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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Auckland
    Age
    55
    Posts
    264
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    21

    Craft Brewery Fermenters Chilling



    Here's one for the group,

    Friend has set up a Micro Brewery and now needs proper assistance with set up of cooling the fermenters. Currently he has jigged up two beerline glycol chillers that as worked to date (see attached pictures), I'm guessing its about 2kW, model/details of bigger Glycol chiller non existing, even compressor model gone, but now needs a bit more grunt. He has a lot of second hand fridge gear that I have scored for him, but most not suitable for Glycol chilling.

    So esteemed work beaten Fridgy colleagues, what would be the cooling load for the following set up.

    3 x 300L Fermenters, very well insulated, as per pictures. Each Fermenter is connected to common Glycol supply and return headers and has solenoid controlling flow into fermenter switched by thermostat.

    Temperature of Wort when put into Fermenters is around 18 degrees C, during fermentation this can go up to 24 Degree C. Worst case scenario would be to cool from 24 Degree C down to Zero. But this is rare, and not all 3 Fermenters at same time. 8 hours I'm told is the "ballpark" pull down time, but shorter time frame not really an issue. And to add to complexity, depending on what flavour is brewing at the time, each Fermenter could be set a different temperature.

    I was thinking of purchasing a standard Hermetic condensing unit, and adding a brazed plate HX and using existing pump, as a nice little side project, but open to suggestions.

    But my primary problem is the actual cooling load, coupled with required glycol flow rates through HX and fermenters!

    And yes, I do get to sample the product, frequently and in quantity. Certainly stumbled from his place on many an occasion!

    Goober
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