Conical Fermentation Tank

Conical Fermentation Tank

The one-pot process of the conical fermenter has many advantages over the traditional process. For example, pumping between tanks is reduced, thereby reducing wine loss, avoiding oxygen inhalation, improving beer stability, easy recovery of yeast, convenient and labor-saving cleaning, easy to achieve self-control, reduced floor space, and reduced investment.

Conical tank geometric volume

The first is to determine the volume of the tank. The volume of the conical tank depends on the production capacity of the saccharification workshop. It is generally believed that the full tank time for a conical tank is within 18 hours, and the diketone content will increase after 12 hours. The ratio of effective volume to full volume is 0.8~0.85:1.

The cone angle of the fermentation tank, the beer specification requires 60~85, and it is recommended to use 60° or 75°. Most equipment manufacturers today use dished heads. Influence the size of the conical tank in the engineering design. There are many factors of form, the main ones should be considered:

1. Production capacity of saccharification workshop, distribution in off-peak seasons.
 Pay attention to off-season production, and some long-term seasons are more distinct, so as not to cause the tank to be full for too long in the off-season and affect the balance of fermentation.
2.Fermentation workshop area
 The fermentation workshop can use the area, and consider the hoisting of the open space.
3.Make Shipping Questions
 The use of large-diameter tanks is restricted by factors such as transportation and needs to be produced on-site, which not only increases the cost but also considers the problem of the production plant.

Conical tank design parameters

The conical tank is unquestionable a pressure vessel. The pressurized fermentation process has passed the test, and the pre-fermentation and post-fermentation maintain a certain pressure, and the working pressure is 0.09Mpa~0.15Mpa. To meet the needs of various beer fermentation processes, the pressure of the air chamber has been required to be set at 0.2Mpa.

Most of the fermenter materials are currently made of stainless steel. The temperature of the fermentation medium is -5°C for the refrigerant and about -1°C for the post-fermentation temperature.

Cooling form and cooling area

Beer fermentation is a low-temperature fermentation, and the heat generated in the fermentation process must be removed in time to reduce the fermentation liquid to the temperature required by the process. Although there are various fermentation processes, the fermentation process has four stages:
1.After inoculation, the temperature was raised to the diacetyl reduction temperature. During this period of severe hypoglycemia, part of the heat generated needs to be removed, and the other part is used for self-cooling. 1kg of sugar fermentation will produce 587k of calories.
2.constant temperature stage. All the heat generated by hypoglycemia needs to be removed.
3.After the diacetyl reduction was complete, the temperature was lowered to the post-fermentation temperature. Now, it is necessary to cool down to reduce blood sugar; at the same time, cooling requires a lot of energy. , diacetyl was reduced to 0.2 mg/L, and it was reduced to -1~-2 °C within 72 hours.
4.In the post-fermentation holding stage, there is a small amount of sugar that needs to be decomposed to generate heat.

Among the four stages, the third stage requires the largest cooling capacity per unit of time. Usually, the cooling capacity and cooling area are calculated based on this stage, which is 72 hours. The refrigerants are ammonia and ethanol-water. At present, most manufacturers still choose -3~-4℃ ethanol-water as the refrigerant.

Fermenter Accessories

To watch and control the fermentation process and ensure safe and reliable operation, the fermenter also requires a series of accessories.include top filling device (safety valve, anti-vacuum valve, rotary spray ball cleaning mechanism, spring pressure regulating valve) temperature measuring element, sampling valve, bottom wine, and yeast discharge tube, differential pressure transmitter, etc.