cooling your mash

[bannonjd]

Wondering how quickly after mash is cooked it needs to be cooled and the most efficient way of doing so. We are planning a 300 gallon mashtun which has a steam jacket. How important is a cooling system built in? Can cooling be accomplished efficiently with a chiller and how long will it take to cool that much mash? Plan to do 4 stripping runs of 250 gallon each then our spirit runs so we need to cool this mash quickly to accomplish this. Has anyone used bulk milk tanks? They have built in glycol cooling coils...

Thanks

[MG Thermal Consulting]

I recently talked to a fellow that picked up a bulk tank. Fortunate for him the refrigeration worked, so it was worth it.

The mass of the fluid in the tank helped him out- it's always nice to have a bit of flywheel effect on startup.

I like to oversize the reservoir to keep from overloading the refrigeration loop.

The bulk tank fellow was up in WI, I believe.

Email me if you want me to look up the guy's name.

[bannonjd]

Thanks…I just got word of a bulk tank 600 gallons with a compressor etc that works great for a good price. We are in NYS . It has an agitator. I wonder if it will be powerful enough to stir the mash. How quickly is it recommended to cool the mash? Shouldn't it be within a couple of hours? Hopefully this will do the trick. Thanks again...

[jeffw]

Try to cool it and pitch yeast within an hour.

[bannonjd]

What is the most common and economical and most efficient way of accomplishing this. A refrigeration system? A mashtun that also has a cooling jacket? A chill plate of some kind? How many hours do we have to get the mash cooled? Is 1 hour critical or is it ok to cool it in 2? what happens after a couple of hours, bacteria? These mashtuns that are jacketed and have cooling systems are $25,000 bucks!!

[bluestar]

All good questions. There are many possible good answers. Also consider RIMS/HERMS approaches. Just to give you a few more to consider ;-)

[jeffw]

I imagine you could find a cheaper mash tun in that size with cooling. I believe the Kothe ones are cheaper for instance. Alternatively you could price out a tube and shell and tube in tube heat exchanger. Talk to Trident Welding, Thermaline, Custom Metal Craft...I don't think that route will be cheaper though. You are talking about grain in chilling I assume? Otherwise, a plate and frame chiller will be the way to go.

[bluestar]

Thermaline tube-in-tube are very nice engineering, but it is $2k minimum pretty much to get anything. But they can knock down 50 gallons of mash in a single pass, if large enough. We are expecting ours to ship in February.

[bannonjd]

Is there an issue with bourbon type mash going through the therma-line? Is the thickness of it an issue? Called them yesterday and they are sending a quote. They suggested a 20' pipe which would cool 300 gallons in an hour.. I suppose you could pipe directly into your fermenters. The idea of a used 600 gallon bulk milk tang which will also cool may be easier but would need to be supplemented with some sort of immersion system. Are you lautering? Then cooling through the pipe?

[MG Thermal Consulting]

I had a fellow that drained much of the water out of a bulk tank mix, chilled it and then returned it to the bulk tank.

He is going to attack the issue of the bulk tank refrigeration this spring- I will keep you aprised how his project turns out.