I have an old Pressure Canner that I am trying to use as a steam generator. I have added a tee to connect a pressure hose.
The canner still has in place the original PSV and the original fusible plug.
What could go wrong?
This post looks like the set-up for one of the “experiments” the MythBusters used to perform on the Discovery Channel.
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The air hose fails and you burn the hell out of yourself.
First failure:
The canner is designed to maintain a head of steam when used indoors.
Used outside in sub freezing temperatures and there is too much heat loss.
The hose was heating the great outdoors and I was getting a small amount of warm condensate from the end of the hose.
I wrapped an old work coat around the pot but that was not enough.
Plan B.
I will wrap most of the hose around the canner and just leave a few feet free to direct the steam to where I need it.
I am aware that the hose may not be rated for the temperature but it is 300 PSIG rated air hose.
I will be wearing gloves and winter clothing and keeping exposed skin well away from the hose.
Why do I want a steamer?
I am presently carrying about 70 liters of water a day to the horses and heifer.
Left unattended the deep frost will persist until May.
If I can melt the ice in the casing I may drop another heater down the hole.
What could go wrong. Well after the heads up from MintJulep I am going to be watching my proximity to the Hose.
Thanks Mint.
We had a fatality in our area a few years back.
A farmer was using a homemade steamer constructed with a 25 lb propane tank and a tiger torch. The tank exploded and he was killed by the shrapnel.
One theory was that he let the rig get cold and condensate traps froze in the hose.
The other theory is that he kept the tank valve closed until he built up pressure and misjudged the pressure. No PSV of course.
Whatever the cause, he’s dead.
I have the original safeties in place and I don’t anticipate a problem with excess pressure.
Hauling water in 25 liter jugs is not too onerous as I take some oats to them at the same time and I enjoy the visit with the animals.
Nonetheless it would be nice to get the ice in the casing melted and drop another heater in the hole.
When I get the water running again I will be able to skip the odd day.
and a reminder… the world is not flat.
Dik
I like the way, if you pick up the tank by the valve handle, rather than the lifting handle, you tighten the pipe threaded connection. That’s good, right?
I take it you won’t be generating steam for very long and will therefore have absolutely no concerns about completely boiling away the water…right?
If you do have any concerns at all about this, I’d recommend weighing the pressure cooker both empty and full of water, note the difference, then construct a scale frame that will both support the pressure cooker and monitor its weight while in operation; some simple sort of torsion-bar deflection meter would suffice, provided its indicating device is made glaringly easy to read from a few feet away…
I don’t think any of us want to notice a sudden absence of posts from you, if you get my drift.
The canner has a thermostatic control.
The worst that could happen is that I burn out the heating element.
Plan B was a failure also and is related to your concern.
There is a dipper on the PSV so the PSV may be used as a try cock to prove the liquid level.
Plan B:
I wrapped all but about 8 feet of the hose around the pot.
I then wrapped the whole thing up in a blanket.
I took it out and set it up.
I went to do something else while the pressure built up.
When I came back I found that I had been gone too long.
The PSV had tripped.
Due to the dip tube it blew out water instead of steam.
The water soaked the blanket.
Remember, this was outside in the wind on a below freezing day.
It was loosing heat so much that it couldn’t even get back up to a boil.
This is more of a spare time diversion than a serious project.
Plan C will probably be more of plan B, but watching it more closely.
I took a couple of snaps of the view from our deck.
This is the world that I wake up to every morning. grin
Looks pretty flat to me. But, I won’t quibble.
I have a real serious problem. I haven’t posted much in the last week. I don’t have WiFi access and can only use my Huawei phone with a tiny keyboard. I seriously broke my ankle and have been in the hospital for a week.
Ankle was bent at 90 degrees. Fractured dislocated and the bone penetrated the skin. Using fentanyl for painkillers.
Glad I’m in Canada… That kind of accident could have cost the farm.
Damn! Dik! I’m sorry you did that! I hope it gets better real soon.
Excruciating pain… I didn’t know that people could experience such pain. Easier far greater than anything I’ve felt before.
Like the old lumberjack joke.
Dik
Dik:
I’m sorry to hear that. How on earth did you manage to break your ankle so badly? Now that you mention it, you have been kinda quiet the last few days. Get well soon.
I was climbing a sloped rut in ice and slid downward. My ankle bent or broke at 90 degrees about an axis from the Achilles tendon to the anterior of the an
kle.
Sliding down caused my weight to shift forward causing my full 208 lbs to transfer to my right leg.
The added force caused the nearly 90 degree angle to develop a greater moment and move the failure forward.
I suspect that from the loading ankles are not normally loaded that way and are inherently weak.
Only thing that remains is to to try to determine the axis of rotation from the original xrays.
This epiphany arrived about 4:30, two days after the fracture. It will also be neat to see the xrays after everything has been done.
Well, don’t be too macho. Tell the nurse the pain is a $%&*@#^! 10 and enjoy the benefits of the best pain meds our fellow Chemical and Biomedical Engineers who pursued a pharmaceutical career have developed for you. Just watch out for the side effects. They’ll back you up!
No machismo… I try to minimize pain medication to keep me from damaging myself further. I neither enjoy pain nor suffering.
Dik
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I’m sorry to hear that Dik.
I wish for you a full recovery.
Yours
Bill
Thanks
Dik, that’s awful!
Similar thing happened to my wife a few years ago. She needed a lot of titanium hardware to put her ankle back together again.