In the process of beer production, the cooling consumption of hot wort cooling water is very large, accounting for about 50% of the total cooling consumption of the entire beer production. Most of the wort cooling equipment are plate heat exchangers, which are made of stainless steel. The airtight cooling equipment consists of many sheets with grooves on both sides, two in a group to form a basic unit. When the wort is cooled, the hot wort and the cooling medium flow counter-currently along the grooves on both sides of the grooved plate in the form of turbulent flow by pumping to exchange heat. There are two main ways of wort cooling, namely two-stage cooling and one-stage cooling. In the past, the two-stage cooling method was the most common application, and now the one-stage cooling method is more and more used.
 
The traditional cooling method is two-stage cooling. The two-stage plate heat exchanger is composed of front and rear sections, and an intermediate plate is installed between the two sections. The first stage of cooling uses tap water as the cooling medium to cool the wort from about 95 °C to 40 to 50 °C, and the cooling water is heated from nearly 20 °C to about 55 °C; the second stage of cooling uses a deep cooling refrigerant (ethanol). Or ethylene glycol solution) as the cooling medium, the wort is further cooled to about 7℃, the temperature of fermenting into the tank, the refrigerant is heated from -4--3℃ to about 0℃, returned to the refrigeration station for re-cooling and then recycled. The water after heat exchange in the previous stage can be used as production water.
 
The one-stage cooling method uses a cooling medium to cool the hot wort to the inoculated yeast temperature in one go. The cooling medium is brewing water, which is first cooled to 2-4°C by direct ammonia cooling, then heated to 75-80°C after heat exchange with the hot wort, and this water can be used directly as wash water.
 
Comparison of the two methods
Compared to the two-stage cooling, the one-stage cooling method has the following advantages.
 
1. The one-stage cooling method is simple and does not require an intermediate plate. The cooling medium is brewing water, without the use of ethanol or glycol. The volatilesation and consumption of auxiliary materials is avoided.
 
2. The two-stage cooling chiller has to keep the refrigerant at -4 to -3°C and bear the heat load of reducing the wort from 40 to 50°C to about 7°C. The one-stage cooling chiller bears the heat load of cooling water from room temperature to 2 to 4°C. Compared with the two, a cooling method can save 30% to 40% of electricity.
 
3. The first section of the two cooling section of the cooling water outlet temperature is about 55 ℃, if used for washing dregs also need to be heated; a section of cooling brewing water outlet temperature is suitable for washing dregs. Its thermal energy is fully utilised.
 
4. The temperature of the two-stage coolant carrier in the middle of the cooling process is variable and very unstable, while the basic parameters of the hot and cold medium remain unchanged in the one-stage cooling process, making the operation stable and easy to control.
 
So what cooling method is your brewery using? Welcome to exchange more brewery details and ideas with me~ We supply 2-150HL complete beer brewing equipment including malt milling equipment, brew houses equipment, beer fermenters /fermentation tank, brite beer tanks, beer bottling machine, beer canning machine, beer kegging machine, hopping machine, yeast propagation equipment. We also supply all auxiliary brewery systems like steam heating pipe and valves, water treatment, filter, air compressor etc. Everything in brewery are all in our list. 
 
Edited by Cassie
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