A plate heat exchanger consists of a series of plates connected to a large frame. This type of heat exchanger is ideal for taking up a small space on a production floor to provide a high level of production efficiency. If your brewery is tight or small, a plate heat exchanger may be the best choice.

Advantages of plate heat exchangers
 
Energy utilisation. The series of plates in a plate heat exchanger creates gasket spaces between the plates. These spaces alternate between two fluids, one hot and one cold. This design provides very high heat transfer efficiency.
Space usage. Shell and tube heat exchangers require more standing area than plate heat exchangers.
Easy maintenance. High quality plate heat exchangers can operate effectively for long periods of time without maintenance and are easy to inspect and clean.
Capacity adjustment. Capacity adjustment of plate heat exchangers is relatively easy with the plates being easily accessible, added and removed.
Capital expenditure. A plate heat exchanger is the lowest cost option as it achieves a high heat transfer coefficient and provides the most efficient heat transfer with the smallest surface area. In addition, plate heat exchangers are also quite low maintenance, with the main cost being the replacement of gaskets and plates.
 
Types of heat exchangers
 
There are two main types of heat exchangers: single-stage heat exchangers and two-stage heat exchangers.
 
During cooling with a single-stage heat exchanger, the only cooling medium used is cold water. The wort enters the plate heat exchanger at a temperature of approximately 100 °C. Due to the interaction between the hot wort and the cold water inside the heat exchanger, the wort temperature gradually decreases, while the water temperature increases.
 
During cooling with a two-stage heat exchanger, the cooling media used are cold water and glycol. Cooling is carried out in two stages: in the first part of the exchanger, the wort is cooled with water, while in the second part, cooling is carried out using glycol.
 
How to choose a heat exchanger?
 
If you have a source of sufficiently cold water (cooled to at least 13 °C),
If cooling with cold water can lower the wort temperature to the value, required for the purposes of the brewing process.
The use of a single-stage heat exchanger is suitable.
 
The use of a two-stage heat exchanger is suitable if the brewing process requires lower wort temperatures that cannot be achieved only with the use of cold water.
 
Which heat exchanger is better for you? If you are interested in learning more about heat exchangers, feel free to contact me! And if you plan to brew or start your own brewery. TIANTAI could help you answer your questions and supply brewery equipment. 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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