Brewery Setup Blog

Cooling Control of Conical Fermentation Tank

Yeast will produce heat in the fermentation process. In order to make the fermentation and after ripening under the set process temperature, it must be cooled.

1. Cooling mode

There are two ways to cool the fermentation tank: one is indirect cooling; The second is direct cooling

(1) Indirect cooling mode：The refrigerant is the mixture of ethanol or glycol and water. It is cooled in the evaporator box of ammonia refrigerator, and the temperature is generally controlled at about 5 ℃. It is mainly used for wort cooling and fermentation tank cooling.  there are two kinds of medium circulation in the cooling system of fermentation tank, namely liquid ammonia endothermic evaporation refrigeration circulation system and alcohol water circulation system for cooling the liquor of fermentation tank.

(2) Direct cooling mode：The liquid ammonia, the refrigerant in the ammonia refrigerator, evaporates and absorbs heat in the cooling jacket of the conical tank to cool the liquor in the fermentation tank. Its working principle is the boiling heat transfer process of endothermic gasification of liquid ammonia in the jacket of fermentor.

2. Cooling jacket

(1) Indirect cooling mode：The cooling jacket passes through a mixture of ethanol or glycol and water (refrigerant). It adopts horizontal flow cooling pipe section, liquid flows in from below and flows out from above. It must be able to withstand the pressure of the coolant at rest.

(2) Direct cooling mode：The refrigerant in the cooling jacket is liquid ammonia, and the flow mode is vertical flow type of semicircular tube or horizontal flow type . Liquid ammonia enters from above through the distribution pipe and flows downward. When the vertical flow type is adopted, the cooling jacket is not divided into sections. When using liquid ammonia direct cooling mode, the working pressure can reach 1.16mpa. When making the equipment, it is necessary to ensure that all parts are well welded and there is no liquid ammonia leakage, otherwise serious quality and safety problems will occur.

3. Comparison of two cooling methods

Compared with the indirect cooling method using ethanol or glycol, the direct evaporative cooling of liquid ammonia has the following advantages

(1) About 20% energy saving. The working temperature of direct evaporation compressor is only about 5 ℃; When indirect cooling mode is adopted, the compressor needs to operate at a lower temperature, which reduces the refrigeration efficiency of the refrigerator. In addition, the transportation capacity of refrigerant liquid ammonia is much less.

(2) Less equipment is needed. Compared with indirect cooling, liquid ammonia evaporation of alcohol water or glycol water and evaporator are saved.

(3) It needs less insulation material and low installation cost. Due to the reduction of liquid ammonia flow, the diameter of the pipe used becomes smaller, and the number of containers is reduced, which reduces the consumption of thermal insulation materials and saves the installation cost.

The above are the two cooling methods for the conical fermenter. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Tiantai.

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