Extractor Fan Help

[albion_king]

Hi all

I'm looking to install an extractor fan in my new brew shed (back of my garage) to vent the boil. I'll be attaching the ducting directly to a lid on the boil pot. Hoping this should a) vent all the steam & b) retain a little more heat so I can get away with using just one of my kettle elements to keep a good rolling boil.

Looking at eBay, these extractor fans come in different sizes and capacities. Anyone got any idea what kind of m3/hr capacity I would need to disperse steam from a rolling boil?

As my brew shed is inside my stone built garage I will be removing bricks to fit it. Would make life a lot easier to fit a 4" fan but I would hate to do it and find it just doesn't have enough balls to do the job.

Be grateful for any advice anyone could offer.

Cheers
AK

[albion_king]

Here's what I'm looking at
http://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/130913330590

[Mr. Dripping]

If you want power, and still just want to keep it to 4 inch......search for Ruck or RVK fans.
Do you have to remove bricks?? I would have thought a 4 inch core drill would do the job?

[albion_king]

Thanks. Not sure if I do want power tho. That's my question tbh! Anyone done this and was the fan they used sufficient?

[BenB]

If you extract directly from the lid that might work. I brew with an open boiler in my shed and my poxy 4" ventilation fan was no use at all. In the end I got an industrial squirrel cage extractor fan and mounted it on the back of the shed with a small roof to cover it. I glued and glassfibred a manifold plate (MDF) onto that into which a 100mm ventilation tube went to go through the shed wall.

It works exceedingly well. A tad noisy sucking that much air through such a small vent (induction roar!!!) so I fitted a speed controller.

Something like

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dayton-Indust ... 1c59d74e58

IE you can't go too big with extraction IMHO. Now I can brew with my glasses on (kind of handy, can't see anything without them!).

[albion_king]

Blimey. That's quite a step up from a poxy bathroom extractor!

[Mr. Dripping]

I fully agree with ben here.
The extractor you link won't cut it......you will end up spending more in the long run buying a bigger/better extractor.

[albion_king]

Thanks for replies.

Even if I'm ducting directly from the lid?

I'm a 'do it once, do it right' kinda guy so happy to look at some heavier duty options.

Anyone know how I could find out the amount of steam (in m3/hr) produced by a 27l rolling boil?

[andyCo]

I mounted a 4" toolstation jobbie about 800mm direct above my 50l bolier (30l boil), didn''t cut it , steam all over the shed.
Also it gets dripping wet,I did notice it was not as bad in summer when the airs outsides a bit warmer, ended up making a chimney hood type of thing that vents straight out via some flexible ducting.
Works a treat, lid on while boiling so less energy.

Andy

[albion_king]

Cheers Andy. Do you mean the ducting attaches to your 4" fan?

[andyCo]

Cheers Andy. Do you mean the ducting attaches to your 4" fan?

I done away with the fan, I even changed the 4" to 6" fan and made a collar so it would fit into the 4" hole that vents to outside and that didn't work.
I made a false lid out of aluminium and cut a 4" hole and fabricated a collar so the ducting fits direct on to the lid.
The ducting than goes from the lid to the onto the 4" wall kit http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Electri ... Kit/p83154 which vents to outside.
I did change the vent fitting to keep the bugs out.
http://www.toolstation.com/shop/p41758
Hope that makes sense

Andy

[albion_king]

Ah ok. So it's effectively ducted to a hole in the wall? Guess that works fine as long as it's directly above the boil pot. Do you get any condensation running back into the pot?