As we know, all the brewhouses on brewery equipment are originally four vessel, five vessels even six vessels in big commercial brewery equipment.
Each vessel is in charge of one function, or somewhere each two vessels are in charge of only one function in some brewery systems.
For example, some brewmasters prefer to have two kettle tun in their brewhouse system.
Like this, the two kettle tuns can be working at the same time.(When one is being taken up, the second one can be used at that time.
So they can achieve to brew several batches per day to raise their beer production.
And with the development of craft beer, different combined structures of brewhouses become more and more popular among craft beer brewing field.
I attached a few photos to help you understand these two structures.
1. The structure is Mash/Lauter/Whrilpool tun + Kettle tun.
Obviously, the left taller tank is a combination of two vessels, the upper vessel is mash/lauter tun, and the lower vessel is whirlpool tun.
When we start to filter wort(lautering), the wort can smoothly flow into the lower tank(whirlpool tun) by gravity to be collected.
As you know, the gravity filtration is very good filtration method, that is not only fast but also can effectively avoid grist bed stucking. And the most important is that it can help us get very clear filtered wort.
When both wort lautering and sparging are completed, we will pump the filtered wort into kettle tun to heat up and boil for 60 mins or more.
Then after boiling, the hopped wort will be pumped back to whirlpool tun for whirlpooling to separate some protein precipitates and large impurities.
Maybe at this time, you would ask, there is no HLT in above structure, how to prepare the brewing water and sparging water?
In the situation, most of brewers use brew kettle to prepare the proper temperature brewing water, and store the sparging water in other vessel that is empty.
And this also it its disadvantage. It's not very conveninet to use hot water when needed.
There a very good question, is it possible to put the whirlpool tun and the kettle tun into the same vessel?
If the heat method of brewhouse is electric resistance, as you know, the electric resistance will be installed into the inner of kettle tun.
When the hot wort is in process of whirlpooling, these electric resistance can be regarded as obstacle, that will bring some bad effects on whirlpool effect.
If the heat method of brewhouse is steam heat or direct-fire heat, the whirlpool tun and the kettle tun can be absolutely done in the same vessel.
In addition to being able to understand the structure as above, we also regard the combined structure as more flexible optional by modifying some piping and valves.
2. The structure is Mash/Lauter/Hot Liquor tank + Kettle/Whirlpool Tun.
In the structure, the left lower tank is HLT, that will provide brewing water and sparging water for whole system. And the right vessel is Kettle/Whirlpool tank as you thought.
If the heat method is steam, the three vessels will have the steam jacket to heat up, that is very convenient to brew all types of beers.
If the heat method is electric resistance, both HLT and K/W tun have the heating device.(At this time, if customer choose this kind of HLT, he have to accept the effect of electric resistance on whirlpooling effect.)
If the heat method is direct-fired heat, generally speaking, only the K/W tun have the burner and combustion chamber. Since if we add the combustion chamber for the left vessel, it will be too tall to safety. And it's also not easy to operation and open the top door.
In a word, the combined three vessel brewhouse is very popular in Germany.
Mainly for the following reasons,
1) In comparsion to two vessel + HLT, it's a more economical structure.
For 500L system, the above three combined brewhouse have same price, it's around $15,000USD.(More accurate cost, please email us at [email protected])
2) Save the space for some breweries who have some limitations on space, like bar, restaurant and pub etc, they prefer to have more space to put tables and chairs to treat customers.
3) Both gravity wort filtration and pump wort filtration are available.
If some brewmasters often met some trouble on wort running off(blocking or jam), especially when they were brewing the high gravity beer, you would find they will love every solution that can help them to get smooth wort filtration.
The structure has a disadvantage, under the same beer brewing process, it will need the brewer to do more valves and electric button off/on operations.
And it's not suitable to be used for double batches brewing per day, and its future expansion capacity is limited.
Anyway, the fit is the best!
To inform us your requirements and your limits for your brewery equipment, we will do our best to give you a suitable micro brewery equipment solution soonest!
Edited by Damon
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