Categories
Uncategorized

What to Expect at the 2022 Mid-Atlantic Brewers Symposium & Expo

The Brewers of Pennsylvania are hosting the 8th Annual Mid-Atlantic Brewers’ Symposium & Expo from October 23-25, 2022, at the Toftrees Resort & Conference Center in State College, PA. This two-day event will focus on the science and business aspects of brewing, exposing attendees to valuable industry resources and insights to help them navigate Pennsylvania’s continually evolving craft beer landscape. The two-day symposium will feature thirteen 45-minute general sessions, multiple breakout sessions, a welcome reception with 30+ industry exhibitors, and a lively social event.

As a proud exhibitor at this year’s expo, we are one of the industry resources you can meet at this exceptional event. We’ll be there to provide helpful advice for optimizing your brewing operation with high-performance industrial-grade brewery chillers designed to keep your brewing processes cool for more uptime and higher-quality brew.

If you’re not planning to attend the show, this preview will give a glimpse into the latest brewery chiller innovations to consider.

First, let’s review the basics of brewery chillers to demonstrate their role and importance for a growing brewing business.

Brewery chiller basics

Industrial-grade brewery chillers use process cooling to remove heat from your brewing equipment, helping it to operate smoothly and efficiently. They’re suited for many brewing processes, including wort cooling, Brite tank temperature control, fermentation temperature control, crash cooling, pre-packaging, and product storage.

Brewery chillers differ from off-the-shelf comfort chillers, offering many functional benefits that can enhance production efficiency and the quality of your beer.

These benefits include:

  • Heavier duty performance to keep up with your rugged brewing processes
  • Tighter temperature control to maximize your equipment efficiency and brew’s taste
  • Year-round performance to keep your operation on track regardless of the season
  • More accurate refrigeration technology when you work with specialized experts who have mastered the art of brewery process cooling
Drake's Brewery Chiller

A preview of our brewery chiller exhibit & insights

Drake’s Engineering Manager, Shane O’Donnell and Scott Noyes from our Sales Team will be on hand at the 2022 Mid-Atlantic Brewers Symposium & Expo to discuss high-performance solutions designed for breweries and provide helpful insights about:

  • Air- versus water-cooled brewery process chillers, and which system makes the most sense for your operation
  • Remote condenser systems for brewing facilities that require the condenser to be separate from the evaporator
  • Whether you need a tank and pump package and how to select the ideal configuration
  • Factors that affect which size brewery chiller you need, such as your brewery’s beer volume, pull-down/crashing loads, active fermentation heat load, wort heat exchanger secondary heat load, Brite tank holding load, and heat gain compensation
  • Which customizations and options to consider for enhancing the performance, usability, and energy efficiency, including redundancy options, custom controls, and high-efficiency options
  • How to configure a scalable brewery chiller system that will grow along with your operation, whether you have one or 100 pieces of equipment
  • How high-performance industrial-grade chillers can enhance many aspects of your brewing business as they did for Chestnut Hill Brewing Co.

There’s much more to discover at the show! We hope to see you there.

Your industry-leading brewery chiller experts

With more than 50 years of heavy-duty process cooling experience, we’re uniquely qualified to produce the right chiller solution for brewers who demand as much from their equipment as they do their brew. While some companies offer a hodgepodge of brewing equipment, we only focus on the chiller, helping to ensure your brewery chiller’s refrigeration technology is tailored for your one-of-a-kind application. With a proven 99%+ uptime rate and exceptional after-the-sale tech support, trust our brewery process chilling expertise to keep your operation online 24/7. Contact us or request a quote to learn more.

Categories
Brewery

6 Calculations to Determine the Right-Sized Brewery Chiller

Female craft brewer standing between vats and examining beer sample in glass.

As we covered in a previous article on factors to consider in your brewery chiller selection, it’s critical to choose the right-sized system for your brewery’s unique needs. Too-small chillers can’t achieve desired glycol temperatures, and too-large ones can’t meet desired refrigerant requirements. Taking a just-right approach is the secret to keeping your brewing processes cool – and your brew flowing smoothly.

So, what’s the best-sized brewery chiller for you? Much of it comes down to these six calculations:

  1. Beer volume (BBL)
  2. Pull-down/crashing loads
  3. Active fermentation heat load
  4. Wort heat exchanger secondary heat load
  5. Brite tank holding load
  6. Heat loss compensation

Read more on these six calculations to determine the right-sized brewery chiller for your operation below.

Categories
Brewery

The Importance of Scalability When Buying a Brewery Chiller

closeup of hop flowers on a hop vine

According to the Brewers Association (BA), US small and independent brewers rebounded from pandemic lows with 8% growth last year, and the number of craft breweries reached an all-time high. If you’re one of the many new or growth-oriented breweries hunting for a chiller to keep your brewing processes cool, this article is for you. We’ll explain the importance of scalability in your purchasing decision and highlight a few brewery chiller features that can accommodate your future expansion plans.

Categories
Brewery

Brewery Chiller System Design and Operation Tips from Our Pros

close-up of condensation, head of freshly poured beer in a glass

When designing a brewery chiller system capable of helping you produce batch after batch of noteworthy brews, it takes a strategic approach to ensure it will meet the unique needs of your operation. An intelligent chiller system design will also ensure your unit operates effectively and reliably to keep your brewing processes cool. Whether you need industrial-grade chilling for wort cooling, brite tank temperature control, fermentation, crash cooling, product storage, or another brewing process, it’s essential to design your system so that it works for you.

In this article, we’ll share our top brewery chiller system design and operation tips to keep your fans coming back pour after pour, starting with hints for integrating a chiller into your brewery.

Categories
Brewery

6 Factors to Consider in Your Brewery Chiller Selection

Gloved brewery employee pouring beer into pint glass from chilled tank

If you’re looking for a brewery chiller, there are several factors to consider, each one critical for choosing the best option for your budget, operation, and goals. You may have caught a few of them in our previous blog post on what to look for in a chiller. That article outlined the importance of features, such as industrial-grade performance, consistent temperature control, year-round operation, capacity modulation, customizable controls, and energy efficiency options.

If you’re looking to explore more about brewery chiller selection beyond these essentials, this post is for you. In it, we’ll explore six additional considerations to factor into your chiller selection decision, including:

  1. Chiller size
  2. Expansion plans
  3. Redundancy
  4. Temperature sensitivity
  5. Unit location
  6. Building requirements

Keep reading to dive deeper into what you need to know about brewery chiller selection.

Categories
Brewery Cannabis Chiller Systems Food processing Industrial Chillers Medical

8 Industrial Chiller Applications

Industrial chillers use process cooling to funnel heat away from industrial equipment to keep it going strong. Whether air- or water-cooled, their hard-working and high-performance capabilities provide the ideal cooling solution for many industrial chiller applications:  

  1. Beer brewing
  2. Dairy milk processing
  3. Food processing
  4. Medical equipment
  5. Cannabis extraction
  6. Refrigeration
  7. Low-temperature applications
  8. Industrial manufacturing

Keep reading to learn more about how industrial chillers keep process equipment cool in these applications.

Categories
Brewery

Chestnut Hill Brewing Co. Doubled Operations Thanks to Custom Drake Chiller Solutions

Chestnut Hill Brewing Co. Custom Chiller and brite tanks

Located in Philadelphia at Market at the Fareway, Chestnut Hill Brewing Co. is a popular microbrewery with a taproom and beer garden currently offering approximately eight draft beers and delicious food to their loyal patrons. Owner and brewer, Nick Gunderson, prides himself on inventing and creating an ever-evolving lineup of small-batch beer made from fresh ingredients. His favorite beer they offer? Chestnut Hill’s very own west-coast style IPA.

A couple years ago, Nick decided it was time to upgrade his brewing equipment from a 2-barrel to a 5-barrel system with six fermenters and six brite tanks. This decision allowed him to increase the brewery’s monthly output to sixty kegs. First on the list of equipment upgrades was a new industrial-grade custom brewery chiller that could keep up with an increasingly sophisticated brewing process.

Categories
Brewery

What Should I Look for in a Brewery Chiller?

Brewery Chiller - Beer

That first sip of a frothing pint of citrus- and pine-laced malty amber. The distinct effervescence of a floral hop-forward pale ale as it hits the tongue. The distinct aromatics of artisanal seasonal medleys that comprise an award-winning signature blend. These are just some of the nuances that tasters love about sipping their favorite brews, and it’s all made possible with dedication, ingenuity – and the right equipment. An industrial-grade brewery chiller can help you deliver these kinds of unforgettable experiences, but not every chiller lives up to the rigorous standards you expect for your brews.

In this post, we’ll outline some of the features to look for in a brewery chiller that will work as hard as you do, including: