yet another brewery concept

[Kaiser]

Well, I also went to the drawing board to come up with a concept for my future brewery replacement. I don't really have the funds yet, but I have the space in the basement and just like the idea to think about thinks like this. The design is heavily influenced by what I see on a German home brewing board. The following design aspects were important for me:

- stirred mash: I expect a better grain utilization and temperature distribution than one can get with a RMS/HERMS system. The former seems important when working will less modified malts.

- electric heating: this is more of a safety issue since I don't want to worry about proper venting and I'm also feeling more confidant working with electricity. The additional cost should be marginal if I insulate the vessels well.

- A boil kettle with a center heating element for boiling. The heat application in the center will cause an even circulation of the wort just like in commercial systems

- A vented hood for the boil kettle since the unit is operated indoors

- A capacity of 10 or 20 gal max. I'm not quite decided on the capacity that I need. I certainly want to start making 10 gal or even bigger batches, but like the 5gal size for testing recipes. The latter is difficult on a 20gal system.

Here is a crude drawing:

The MLT is on the far left so I could have a chute for the milled grains from the garage. The idea is to minimize the bacteria laden grain dust in the actual brew house. But this is only a nice to have. A motor with gear drives a stirrer that keeps the mash in motion during mashing. The mash is heated with an electrical heating element below the MLT. The stirrer makes it difficult to get the heating element into the mash. It also simplifies cleaning. Gear and motor are mounted on the lid, which is fixed to the pot with a few bolts (bolts need to be welded to the pot). A copper manifold or braided SS hose is used a manifold for lautering. A false bottom would get in the way of the stirrer and I'm fine with just batch sparging. The good thing is, that the MLT can also be used as cooker for decoction mashing since it can be heated to a boil and can be stirred continuously. I simply have to remove the part of the mash that I don't want to decoct.

A single pump can be used to recirculate, move the wort to the boil kettle, move sparge water into the MLT, recirculate the post boil wort for chilling and more the wort to the fermenter.

The boil kettle has 2 separate heating elements. The inner and outer will be used to heat the wort to boiling and the inner will be used to boil the wort. The even circulation of the wort will make for a more efficient boil while keeping the thermal loading on the wort minimal. I'll have to calculate the anticipated W/m^2 to see if I have to worry about scorching.

I plan to do the chilling of the wort either with an immersion chiller while recirculating the wort or with a CFC placed in the wort's path while recirculating. This will allow me to leave hot and most of the cold break in the boil kettle and it also gets me out of the DMS production zone pretty fast.

I'll post updates once I have them. But one of the early exercises would be coming up with a parts list, an estimate and where to get various parts.

Kai

 

[SwAMi75]

Yeah, real "crude". I'm contemplating building one from scrap bedframes.

Kidding aside, that looks friggin' incredible. You'll need quite a manifold to do all that with one pump. How will that work?

 

[RichBrewer]

That looks great Kai!
Have you thought about an area for fermentation? In my fantasy brewery I would have a walk-in cooler with separate chambers individually controlled so lagers and ales could be fermented. I would also have more chambers for aging beer and storage. I would have conical fermenters on wheels so they could be moved from place to place.

 

[dibby33]

I refuse to read the post until the diagram is of better quality.

...seriously though - looks good. GO FOR IT!!!

 

[Kaiser]

Kidding aside, that looks friggin' incredible. You'll need quite a manifold to do all that with one pump. How will that work?

I have seen designs that use just a braided SS hose as the manifold for the mash tun of a 15gal brew system. My current manifold is not really big either, but it does a fairly good job.

Since I batch sparge there will never be more than one job for the pump. With the right set of valves I feel that I can do that. The only thing is that I will have to get the valve setting right every time until I get into automating the whole thing.

Another good thing is, that I can build it step by step and start brewing with the completed pieces before everything is complete. I have not yet figured out how to make the stand though. To bad that SS welding is not as easy as weling regular steel. Not that I know how to weld, but I'm willing to pick this up as well.

Kai

 

[Kaiser]

Have you thought about an area for fermentation?

I thought about the walk-in coolers, but currently I feel that I would be better off with the fridge that I have now and an additonal chest freezer. My basement stays in the 60's year round which means I can do ales w/o a fridge.

I like the conicals that the Brewpastor has. But I would cool them with some cooling jacket that is on the outside rather than having a coil inside the wort. A very long section of plastic tubing wrapped around them and topped with insulation should work pretty well.

Kai

 

[Dude]

Very nice.

Nice idea on the dual heated kettle. Our HBS owner's system is like that. He has two heat coils inside the kettle to actually boil and a burner underneath that moves so it can heat the HLT or the kettle.

You and your DMS worries....

One question though....why are you using under-modified malts? For the challenge? And where are you getting them?

 

[Kaiser]

You and your DMS worries....

Yes, I don't really like that stuff, even in small amounts which some people day fits the style of some beers.

One question though....why are you using under-modified malts? For the challenge? And where are you getting them?

When planning this brewery I thought that I shouldn't limit its capabilities if such limitation is not necessary to keep it from being overly complicated or expensive. I want to be able to brew with any kind of malt. I haven't worked with truly undermodified malts yet, but just ordered a bag of Weyermann's Bohemian Pilsner. This is a new malt that they have made from Czech Hanka barley which is sopposed to be similar to the well known Moravian.

Kai

 

[Kaiser]

Well, I runs some numbers through Excel and found that the heating elements I thought of using (regular stove top electric burners) are way to weak for the job. For a 15 gal batch I would need 10kW to maintain a mash rise of 2*C/min (1 C/min is sufficiant, but I wan't to have some headroom) with 80% heating efficiency. The large heating element is rated for only 2.3 KW. Even though I planned on using more than one, I don't have the room under the pot to fit as many as I need.

The same applies to the boil, where I need 10kW to maintain a boil-off rate of 15%. In this case I actually planned to run the system on one center heating element.

Any Idea where I get get more powerful surface heating elements that have a diameter of 10-12in ?

Kai

 

[brewman !]

I wrote up a nice reply to this explaining that electric heat could raise mash temps 5 degrees F per min using 4.5KW and boil temps 4 degrees F per min using 9KW. But for some reason it wasn't posted and now its lost.

I also said that for me using a burner to boil makes more sense. But I'll be using electric for my mash and hot water tank heating.

McMasterCarr has lots of heating elements that could be turned into what you want.

This guy is boiling 10 gallon batches electrically.
http://www.rabeb25.mikesdecks.com/BEER/
http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?t=32808&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

 

[Kaiser]

brewman,

To bad that your post go lost. Here is how I came to the numbers I have:

mash: for an 80 L (20gal) system I expect a worst case mash volume of 80L and assume that this has the specific heat of water. I want to design for a rise rate of 2*C/min which is twice as much as suggested in the literature. The energy needed for rising the mash by 2 C (=2K) is

4190 J/(kg*K) * 2 K * 80 kg = 670.4 kJ

Doing this in a minute requires

670.4kJ / 60 s = 11.2 kW

Assuming a heating efficiency of 80% (since the heating element will be outside and there will be losses that I cannot insulate against) I come up with

14 kW for the mash

The critical part for the boil is the boil-off rate. The literature suggests 10-15%. If I want to boil off 15% of a pre boil volume of 96L the systems needs to evaporate 14.4 L (=kg) / 3600s. It takes

2260 kJ/Kg * 14.4 kg = 322544 kJ

to evaporate that amount of water. To do this in 60 min it takes

322544 kJ / 3600s = 9.04 kW

80% heating efficiency -> 11.3 kW

Since I haven't done such calculations since high school, I appreciate feed-back on that.

Though I'm currently strongly biased towards electric (safer, I can do it myself, cheaper since I don't have natural gas) I may also look into LP if I can't find the heating elements I need.

Kai

 

[Brewpastor]

I thought about the walk-in coolers, but currently I feel that I would be better off with the fridge that I have now and an additonal chest freezer. My basement stays in the 60's year round which means I can do ales w/o a fridge.

I like the conicals that the Brewpastor has. But I would cool them with some cooling jacket that is on the outside rather than having a coil inside the wort. A very long section of plastic tubing wrapped around them and topped with insulation should work pretty well.

Kai

I am in the process of changing my set-up for cooling to utilize jacket cooling. The coils are a pain to clean. My conicals are sized where one will fit in the other leaving a 1/2" gap for cooling. I would lose a fermenter, but end up with a much easier set-up. I really would prefer an external coil, but have not found what I am looking for yet.

Your design looks awesome. It appears you are looking for an external heating element. I know some commercial set-up are internal. Would that be a possibility?

 

[Kaiser]

Brewpastor,

I know that having an internal heating element is about as efficient as it gets and that this is used in many commercial brewing systems. I was thinking about this as well and a heating element like this:

would be ideal. But here are the problems I have with that:

- Where to find something like that and for what price?
- can I install this w/o having to drill holes into the kettle
- It gets in the way of the whirlpool
- It might be problematic to clean.

One idea that I had was to size the element large enough that it could be used for heating and chilling. But in this case the heating has to happen through steam or hot oil and that sounds complicated and dangerous.

Kai

 

[brewman !]

brewman,
To bad that your post go lost. Here is how I came to the numbers I have:

Hi Kiaser. I have a few minutes now.

mash: for an 80 L (20gal) system I expect a worst case mash volume of 80L and assume that this has the specific heat of water.

That is a bit high. Grain heats up a lot easier than water... but I don't have the exact specific heat numbers and I make the same assumptions !

I want to design for a rise rate of 2*C/min which is twice as much as suggested in the literature.

2C = 2 x 9/5F = 3.6F. OK. Just generating imperial units for comparison.

The energy needed for rising the mash by 2 C (=2K) is

4190 J/(kg*K) * 2 K * 80 kg = 670.4 kJ

Doing this in a minute requires

670.4kJ / 60 s = 11.2 kW

I'd agree with that. I was saying 4.5KW to do 3 to 4F/minute on 10 gallon batches and I think your specific heat is high. Seems reasonable so far.

Assuming a heating efficiency of 80% (since the heating element will be outside and there will be losses that I cannot insulate against) I come up with

14 kW for the mash

Electric heating elements are nearly 100% efficient. By the sounds of it, you are thinking of using an external water heater to make hot water and circulate that through the mash. I am thinking of doing the same thing. There will be some heat loss with the piping and such, but 20% seems like a lot, especially at the temps you are probably talking about. (150 to 180F ?) A residential hot water heater doesn't have losses anywhere near that high, for example.

The critical part for the boil is the boil-off rate. The literature suggests 10-15%. If I want to boil off 15% of a pre boil volume of 96L the systems needs to evaporate 14.4 L (=kg) / 3600s. It takes

2260 kJ/Kg * 14.4 kg = 322544 kJ

to evaporate that amount of water. To do this in 60 min it takes

322544 kJ / 3600s = 9.04 kW

80% heating efficiency -> 11.3 kW

Since I haven't done such calculations since high school, I appreciate feed-back on that.

Is 2260 the heat of vaporization ? ( I am too lazy to look !) If it is, you have it right. But one thing you have ignored is the heat loss of the kettle, which can be tremendous. Whereas a mash tun can be enclosed and super insulated, the boil kettle needs to be open and there is heat lost there in addition to the steam.

Though I'm currently strongly biased towards electric (safer, I can do it myself, cheaper since I don't have natural gas) I may also look into LP if I can't find the heating elements I need.

At this point I am unclear if you are working on a mash heating system, a boil heating system or both.

I think a mash heating system is do able and a good thing. Precise temp control, fast heating, not burning the mash, etc. All good.

For boil, it gets a little less clear for me. And my first brew setup used a plastic boil pot with an electric element. First there is the power. 100K BTU is 29KW. And generally natural gas is less expensive than electricity. So for speed and expense, its pretty hard to beat natural gas. Then there is the wort burning factor. I have yet to see an element that has sufficient surface area such that it won't burn the wort a bit. Most of the heating elements are made for water, not for a water/sugar mixture, which wort is.

Now, you could use elements to heat water and then circulate water through the kettle to boil the wort, but the "water" would have to be higher than 212F, so that means it would really be steam. And then things get considerably more complicated.

That's my $0.02.

 

[dantodd]

I am in the process of changing my set-up for cooling to utilize jacket cooling. The coils are a pain to clean. My conicals are sized where one will fit in the other leaving a 1/2" gap for cooling. I would lose a fermenter, but end up with a much easier set-up. I really would prefer an external coil, but have not found what I am looking for yet.

Why not just wrap the straight sides of the conical in 1/2" copper tubing? You could use some form of outside insulation to tidy it up and keep heat moving the desired direction. Most jacketed kettles I've seen only have the jacket on the upper section anyway.

 

[Kaiser]

Most jacketed kettles I've seen only have the jacket on the upper section anyway.

If you plan to lager in the conicals, I suggest that you cool all sides. Otherwise you may end up with thermal currents when the beer heats up in the lower section and cools down in the upper section. This will impeed the settling of yeast and other haze.

Kai

 

[Kaiser]

Well,

I ran the numbers and electric doesn't seem to work for me. I have a hard time finding heating elements powerful enough. And even if I would find them eventually, the cost might be way to high since I'm not able to use commodity items.

I guess I have to make propane safe for indors. Does anyone have good pointers how to make the use of propane safe indoors. Some people run their stoves with LP which means that it should be possible.

Kai

 

[Desert_Sky]

if you are going to be going with 10 gallons, I don't think you will need a rake setup. You can just stir every so often and save yourself some cash.


I mean it would have cool as hell factor to it, but I don't think you'd need it.

 

[Kaiser]

if you are going to be going with 10 gallons, I don't think you will need a rake setup. You can just stir every so often and save yourself some cash.

I need to stir the mash when I'm using direct heat to heat it.

Kai

 

[Fish]

I can't say I really know what you guys are talking about but have you considered one of the new inline tankless electric water heaters?

http://www.itankless.com/index.cfm?...e=ggelectric&gclid=CP-qgej9hooCFQi8YAodeE4sfg