biertourist
Well-Known Member
I do think you're missing out on the REAL potential for this kind of hardware, though. (Expensive bit of equipment to use for CHILLING.)
This thing is just DYING to be used as an external calandria ESPECIALLY if it's heavy duty like this and can withstand a bit of pressure (but providing steam to it would be the challenge). Note: If anyone tries this remember that you're essentially building a pipe bomb and hoping that you don't pressurize it enough to ACTUALLY EXPLODE... Dangerous business...
I might be a giant weirdo but I dream of home brew-level steam both for amazing control over mashing AND for gentle boiling and things like an external calandria. External calandrias could work AMAZINGLY well in home brew whirlpool-capable kettles. You can get WAY higher hop utilization when using a calandria but I haven't calculated what kind of pump you'd need to recirculate the whole volume but you need to recirculate the entire volume 7 - 12 times in an hour (probably way easier at home brew scale than professional scale). You also get way more volatilization and higher boil-off rates so DMS quickly becomes a non-issue and you can possible reduce your boil time down to 45 min depending upon the temp / pressure in the calandria.
You also get way better circulation in the kettle this way.
External calandrias could really benefit micros the most, IMHO as again it uses technology that most micros already have (whirlpool / kettle combo tanks) AND it can increase hop utilization and throughput in the brewhouse; running both the normal kettle heat (direct fire or steam) plus the calandria recirculation could also get you up to boil faster and require a shorter boil. -It's the engineering side of the equation that's the problem: you need right sized pipes, the right amount of surface area, fast enough pumps, and high enough velocity so that the thing doesn't get super fouled up.
If a HEX like this can provide enough surface area for a micro and be adapted to use steam as the heat source you've got something pretty amazing as it's dead simple to clean by popping off the tri clamps and running a brush through the tubes every once in a while and just a CIP caustic cycle in between. --Can you use caustic on silver solder, though, I wonder? What about acid sanitizers (I'm thinking specifically of peracetic acid if that helps)?
Adam
This thing is just DYING to be used as an external calandria ESPECIALLY if it's heavy duty like this and can withstand a bit of pressure (but providing steam to it would be the challenge). Note: If anyone tries this remember that you're essentially building a pipe bomb and hoping that you don't pressurize it enough to ACTUALLY EXPLODE... Dangerous business...
I might be a giant weirdo but I dream of home brew-level steam both for amazing control over mashing AND for gentle boiling and things like an external calandria. External calandrias could work AMAZINGLY well in home brew whirlpool-capable kettles. You can get WAY higher hop utilization when using a calandria but I haven't calculated what kind of pump you'd need to recirculate the whole volume but you need to recirculate the entire volume 7 - 12 times in an hour (probably way easier at home brew scale than professional scale). You also get way more volatilization and higher boil-off rates so DMS quickly becomes a non-issue and you can possible reduce your boil time down to 45 min depending upon the temp / pressure in the calandria.
You also get way better circulation in the kettle this way.
External calandrias could really benefit micros the most, IMHO as again it uses technology that most micros already have (whirlpool / kettle combo tanks) AND it can increase hop utilization and throughput in the brewhouse; running both the normal kettle heat (direct fire or steam) plus the calandria recirculation could also get you up to boil faster and require a shorter boil. -It's the engineering side of the equation that's the problem: you need right sized pipes, the right amount of surface area, fast enough pumps, and high enough velocity so that the thing doesn't get super fouled up.
If a HEX like this can provide enough surface area for a micro and be adapted to use steam as the heat source you've got something pretty amazing as it's dead simple to clean by popping off the tri clamps and running a brush through the tubes every once in a while and just a CIP caustic cycle in between. --Can you use caustic on silver solder, though, I wonder? What about acid sanitizers (I'm thinking specifically of peracetic acid if that helps)?
Adam