rainingbullets
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2009
- Messages
- 54
- Reaction score
- 0
So here it is....The capstone of my college education....Mechanical engineering senior project. Everything I've studied will lead up to this.
The projects basically involve 4 or 5 five individuals to work together as a team to design, manufacture, and test a process and/or device that related to the field of mechanical engineering.
Oh yeah, the college is Chico State in Chico, CA. (go Sierra Nevada!)
Anyway, so our team project involves designing and building a heat recovery system for Fifty-fifty Brewing company in Truckee, CA. (EXCELLENT brews by the way....check them out here: Fifty Fifty Brewing Co. - Truckee, CA)
The system we develop would allow us to capture heat off a steam boil, and then re-use that energy to pre-heat water for other brewing processes. Additionally, we would like to have a way to measure our efficiencies of this system within the brewery. Our current energy bill takes into the account the entire restaurant (including the kitchen), so we would need to isolate the usage of the brewery. The goal would be a 10% reduction in energy consumption.
The idea we're promoting could be similar to what Sierra Nevada uses in their brewery across town. Since Truckee is so far away, we will be primarily observing the Sierra Nevada Brewery's processes.
Our team took a field trip to Fifty-fifty yesterday, here are some pics:
Boiling kettle towards the back
Close-up of the steam condenser we will be trying to extract energy from:
Keg cooler/storage room
Didn't get a good picture of the furnace, but it's in the back corner. 1,000,000 BTUs!
Grain masher just upstairs in the grain room
From the grain room
Overhead view of the existing heat exchanger that brings hundreds of gallons of wort to pitching temperatures
Fermentation overflow
The projects basically involve 4 or 5 five individuals to work together as a team to design, manufacture, and test a process and/or device that related to the field of mechanical engineering.
Oh yeah, the college is Chico State in Chico, CA. (go Sierra Nevada!)
Anyway, so our team project involves designing and building a heat recovery system for Fifty-fifty Brewing company in Truckee, CA. (EXCELLENT brews by the way....check them out here: Fifty Fifty Brewing Co. - Truckee, CA)
The system we develop would allow us to capture heat off a steam boil, and then re-use that energy to pre-heat water for other brewing processes. Additionally, we would like to have a way to measure our efficiencies of this system within the brewery. Our current energy bill takes into the account the entire restaurant (including the kitchen), so we would need to isolate the usage of the brewery. The goal would be a 10% reduction in energy consumption.
The idea we're promoting could be similar to what Sierra Nevada uses in their brewery across town. Since Truckee is so far away, we will be primarily observing the Sierra Nevada Brewery's processes.
Our team took a field trip to Fifty-fifty yesterday, here are some pics:
Boiling kettle towards the back
Close-up of the steam condenser we will be trying to extract energy from:
Keg cooler/storage room
Didn't get a good picture of the furnace, but it's in the back corner. 1,000,000 BTUs!
Grain masher just upstairs in the grain room
From the grain room
Overhead view of the existing heat exchanger that brings hundreds of gallons of wort to pitching temperatures
Fermentation overflow
