In the EquiTherm energy recovery system, brewery experts at Krones are offering a combination of the EcoPlus mash tun, energy storage tank and wort cooler.
The system enables surplus heat from the brewing process to be recovered during wort cooling and fed back into the mashing process. This results in energy savings of up to 30%. Thanks to the improved heat transfer in the mash tun, a turbulent flow pattern is created at the heating surface, which enables the mash to be heated up, using hot water from the energy storage tank, and used as a consumer in the energy recovery system. The supplier of thermal energy within this recovery system is the wort cooler; the heat removed from the wort in the first stage is temporarily placed in the energy storage tank. The innovative stratified charging pipe in the storage tank enables the water to be arranged in temperature-dependent layers with only minimal intermingling of the temperature zones. The hot water being temporarily stored here can then be used equally for heating up the mash and the lautered wort.
This concept prevents a surplus of warm water in the brewhouse, since excess vapour energy in the energy circuit can be effectively utilised. As a result, the quantity of wastewater involved is substantially downsized. The system can be used for both infusion and decoction processes, and achieves significant savings. In comparison to conventional processes, for example, reductions in consumption are achieved of over 30% in heat and more than 20% in electricity with reference to the cold wort. By providing up to 100% of the thermal energy in the mashing process, the brewery can achieve a reduction in the load peaks at the boiler, which for steam generation downsizes the load peaks by up to 46%. This then enables a resource-economical, low-emission production operation to be implemented, with concomitant improvements in the energy balance of the brewing process concerned.
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