The one-pot process of the conical fermentation tank has many advantages over the traditional process, such as reducing the pumping between beer fermenting tanks, thereby reducing the loss of wine, avoiding the inhalation of oxygen, improving the stability of beer, easy to recover yeast, convenient and labor-saving cleaning, convenient Realize automatic control, reduce floor space, reduce investment, etc.
- 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 time of 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. 60° or 75° is recommended. 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:
1.1 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.
1.2 Fermentation workshop area
The fermentation workshop can use the area, and consider the hoisting of the open space.
1.3 Making Shipping Problems
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.
- Design parameters of conical tank
The conical tank is unquestionable as 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. In order 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:
3.1 After inoculation, the temperature is 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.
3.2 Constant temperature stage. All the heat generated by hypoglycemic needs to be removed.
3.3 After the diacetyl reduction is complete, the temperature is quickly lowered to the post-fermentation temperature. At this time, it is necessary to cool down to reduce blood sugar; at the same time, cooling requires a lot of energy. Specifically, diacetyl was reduced to 0.2 mg/L, and it was reduced to -1~-2 °C within 72 hours.
3.4 In the post-fermentation and heat preservation 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 time. Usually, the cooling capacity and cooling area are calculated based on this stage, which is 72 hours. The refrigerants are mainly ammonia and ethanol water. At present, most manufacturers still choose -3~-4℃ ethanol water as refrigerant.
4 Fermenter accessories
In order to detect and control the fermentation process and ensure safe and reliable operation, the fermentation tank also needs a series of accessories, mainly including: top filling device (safety valve, anti-vacuum valve, rotating spray ball cleaning mechanism, spring pressure regulating valve) temperature measuring element, sampling Valves, wine and yeast discharge pipes at the bottom of the tank, differential pressure transmitters, etc.
