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Passing mash through heat exchanger?


Lenny

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For those that pump their mash though a tube-in-tube/shell heat exchanger...

how large of a diameter inner tube would you think adequate to avoid clogging? We've had a hx with approximately 50 square feet of cooling capacity speced out for a bourbon project that we're getting going -- I've got 3 options I'm looking at with different tube diameters for the mash to to travel though: A is .75", B is 1", and C is 1.5". I'm leaning towards option B because of the units minimal footprint, but I sure don't want to bring something in here that can't pass the mash.

I should mention, the mash that we're looking to cool will be grain-in with a fairly standard water to grist ratio, ground close to flour though a 3 roller mill, and with potential to be on the stickier side.

Thoughts?

Edited by Lenny
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I would reccomend something other than tube in shell. A friend ruined a 1" tube in shell when he attempted to pump a high rye bourbon through it and the mash turned to a dense sticky mess. It clogged so badly that we had to cut open the tube in shell to clear out the clog and weld it back together.

We use an immersion chiller here at our place. It works great and takes the temp on a 500 gallon mash from 150 degrees to 85 in about 90 minutes

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Normally, distillers use their mash transfer pump (diaph. type) to push the mash through.

Centrifugals are not usually a good match.

I would get my pump recommendation from where I purchase the exchanger, simple as that.

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20151014 182333

Old school and cheap...if you have the containers to put them in. We run our 300 gallon mash through three of these 3/4" 60 foot coils. They sit in stainless drums with cold city water and takes about 1.5 hours to cool from 140F to 80F. Each coil costs about $250 to make with all fittings. We run it with an air diaphragm pump. Grain-in with roughly 2:1 corn to water ratio.

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  • 1 month later...

I use a 250k BTU heat exchanger connected to a boiler and have no problems. My mash isn't completely clean but I do strain it before running it thru. I use a pump that I purchased that I use to pump mash from one tank to another. I can adjust the speed of the mash with the pump and I think that's important. The heat exchanger that I purchased calls for 25 GPM but can do it quicker if I want to reduce the heat in the still. I have 1.5 inch hoses and connections that I use. I did have problems before I strained it so be sure you do that first. Otherwise, you shouldn't have any problems. I am sure to clean out the heat exchanger each time I use it using hot water and the typical cleaners used for dairy operations.

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Thanks for all the feedback. We ended up scoring this beast (9' tall x 2' wide with 60 sq/ft of cooling area) from Dairy engineering in Denver: https://www.instagram.com/p/_5RElzOfXY/

Pretty sure they have a few more priced at $3,500 if anyone is in need of one.

We are currently finishing up the chilling of our first successful bourbon mash! We milled to a fairly course flour and it's being recirculated very effectively though our 1.5hp centrifugal pump with a 3/4" out port, on though the heat exchanger with a 1" inner tube that the mash travels though.

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  • 6 years later...
On 12/4/2015 at 1:08 PM, captnKB said:

I would reccomend something other than tube in shell. A friend ruined a 1" tube in shell when he attempted to pump a high rye bourbon through it and the mash turned to a dense sticky mess. It clogged so badly that we had to cut open the tube in shell to clear out the clog and weld it back together.

We use an immersion chiller here at our place. It works great and takes the temp on a 500 gallon mash from 150 degrees to 85 in about 90 minutes

From my understanding, grain-on mashes should not be pushed through tube-in-shell coolers with inside diameters smaller than 1-1/2". Anything smaller is likely to plug. It's a matter of choosing the correct piece of equipment for the job. 

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Seeing this got resurrected thought I'd follow up. We had one not thoroughly cooked, ultra thick mash get stuck years ago, but we were able to get the tubes clean on our 1/2 inch tubes without any cutting/welding needed, just using a garden hose and compressed air to blow it out. 

Other than that one bad cook, we've successfully cooled at around 500,000 gallons of bourbon and rye mashes with it. 

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I run a grain in mash through a multi tube that we designed and built .... shell and tube HE.  Absolutely no problem.  But do not stop production and leave overnight to dry.  I did this once and i had to strip to clean out.

 

Basically a very efficient system and a dream to work with.

IMG_20210615_183034a.jpg

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We were playing around with continuous starch cooking for a while.  We had to shut it down unexpectedly and the whole line post steam jet just gelled up tight.

Connected it to the compressor to try to blow it out.  Was like a giant corn silly string shot out of a cannon.  

Be careful using tube in tube to cool cooked, but unconverted, starches.  Sure, it’s hilarious in retrospect, but you are going to hate yourself for it.

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On 8/18/2022 at 4:29 PM, Silk City Distillers said:

We were playing around with continuous starch cooking for a while.  We had to shut it down unexpectedly and the whole line post steam jet just gelled up tight.

Connected it to the compressor to try to blow it out.  Was like a giant corn silly string shot out of a cannon.  

Be careful using tube in tube to cool cooked, but unconverted, starches.  Sure, it’s hilarious in retrospect, but you are going to hate yourself for it.

What'd this look like a steam jet into a line and just pump mash through it?

 

One of my operators was doing fuel etc they had a continuous cook process that involved two liquefaction tanks. Metered filling the tanks and they'd pump one into the other, by the time mash was exiting second tank it would be ready to ferment. Never stopped filling tanks and fermenters. One always filling one always draining to still.

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Milled into a hopper and metered in water to match the grain mill rate.  The grain slurry was then pumped into a steam jet assembly followed by a static mixer and piping for dwell time.

We ran it around 5psi and 225f.  If we had high pressure steam, we’d have pushed that.  However, there is a limit as the mash will flash boil on at the output.  We ended up pumping into the mash tun through the bottom.

It was promising, but we gave up on it ultimately. 

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