial exotics farmer for 8 years - now sold up!


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Invisiblelaughingsol
Dirt Farmer


Registered: 01/01/12
Posts: 389
Loc: The beautiful hills of Io...
Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: solarity]
    #18810675 - 09/07/13 07:20 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

solarity said:
How are you separating your bags? I like to lay mine flat so they are as thin as possible to cut down heat penetration time - esp when making spawn, but I have an issue then with shelving that I have not yet solved completely.




Currently, I'm hoping that I can get away without spacers by just setting up the bags so none of them are touching.  I think the grid of the polypropylene panels will help keep things lined up.  It may be too much of a time sink when I actually try this, so my first thought about spacers will be to find something free thats about a 1/4" thick.  Actually.... I have a bunch of ceramic tiles leftover from an art project that would probably work great as spacers.  I'll try those if I think I need spacers.

I definitely see where your head is at with laying the bags flat, but I'm going to be testing this setup with the bags vertical.  Much of the inspiration for this design came from sparkle's epic thread about bulk sterilization under tarps.


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Offlinedrake89
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: laughingsol]
    #18811077 - 09/07/13 10:20 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

i'm sure you've done your math and stuff, but I can only fit 50 five pound bags in a 100 gal sterilizer, so I guess you'll find out when you get it up and running.  You might want to consider sheet trays like they use in restaurants, they make perforated ones, and they are immensely helpful when you're alone.


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Invisiblelaughingsol
Dirt Farmer


Registered: 01/01/12
Posts: 389
Loc: The beautiful hills of Io...
Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: drake89]
    #18811109 - 09/07/13 10:32 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

drake89 said:
i'm sure you've done your math and stuff, but I can only fit 50 five pound bags in a 100 gal sterilizer, so I guess you'll find out when you get it up and running.  You might want to consider sheet trays like they use in restaurants, they make perforated ones, and they are immensely helpful when you're alone.




The inside dimensions of this unit rough out around 350 gallons of space- the steamer box is essentially 6'x 4'x 2' -and I won't be dealing with the wasted space associated with the curves of a cylinder. 

Now the sheet trays, that sounds interesting.  Can you tell me more about them and how you would envision them being used?


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Offlinedrake89
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: laughingsol]
    #18811797 - 09/07/13 02:28 PM (10 years, 4 months ago)



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Fiery Fungi (like us on faeboo)


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Offlinet3chnobily
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: drake89]
    #18813122 - 09/07/13 09:39 PM (10 years, 4 months ago)

I use them also in my RR style sterilizer.  The cats ass


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Invisiblelaughingsol
Dirt Farmer


Registered: 01/01/12
Posts: 389
Loc: The beautiful hills of Io...
Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: drake89]
    #18813284 - 09/07/13 10:30 PM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

drake89 said:
helps loading/unloading.  http://www.webstaurantstore.com/advance-tabco-18-8p-26-full-size-perforated-sheet-pan-18-gauge-aluminum/109188P26.html




Yeah, I may have to consider something like that because I'll likely be operating this alone.  If I had a partner to help me I would just carry the bags right on the polypro panels.


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Offlinet3chnobily
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: laughingsol]
    #18814064 - 09/08/13 05:31 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

How stiff are those panels.  Was looking at them for decking for my PVC  grow room shelves.


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Invisiblelaughingsol
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Registered: 01/01/12
Posts: 389
Loc: The beautiful hills of Io...
Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: t3chnobily]
    #18814139 - 09/08/13 07:01 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

t3chnobily said:
How stiff are those panels.  Was looking at them for decking for my PVC  grow room shelves.




They're reasonably stiff.  I've seen tables and shelves made with these, supported around the perimeter of the panel and with supports every two feet down the length of the table.  If you were to say jump on the center, it would break.  But they would easily support any substrate you would put on them.  I think they would be excellent for grow room shelves but you'd want supports every two feet.


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Offlinedrake89
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: laughingsol]
    #18814702 - 09/08/13 11:02 AM (10 years, 4 months ago)

cinder blocks, 1/2" conduit, and linen shelving was the cheapest way I could figure to hold sawdust blocks.


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InvisibleChainsaw
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: laughingsol]
    #18820415 - 09/09/13 07:47 PM (10 years, 4 months ago)

Excellent looking set-up my friend can't wait until it's fired up!

Don't forget about straw if you wanna try that first http://www.gltenviro.com/products/poly-duct-7317 has a good deal on bags. 20" is the way to go. I learned you gotta really pack them too, like these guys do https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=EBcqnBOrY2Y


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Offlinet3chnobily
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: Chainsaw]
    #18820627 - 09/09/13 08:24 PM (10 years, 4 months ago)

My last grow room had craft made shelves and there a pita to clean thoroughly. Plus they get rusty and are fairly expensive.  Going with 1.5 " PVC shelves with some type of decking this time around.  Will post build within the week!


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Invisibleazur
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: laughingsol]
    #21259341 - 02/11/15 04:02 PM (8 years, 11 months ago)

How about an update?


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OfflineOldYamaha
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Re: Low Pressure Steam Sterilization Unit [Re: azur]
    #23435930 - 07/12/16 07:53 PM (7 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

azur said:
How about an update?


No reply needed, just putting in a placeholder for myself for the info.


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