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Best way to chill your mash????


Georgeous

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Our mash tun was designed to use the jackets for steam or chilling water. We do this via bypass valves. It works good, we pump water from our chilled water tank in to jacket. I see a lot of distilleries selling plate chillers they dont need. But with grain going in to fermenter i would think plate chillers would not work. i am sure if you have a false bottom and do grain only no corn as they do in beer making plate chiller is fine but not for bourbon making. So what do you use / recommend? 

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We have just built a high end and extremely efficient unit which will go for performance testing later this month.  The major characteristics of our unit are high flow, very high surface area for heat exchage as well as being designed for grain in mash chilling.

 

Here's a pitcure straight out of production and prior to clean up and final fitting of attachments and controls.

 

 

IMAG0428.jpg

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Georgeous,

Our tube in tube heat exchanger is less than $3,300.00 It will crash cool 300 gallons of mash in 30 minutes.  Please see the picture below.  Our is one of the heaviest built in the industry and I would be shocked if anyone can offer you a better price apples to apples.  We have them in stock.  417-778-6100 paul@distillery-equipment.com

 

Large_Heat_exchanger_1.jpg

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The heart of the mash cooling system besides the exchanger is the refrigeration chiller and reservoir tank.

A chiller won't survive long without a reservoir unless so oversized it is an outrageous cost.

Wide gap plates are used, but only in very large systems.

Plates can be used for non-grain in wort.

Shell/tube or Concentric Tube work best.

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On 5/10/2019 at 12:27 PM, Southernhighlander said:

Georgeous,

Our tube in tube heat exchanger is less than $3,300.00 It will crash cool 300 gallons of mash in 30 minutes.  Please see the picture below.  Our is one of the heaviest built in the industry and I would be shocked if anyone can offer you a better price apples to apples.  We have them in stock.  417-778-6100 paul@distillery-equipment.com

 

Large_Heat_exchanger_1.jpg

Paul, 

i am confused a bit by this photo and not sure of its mechanics. Is the small tube for the wort and the large for the cooling of vice versa. Also how much wort gets lost in chiller? Also how many feet of chilling is this?

 

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Coolant on the shell side, the small opening that's perpendicular.

The wort or mash to be cooled goes through the large opening.

If you chase with water, you'll have very low losses, and cleanup will be much easier.

Product goes through the cooler like going up or down a staircase, the cooling sections are only on the straight sections.

This type of cooler was made popular by the dairy industry, because it is a highly sanitary design that allows for inspection and breakdown.

 

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24 minutes ago, Silk City Distillers said:

Coolant on the shell side, the small opening that's perpendicular.

The wort or mash to be cooled goes through the large opening.

If you chase with water, you'll have very low losses, and cleanup will be much easier.

Product goes through the cooler like going up or down a staircase, the cooling sections are only on the straight sections.

This type of cooler was made popular by the dairy industry, because it is a highly sanitary design that allows for inspection and breakdown.

 

Back in my homebrewing days i built a tube in tube chiller by placing 20feet of 3/8 copper tubing inside 20 ft of 3/4" garden hose and coiled around a round a cornelius keg. The wort passed through the innner copper tubing in one direction and the cooling water through the larger garden hose in opposite direction. This allowed more than double the amount of cooling to wort  ration in a counter flow. It was very efficient. this is what grainfather includes with all their systems today. That is why i am confused why in why the big tube is for wort in the above chiller

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1 minute ago, Silk City Distillers said:

Solids in a grain mash can plug, we are talking about grain-in mash, not wort.

right i understand, but in that case i would think 1.5 inner for grain in mash and 2" or bigger for cooling. but on these are they run in counter flow so grain in mash goes from top down or vice versa and cooling water come in the opposite direction?

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2 hours ago, Silk City Distillers said:

Coolant on the shell side, the small opening that's perpendicular.

The wort or mash to be cooled goes through the large opening.

If you chase with water, you'll have very low losses, and cleanup will be much easier.

Product goes through the cooler like going up or down a staircase, the cooling sections are only on the straight sections.

This type of cooler was made popular by the dairy industry, because it is a highly sanitary design that allows for inspection and breakdown.

 

Georgeous,  Silks gives a perfect description of how it works.  We have sold around 30 of these and they work really well with mash or wort.  They do not clog with 2lb to the gallon corn mash.  In fact, as far as I know non of our customers has ever had one of these clog.

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2 hours ago, Georgeous said:

 That is why i am confused why in why the big tube is for wort in the above chiller

The inner tube is for wort or mash and the space between the outer and inner tube (the shell) is for coolant.  The coolant flows counterflow to the wort or mash.  This is the way that Silk explained it: "

"Coolant on the shell side, the small opening that's perpendicular."

"The wort or mash to be cooled goes through the large opening."

 That is a very strait forward explanation, but I think that you misunderstood him somehow.  Either that or I am missing something. 

There is a little over 40 ft of 2" inner tube in the current model.

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1 hour ago, Georgeous said:

paul, 

you wrote wort or mash goes through small side 

Silk wrote it goes through large side

 

which is correct?

 

 

Georgeous, 

It's a standard tube in shell set-up. The large opening on the end is for the mash. I think what is throwing you off is that the inlet for coolant is smaller. This is indeed the case but the inlet connects to the much wider shell. Easy peasy.

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On 5/12/2019 at 10:53 AM, Glenlyon said:

Although we don't have one of Paul's - we do have such a device and it works like a charm with our wheat/barley mashes.

Glenlyon, how big is your chiller ?

Do you use a reservoir tank ? How big?

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Amount of mash /desired set point go into calculation.  In your area (MN) I would look at an ambient glycol cooler  that will do almost all of the cooling, or enough to finish it up with your chiller or city water.

I am doing a 5000 Gal mash cooling now, using a 40 ton hybrid ambient and 60 ton chiller in two stages to get the job done.  Using 5000 reservoir (2- 2500 gal with pumps and control center. 

The cooler is a two stage device, hybrid cooler lead circuit.

Another month or so before shipment, Hope to have photos shortly after.  

For a chiller coupled to a reservoir, figure on doubling the volume of reservoir to mash. Other considerations make the reservoir larger.

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GeorgeousThis is what I wrote:  The inner tube is for wort or mash and the space between the outer and inner tube (the shell) is for coolant.  The coolant flows counterflow to the wort or mash." 

Saying that the mash goes through the large side or small side would not be something that I would say because that statement does not adequately explain how it works.  In fact it is very confusing.  There is a tube side and a shell side.  Those are the only sides.  The shell side is a much smaller space by volume.  The tube side is a smaller diameter but contains more space by volume, therefore saying that the mash goes through the small side or large side is meaningless.  Do you follow now?

 

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On 5/12/2019 at 10:54 AM, Southernhighlander said:

The inner tube is for wort or mash and the space between the outer and inner tube (the shell) is for coolant.  The coolant flows counterflow to the wort or mash.  This is the way that Silk explained it: "

"Coolant on the shell side, the small opening that's perpendicular."

"The wort or mash to be cooled goes through the large opening."

 That is a very strait forward explanation, but I think that you misunderstood him somehow.  Either that or I am missing something. 

There is a little over 40 ft of 2" inner tube in the current model.

Paul, I was not trying to offend you or accuse you,  above you wrote that the inner tube is for wort or mash. i assume the inner tube is the small tube. maybe we are talking symantecs

see illustration for my understanding from using these for chilling my home brewed beer. the inner tube aka the small tube wort or mash goes in hot comes out cold 

the outer tube the shell cold water enters cold in opposite direction surrounding inner tube and comes hot

 

I just don't understand the pictures i see of yours. looks like there is a perforated plate with holes in where the wort goes in

questions

1. tube where mash goes in what in diameter of tube? i think you wrote 2inches above

2. tube or shell where chilled water or glycol goes through, what is diameter? 

3. this tube or shell does it completely surround inner tube as in attached diagram

4. how many total feet of piping is does the mash pass through; you answered 40ft 

5. i see that mash attaches via tri clover sanitary fitting, how does the chilling water attach via the perpendicular inlets?

 

 

Image result for how tube in tube chiller works

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14 hours ago, Southernhighlander said:

GeorgeousThis is what I wrote:  The inner tube is for wort or mash and the space between the outer and inner tube (the shell) is for coolant.  The coolant flows counterflow to the wort or mash." 

Saying that the mash goes through the large side or small side would not be something that I would say because that statement does not adequately explain how it works.  In fact it is very confusing.  There is a tube side and a shell side.  Those are the only sides.  The shell side is a much smaller space by volume.  The tube side is a smaller diameter but contains more space by volume, therefore saying that the mash goes through the small side or large side is meaningless.  Do you follow now?

 

ok just saw this. i guess this answers my questions. so with less space per volume on the shell that is different then what i am use too with counter flow chillers. like i wrote prior in beer brewing a 3/8" copper tubing went through a 3/4" garden hose. over twice as much cooling passed then wort via 20 feet of copper and garden hose this would instantly drop the temp from boil 212°F to ground water + - 2°F

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Georgeous,

You did not offend me in any way.  I am very strait forward.  In person I come across as strait forward but friendly, because I smile and my body language is friendly, however I think sometimes when writing I come off a different way because I am so direct.  

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19 hours ago, twalshact said:

Glenlyon, how big is your chiller ?

Do you use a reservoir tank ? How big?

We don't have a mechanical chiller. Instead our (approx 400') closed loop system is cooled by a large outdoor pond - about the size of a swimming pool. The coolant itself is water and ethanol. The system runs all of the time and can cool the wort cooler, a couple of stills and the mash tun all at the same time. It has however, reached it's limits and if I wanted to add anything else, I would have to redesign it a bit. 

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