Material for steam header, other main lines. Stainless or Schedule 40?

jocko

Hello! I was intending on doing stainless for steam supply header and return.  My welder suggested Schedule 40, as it's low-pressure steam and the Schedule 40 costs much less. The various valves, traps, etc. are not stainless so I'm thinking this might be a good direction.  3" main is going to be big money in stainless, as well as stainless flanges, etc.
Any thoughts/recommendations?

Kindred-Spirits

Typically schedule 40 is fine for supply side of the steam system. Schedule 80 is recommended for the condensate return, as the condensate slamming around has more of an effect on the joints of the piping.
Just curious, do you plan on doing steam injection into your still? If not why go stainless?
Also if you are going with steam injection you need to make sure you have all the requirements for getting clean steam into your mash (Filtering/No harsh chemicals in boiler/extremely clean boiler/etc)
If not going for clean steam I would recommend switching over to carbon steel piping, it will save you a bunch of money and will last a long time.

jocko

Thanks.  No plan for steam injection.

Kindred-Spirits

In that case, I would go with the carbon steel. All of the fittings will be considerably cheaper too. If you need help coming up with your piping diagram let me know.

Mechengineer_81

only case  where i have seen stainless to have an advantage over sched 40/80 carbon steel welded pipe is if you use low pressure steam and want to use a system like the viega propress SS that can be installed without welding and is significantly lighter on the steam side.
advantages being you can install yourself without welding or threading a bunch of pipe, and if you are doing culinary steam injections or direct steam sparging. down side is like you said the boiler and steam equipment is still usually all carbon steel still.
I did a system for a client once for all culinary steam and we actually had to do stainless boiler tubes and traps and condensate return. it gets to be really spendy from a equipment standpoint.

SlickFloss

We have all stainless lines in our facility, use a lot of direct injection
Expensive