John Flanagan wrote:
On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 22:52:40 GMT, (Gary Coffman)
wrote:


Of course we were striving for potable booze, so we used cracked corn,
currently $58 a ton, from a local grainary. You could use any plant matter
with a high sugar or starch content. About 200 pounds worth per 55 gallon
barrel of mash.


How did you crack the corn? I thought the term was to mash it?


You buy it cracked, it's sold that way for animal feed.
Then you "mash" it, which doesn't mean crushing it, but soaking it in
warm water so the kernels expand and release the enzymes that convert
the starches to fermentable sugars.


An alcohol fueled internal combustion engine will normally be much more
fuel efficient than any expedient steam engine and boiler. Lots more portable
per horsepower too. So it makes sense to expend the effort to produce fuel
for it.


A lot more convienient too. Fire up the engine, toast your bread,
switch engine off. Imagine that if you had to fire a boiler up first.


I'm not sure but couldn't you also have a economy of scale with a
smaller more effcient engine for small things like lighting at night
and a larger engine for when you need real power to do something.


John

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