MG Thermal Consulting

There's the rub- you have to spend money for a reservoir (even for just the still condenser) or the relative higher load at the outset of the condensing may overwhelm the chiller with hot return if you size your chiller marginally or decide to increase your capacity on the hot input side.

In almost all cases, if you are running city water, the payback for switching over to a chiller is normally 2 -3 years, depending on what you locale does not only in the cost of water but also sewers since most cities sewer treatment are woefully undersized, there is going to be a heavy hit coming to pay for all the older plants.

If you are located up North, I also have offered an option drycooler for winter use that will only use the circulator pump and fan motor (like a radiator) to charge up you water reservoir, which up in the far North, you may be able to use for up to 6 months of the year, paying for almost 1/2 of the electric used by the chiller and paying for itself in the first year.

Calculating the payback unless you have a year of production utility breakdowns would be speculative, but if you have them, it's not too bad a thing to figure once you size the chiller and compare.

Mike

Hey Sonny, I used to work for a company that had a plant in Harrisonburg, just down 81. Gotta love those mountains.

Lots of Luck!

Mike

Like a shell and tube exchanger the heat transfer depends on flow across the surface (like a Mueller falling film exchanger).

The distance between the plates would be extremely important to keep the flow moving properly.

I would think it is a matter who is doing the application design.

An 18 Kw temp control unit with 1 HP pump, you are getting up to $10K (the only thing I had pricing on was a hot oil controller, which is much hotter and a much higher pressure unit).

I can look into it more this week and give you a better budget.

Also, I have a contact in Toronto I get larger chillers from who may know of someone around there.

Otherwise, the company I was thinking of builds all sorts of electric temp control in Buffalo, N.Y.

Close to you?

Just curious, how much KW do you figure, if you use electric, non contact, water heat. Are you running 230/3/60 or 460/3/60?

Mendo...there is a big range of cooling tower prices out there, too (features and "agency" capacity ratings have something to do with it.

I personally prefer "dry" coolers, you can get the benefit of cold weather cooler without worry about freeze-up as well as easier switchover to using a chiller in summer hot months.

Water treatment is another cost issue that many just prefer to overlook and "turn-off"- I've seen untreated water cut through a steel reservoir and the sides of a galvanized tank in less than 10 years.

If it's low cost you want, the fiberglass variety are least expensive, but many need to be assembled, "tied" down and have drain issues as well.

I can get you a price on a fiberglass unit, but you would be happier in the long run with a drycooler, I am pretty sure.

Mike

How many Btu/hr will this gizmo do with 30 GPM of 50F water, 190F entering mash?

The cold filtering glycol chillers I have always supplied were used below 32F glycol, usually around 25F.

....and you are able to chill both stills at once plus fermenters!!!..great performance from a small chiller in your heat down there. I would figure about that except for all that heat from air derates the chiller a bit.

Great that you're up and rolling.

Mike G

Just curious hypno, did you wind up using a chiller for the condenser or did you use well water?

If so, how much HP did you go with?

Mike

There is the "bubbling" of the product as well, this affects the overall HT coefficient. I think there are tables for both.

What was said earlier about the hot liquor tank is the way larger distilleries are going.

With a brazed plate exchanger, you can capture hot water coming off your mash cool and off your still by adding the heat ex, a circulator pump on the reclaim side and the tank. You have more than enough hot water for the next batch.

Not only does it reduce the heating load, it reduces the load on the chilled water tank.

Mike

NEPA, I was wondering, if you are running more than once a day, have you thought of an external heat exchanger to chill the mash. To try to do that much jacket cooling in a day with below 50F water is a toughie, you are going to need a pretty large Chilled Water Tank and run at higher HP, I would guess.

Unless you are dealing with small mash Gal/day, crash cooling for less than an hour with a mash exchanger gets you over to the next step a lot faster.

You pay for the hardware now, but you reduce the KW for the life of the equipment by more with the frequency you use the chiller, so your payback is fairly short.

Just my thought.

Mike

Looking at prototypes being constructed during summer, how much time dedicated will be how busy the summer gets for the bossman and how much time he can find time to tinker with the final look. First units to come out in Fall, certainly before November.

Thanks, J

Looking at the proposed HP range, $3K to somewhere in the $5K. I'm hoping more in the $4k at the top end.

I see similar pricing, but the Btu/hr per HP of input is really low due to the net Btu/hr being reduced by the heat gain in the system from the circulating pump.

How the btu balance will net out will determine if the factory has to change Bill of Materials from design to prototype.

Thanks for the interest.

Mike

..And add time (and money) for auxiliaries, like exchangers and chilled water systems if needed. Sometimes there's a lot of back and forth matching up the distillery equipment to the chiller system to minimize equipment cost.

What type of glycol and what type elements are you using?

Industrial applications are common with glycol and industrial type electric heater elements.

Electric temperature controllers use either water or glycol/water mix.

Regards,

Mike

I usually can give you a pretty good idea of the cooling system budget if I know the target sizes of the distillery equipment.

Yep, I've got 2012's still current and a bunch of 2013's.

Regards,

Good Luck,

I have a good friend down in Jersey!

Anyway, if you have any questions on the chilled water requirements or equipment, give me a buzz!

Regards,

Mike G

Plus you'll probably not get enough cooling off city water since the heat exchange through the jacket to the product is lousy.

How are you cooling you condenser, city water or a closed loop chiller? You might consider searching for a small chiller for both, maybe a 4 ton or so.

Good luck.

Good luck to you, Pete. A few are just ahead of you, but you are in a BIG State!

Gotta start somewhere...I know a couple other guys there in VA that are kicking off later this year, too.

Congrats!

Great going, now comes putting the puzzle pieces together!

The larger you go with mash cookers, the energy to chill the mash can be drastically reduced with the use of an external mash to chilled water exchanger. You couple this with a generously sized chilled water reservoir and chiller (or city water) and you're able to control the mash cool successfully compared to a large glycol chiller and jacket cooling.

If your winters are cold enough (below 30F), another loop with an ambient air/glycol cooler can be used instead of the refrigeration at a fraction of the cost of running the chiller. One distiller saved 10 HP each time he chilled his mash that way from December when he started up until he switched over to refrigeration chiller on 4/15. The utility cost saving 10 HP for the mash cooling and condenser cooling will ensure a short payback on the additional equipment.

Mike Gronski

www.mgthermalconsulting.com

I happened to be talking to an engineer I do business with about distilleries and he does many water treatment systems for caustic industries (tanneries, metal acid plating) and he basically said what was biological shouldn't be a problem unless you put a large distillery in a small town and surpass their capacity.

Didn't talk to him about septics, tho.

Mike