Walk in freezer for ice cream and fruit

[Cidermaker]

Hi there,

I am looking to build a modular freezer system for stocking ice cream and fruit. There would be 3 seperate freezers of around 6m3 each.

I would like to specify my own system for a DIY construction with 150mm insulated panels. The freezer rooms have to go down to -28.

The first room would be filled progressively with ice cream from january until july. It is difficult for me to estimate the amounts leaving and entering the freezer room because we are at the beginning of our sales. The ice cream would be at -23 on entry, directly from a blast freezer.

The fruit would arrive at ambient temperature 20C. There might be 1000kg of strawberries in there at one time, loaded progressivly throughout the season from may onwards.

The third room I would like to keep as a spare in case of overspill.

I would like to build the room myself and hook up some used say, Bitzer compressors. It would be nice if they were overspecced so we could expand the freezer rooms in time and for them to be still on low duty.

Is it possible to somehow divert the compressors so that they all act on the third room to create a blast room chamber...or is this my naive thinking!? :D

Hope you can help! Greetings from Brittany in France!

Cidermaker

[Rob White]

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If you ave enough capacity in the equipment, then yes
it is possible. But you are creating problems with the equipment
under normal load conditions.

If you run 2 out of the 3 rooms then your plant will be over sized
and will struggle with things like oil flow and low pressure.

If you want full control then you would need to be able to control
the capacity of the system and that can be quite complex and not
always cost effective.

You could just have 3 systems, one each working a room and then
rotate the rooms so each one runs for an equal time while the third
is off. If you have enough equipment you could even share the systems
over the rooms, which will give you a bit of redundancy in the case
of one system failure.

So in short, yes it can be done. In long you would need to size it
correctly and design it correctly, which does not lend itself for
the use of second hand equipment.

Regards

Rob

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[Cidermaker]

Hi Rob

Thanks for the quick reply.

That is what I meant, I should have been clearer. The third room would not be powered on, just lying in waiting. I think the blast room idea is a little too complex for my undertaking.

I guess then two systems working over the two rooms then.

Am I right in thinking that come of the higher end compressors from copeland and bitzer last a long time? What might go wrong on a component like that? Seals and joints that would cause a loss in efficiency?

Cheers

Richard

[Cidermaker]

That should read some and not come!

''Am I right in thinking that come of the higher end compressors..''

[chemi-cool]

Building a spare freezer and a cooling unit looks like waist of money to me, the rooms can be 10% to 20% larger than your planed amounts of products and if in the future they will be too small, than you can build the last.

Please check freezing of fruits, http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/FN_215.pdf

[Cidermaker]

Hi Chemi-cool

Thanks for the link. Yes perhaps even the third room might be a waste of space.

There is an alternative to freezing fruits, that is pasteurising them and pumping them into aseptic bag-in-box systems for storage at ambient temperature. This might work for some fruits that benefit from pasteurisation like apple...but could ruin the flavour of others like strawberry.

Some fruits do freeze better than others. Blueberries and Blackcurrants for example.

The other alternative is to drop the whole idea and get a wall full of upright freezers from Williams or another manufacturer. But the costs then go sky high.

[Rob White]

Hi Rob

Thanks for the quick reply.

That is what I meant, I should have been clearer. The third room would not be powered on, just lying in waiting. I think the blast room idea is a little too complex for my undertaking.

I guess then two systems working over the two rooms then.

Am I right in thinking that come of the higher end compressors from copeland and bitzer last a long time? What might go wrong on a component like that? Seals and joints that would cause a loss in efficiency?

Cheers

Richard


Compressors for the most part will give you a good ten years of service
if they are looked after. If you run them hard and do not maintain them,
they might only last 3 to 4 years and on the other hand if you size it
correctly and look after them there is no reason why they won't still
be working in 15 to 20 years time. Multitudes of reasons dictate why
compressors fail, but the majority of failures are due to the installation
or maintenance of them.

Purpose built, correctly sized coldrooms will out perform multiple free
standing integral fridges - freezers every time, but the job needs doing
correctly, otherwise you may just as well fill a wall with Williams.....

Regards

Rob

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[Cidermaker]

Hi Rob

Yeah thats the problem really, finding units that have not been mal-treated, but are simple enough to fix if things go wrong. A little like the Massey 240 tractor we bought, we had a choice over several new machines for a similar price but chose the Massey as parts were very cheaply available and it has reknowned reliability.

Obviously its a little different with freezers, but you get my drift.

How do you rate Koma freezers? They seem to be very expensive but I find a few used models for sale here in France for reasonable prices.

Thanks

Richard

[Rob White]

Hi Rob

Yeah thats the problem really, finding units that have not been mal-treated, but are simple enough to fix if things go wrong. A little like the Massey 240 tractor we bought, we had a choice over several new machines for a similar price but chose the Massey as parts were very cheaply available and it has reknowned reliability.

Obviously its a little different with freezers, but you get my drift.

How do you rate Koma freezers? They seem to be very expensive but I find a few used models for sale here in France for reasonable prices.

Thanks

Richard

It's not that different really, we have the equivalent "tractor" type compressors,
the ones where parts seem easier to get and you can work on them.

As for Koma, I can't comment on them because I have never had
any dealings with them, looking at the web site they seem profesional
but if you were considering the installed cold room route I would
get 4 or 5 quotes from different companies and see how they stack
up against each other.

Rob

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