Heat Exchanger / Plate Chiller Custom Development Thread

punkin

Just a thread here for the brewers to discuss what they'd ideally like to see in a heat exchanger.
We visited a small factory in China where they made heat exchangers that bolt together.
Unfortunately no-one there speaks English but that's something we can work around.

There was some discussion elsewhere about the only brewers small scale one that could be disassembled being $750. I'd like to see what people would like as far as sizing and design and what their expectations are as far as what they think i would cost.
I'd like to see it being able to be used say on home and small scale breweries up to say...200l? To cover the larger Braumeister and those of us who do large batches with mates, but still not too pricey to do 20l batches if a brewer wanted something other than the $100 standard chillers.

So throw some ideas out as to plate numbers path length, number and size and type of inlet/outlets, dimensions etc and lets see if it's possible to bring this to a reality or if the mold fees are just too high to recover the costs.

Also posted this on Brew Adelaide where some pretty smart and easy to get along with home brewers hang out (and malted too) .

CothermanDistilling

First question - what do you want to cool with a plate heat exchanger?... breweries use them for boiled, whirlpooled wort...

Not for plate chillers, but my $0.02:

for a chiller of liquid with solids in it a coaxial counterflow chiller, convoluted inner tube... Like this, but larger diameter tubes...

I would also like a 1meter product condenser in 2/3/4" with inner convoluted tubes... two condensers in a row have an issue equally loading the lower chiller with liquid unless great care is taken during assembly, a single long chiller is better.

punkin

It's pretty much for the brewers mate yes.

Heat Exchanger/Plate Chiller Custom Development Thread @ Brew Adelaide - Talk all things Beer

The input is starting to trickle in, but I'm not so much interested in recreating what's already on the market as i am in making something that's superior at better value.

Harry

@Clothermandistilling has covered most thoughts re brewing HX's. I can't understand how/why anyone would want to use a plate type HX with fluids containing entrained solids. There has to be very good filtration before running the liquid through, else the exchanger will clog / foul.

But since this thread is about new ideas for heat exchangers, can I put this out there? Many people back off from using electric elements for distilling. Yet most boilers incorporate a sanitary port for an element. So why can't we have an internal reboiler as an simple option? This would use any of the recognised heat exchange fluids, with the actual heat generated in an external device. Something like this...

CothermanDistilling

I was actually thinking of a straight heating element in a finned copper tube that is fit into the 2" triclover filled with oil and a small vent to the outside... and a thermocouple setup that kept the oil below 300F or whatever... no burning..

Smaug

@Harry, because we have several well established breweries as customers that are currently using plate chillers and would prefer to buy from us moving forward.

grim

They make plate chillers that can pass solids in a viscous mash with solids, they are generally referred to as "wide gap" plate and frames - they are made for cooling/heating pulps, mashes, slurries, etc. They can be flushed, but yes, they do need to be broken down for cleaning. These are specialty items, a standard braised plate would end up in the garbage if you tried to do this. They are also pretty damn big.

grim

@Harry - Check this out: sanitary heat exchanger bundle 4" x 3/4" x 27" @ eBay

Would be perfect for an oil-based HX fluid. But those flanges are 4" TC.

Harry

I see. So this thread is really not about heat exchangers as a new design. But rather specifically about plate HX's. I apologise. I misunderstood the thread title. Actually it (my HX) is more of a multi-purpose unit, depending on what fluid one runs in the tubeside (hot of cold) and whether a shell is used in conjunction. Please Ignore my input and design. As you were gentlemen.

Smaug

Not at all @Harry. This thread is as the title implies.

It's just that many breweries utilize a plate chiller after the boil with great success and no issues at all.

We don't want to discourage the Brewers from communicating information they know to be true.

It is a common model that many brewers are supplying beer to the small distilleries that do not yet have the capacity to cook.

Your input is always welcome @Harry.

DocPorter

I'm with @Harry. I would love to see a TC tube bundle. I can think of numerous ways it would be beneficial to me. There is a lack of simple affordable units.

Something similar to THIS

grim

I know we are taking this off topic, but theoretically, if you could get the tube bundle to a low enough cost, you could come up with a new still system that would sit somewhere between electric elements and a full steam jacket. The big issue with the steam jacket is the kettle requires more stainless, and thicker stainless, more money. A tube bundle in a single wall tank might be pretty cost effective. Of course, you'd still need a steam boiler (or a way to heat hot oil with elements). Likely cheaper than the bain maire as well. I say separate because you'd ultimately need larger flanges, something like an ansi-style bolt flange. Putting something through a 2" TC is going to be nearly impossible.

Hoga and a number of manufacturers don't even bother with jackets, they just go with the internal coils. Now, there are tradeoffs, notably longer heat up time, but if you need to distill on solids, and you want to do it on a budget, there aren't many other options.

Or, the @CothermanDistilling approach, something like a 1.5" copper tube, with TC flange, internal element with a filling port and vent for HX oil. Internal temperature control. I don't know what the lengths would be, maybe 24". Someone would need to sit down and to the math to see if the watt/density would be low enough. A single big tube loses a considerable amount of surface area compared to a large number of very small tubes.

Tough call, could be that a bain maire with larger element ports might be cheaper from a TCO perspective.

Harry

@DocPorter, Yes, that's what I'm talking about. Here's a few uses for such a unit...

DocPorter

@Harry great examples.

And you can add to that the one that Grim described... just a simple insert into a boiler to replace electric elements.

The beauty of a unit like this is that you can so easily take it apart and clean it.

Maybe if they harass them enough they'll build some prototypes for us...

Considering the difference between a 1,000L steam jacketed boiler ($10,300) and a non-jacketed boiler ($6,000) is over $4,000 I think this could be a huge money saving possibility.

Harry

@DocPorter The unit is easy enough to fabricate at home if you're anyways comfortable as a metal basher. Simple pipe + fittings. Any size you like. But it's best in the smaller configs.

punkin

I copied the thread from the home brewing forum.

The idea when i originally posted it was for home brewers and small micro breweries that were after a plate heat exchanger that could be pulled down for cleaning.
I thought, as with the rims, that i'd throw it out to the users in the StillDragon way to find out how they'd design it if they had their druthers.

If it turned out once a design was done that we could bring a better more suitable product in at a competitive price then i'd attempt to do that.

You guys are welcome to take it in any direction you please, discussion is good. Just remember that if it's a highly specialised expensive bit of gear that appeals to 3 people and there are already places to buy it out there then it is unlikely to become part of our lineup.

Myles

@Harry, in the UK you can already get secondary elements for hot water tanks. These are a replacement for the standard electric immersion element and consist of a coil through which is circulated a solar heated fluid.

So do you think a closed loop glycol system would work in the thermosyphon mode without a pump? Use a vertical inline boiler as described in the steam topics, add in a short vertical loop so the heat exchanger coil in the boiler is in the downwards loop, and return the slightly cooler fluid to the base of the inline boiler. You might need to add in an expansion tank at the high point of the system.

Harry

@Myles, The thermosiphon is a closed loop for heating up bottoms product (beer charge & spent liquids). The thermosiphon is fed bottoms product via gravity from the column sump (or pot). The feed enters the shell-side of an inline HX device, which also has hot tubes within the shell. The feed is heated via thermal transfer from the hot tubes. A 2-phase fluid (hot beer and partially evolved vapours & gases) rises up the thermosiphon and discharges back into the column sump (pot). The hot liquid falls into the sump, mixing with the resident contents, while the evolved vapours & gases rise upward through the column plates.

The tubes in the HX are fed a hot fluid called a heat exchange medium (steam, p.glycol, oil or water). The HX medium is heated externally by an appropriate device (a hot tank, steam generator, etc). The HX medium may require pumping to the HX tubeside bundle, or from the bundle back to the HX medium source device, depending on source device location and head.

Does that answer the question?

Myles

Sort of @Harry. I was mostly thinking of the application of using glycol as a heat source for a coil in a still boiler, but using a thermosyphon to circulate the glycol instead of a pump.

Unsensibel

What about a double pipe / tube-in tube chiller with TC?

Becomes modular based on how many you clamp together...

I'm sure @CothermanDistilling approves

TheMechWarrior

The Balvenie plate heat exchanger - wort cooler:

CothermanDistilling

@Unsensibel said:

I'm sure CothermanDistilling approves

yes, yes he does..

CothermanDistilling

The latest tweaks on my idea:

basic building block:

1 meter 1.5" TC wort tube (prefer to have slight twist put in this tube) slightly shorter 2" cooling jacket with 1.5" TC's near the ends, 2 on one end 180 degrees out of phase with each other, one on the other end.

You can join 2 (or more) tubes together end to end and use a u-bend to join the jackets

You can then ladder the units together with 1.5" u-bends to join the wort tubes.

TheMechWarrior

I have a photo of a Hipex heat exchanger that looks exactly as you described.

CothermanDistilling

TheMechWarrior

There are plenty of good examples on the web, this is the Hipex milk concentrate heater:

Here's a wine version: