Glacier Tanks Kettles and Mash Tuns

[HogMountain]

Hey CF, thanks for updating this. I have been approached by two guys about partnering with them in brewpubs. I'd be willing to buy and install the breweries if the partnership terms were amicable and for the money, I've just not seen anything close to the pricing from Glacier for new equipment. If you have a chance, I'd love to know what you would do differently or change with this equipment. It sounds like the BK should really be insulated. Do you think the forced air units are the better option?

[ColdFusion]

I'll try and keep updating as we go.

We certainly figured out something this weekend. Looks like our gas regulator (from the gas company) is too small. We had a contractor out to do all the work to put in the supply line and he said all that stuff was fine. We really should have made sure. Seems we are pulling a bit less than half the rated capacity of the burners. We're getting the gas company out ASAP.

Redoing the numbers, it still seems like we are getting about 20% efficiency out of the firebox. Hopefully we double our output and that efficiency holds, then we get into reasonable ramp times (reaching boil as sparge finishes off).

As far as modifications, there are only two things we can think of to help heat transfer: increase surface area and/or increase temperature differential. For the former, the firebox only covers about half the bottom of the kettle (58% actually) but covering the bottom of the kettle means protecting dump tubes from scorching. It can obviously be done but it seems significantly more complicated (i.e. more expensive). The latter means a bigger burner. I'm not sure that will even be doable once we get our gas stuff figured out. Insulating the firebox can't hurt but I'm not sure if it helps.

I suppose that's all for now.

[AnthonyB]

Do you guys have the kettles with flat tops? I was looking at these but I am a little worried about the flat tops and condensate dripping back into the kettle.

[ColdFusion]

Do you guys have the kettles with flat tops? I was looking at these but I am a little worried about the flat tops and condensate dripping back into the kettle.

Funny you should ask, we are just in the process of figuring out how to seal these properly to the top of the kettles (yes, we have flat tops). We haven't had any issues with DMS on our two first brews (a blonde and a pale ale). We get plenty of steam out the vent and have a condensate trap in the steam stack. If we ever plan something like a pilsner, we'll likely need to be a bit more careful but no problems on that front so far. To answer your question, yes, you get condensate back into the kettle but I'm not sure it's any more than what you'd see with a domed lid. We run a 90min boil.

Our biggest issue with the lid is actually the leaking when you run the sprayball. Running caustic or acid isn't advisable just yet. We were thinking to just run some silicone around the edge but I think we might make a gasket to clamp down on to seal it up.

[alestars]

lids

Funny you should ask, we are just in the process of figuring out how to seal these properly to the top of the kettles (yes, we have flat tops). We haven't had any issues with DMS on our two first brews (a blonde and a pale ale). We get plenty of steam out the vent and have a condensate trap in the steam stack. If we ever plan something like a pilsner, we'll likely need to be a bit more careful but no problems on that front so far. To answer your question, yes, you get condensate back into the kettle but I'm not sure it's any more than what you'd see with a domed lid. We run a 90min boil.

Our biggest issue with the lid is actually the leaking when you run the sprayball. Running caustic or acid isn't advisable just yet. We were thinking to just run some silicone around the edge but I think we might make a gasket to clamp down on to seal it up.

Well our mash tun and kettle arrived yesterday held up because of snow storm in Utah you would think in May you wouldnt have to worry about this!
My partner and I were looking at the lids last night wondering how passivation would go since the lids dont seem to seal very well, looked at these prior to ordering so it wasn't a huge suprise.
I was thinking about useing some 1/2'' high temp scilicon hose and spliting it with a knife to make a gasket I think it should work well with the rolled lip.
The clamps I am still coming up with something but will post back once we come up with something.
For now c clamps should to get passivation done.
We did a water test and with our smaller pump it did not leak when valve was slightly open but for CIPing after brew day we will want it at full blast.

Cold fusion we had a couple plumbing contractors out today to give us bids on installing gas lines to our jet burner for hook up on friday as Im sure its not something they install regular they had some questions.
The burner was sent out with a plug in the side that would come out the hole in fire box the inlet that points down was left open.
The one contractor asked if we wanted it run down through the bottom, also something to ask Nick at Glacier.
If you could post a pic on your hook up i would greatly appreciate it!
Cold fusion will update you on any improvements to lids as you have helped out with your posts.

I will ad that the welds on the tanks are very very nice and the finish is excellent!
They are even better than our PBST fermenter.
The false bottom is a very tite fit but does have small gaps were the legs are but doesn't seem like it will be a problem.
We will only be doing 5 bbl batches in our 7 bbl kettle but it does seem that maybe the should make the tanks wider, so that you would get more surface area on the burners.
The 5 bbl mash tun is a good ratio height to width.
This is a post prior to brewing on them but we are over all very happy with Glaciers quality and customer service.

[HogMountain]

More good info. Thanks for posting.

[ColdFusion]

Cold fusion we had a couple plumbing contractors out today to give us bids on installing gas lines to our jet burner for hook up on friday as Im sure its not something they install regular they had some questions.
The burner was sent out with a plug in the side that would come out the hole in fire box the inlet that points down was left open.
The one contractor asked if we wanted it run down through the bottom, also something to ask Nick at Glacier.
If you could post a pic on your hook up i would greatly appreciate it!
Cold fusion will update you on any improvements to lids as you have helped out with your posts.

I can attest to the fact that Glacier has been pretty good about helping us out with issues

I had a reply but in trying to attach a picture I lost it; this one will be a bit shorter. You can see below what the inside of the firebox looks like with the various parts. Pretty simple with the flame sense, igniter, and burner. Outside the box there is a gas shutoff valve, then the electronic gas controls down to a 'T' fitting to flex, which is then attached to our main gas drop along the wall. Some of the gas controls are in a box on the same wall, the rest are in the main brewhouse panel.

Do you have an engineer designing this for you? Installation of the burner is probably the easiest part; getting all the right parts and safeties, in the right configuration is more complex.

[ColdFusion]

More updates:

If you are buying NG jet burners from Glacier or any other Chinese source, get a #54 bit and make sure your tips are sized properly. We are running 7" WC pressure through about 40ft of 1.5" pipe, down to 1" for about 6ft, and finally 3/4" through a honeywell valve and into the 440k BTU burner. Our tips seemed to be about #57 orifice size and the burner could only pull about 250k BTU. With drilled out tips, the burner pulls almost exactly 440k BTU now.

Our issue now is the temp going up the flue; with the exhaust tube at the top of the firebox, the entry point of the hottest gasses is giving the steel a nice red glow. Might be in the 1500F range. We are mulling over some options to help fix this:

- Turn down the burners at the honeywell valves to optimize efficiency and reduce heat up the flue
- install some steel plates against the bottom of the kettle to redirect the top 4" or so of hot gasses so they don't rush straight up the flue.

Otherwise, we seem to be getting decent enough heat into the kettles now. It's still slower than we'd hoped but certainly workable now. What the kettles need is more surface area. If I was designing these, I'd want about double the area for the volume of liquid. I think we currently have about 6sqft of area for a boiling volume of about 300G but I'd have to check the actual kettles. Some of the dimensions were different than the drawings.

[a10t2]

Otherwise, we seem to be getting decent enough heat into the kettles now.

What kind of boiloff rate are you seeing? Even at 40% efficiency, that would be about 0.7 bbl/hr, assuming my math is right. I'm putting together a 7 bbl system and thinking a 440k burner may be overkill.

[ColdFusion]

What kind of boiloff rate are you seeing? Even at 40% efficiency, that would be about 0.7 bbl/hr, assuming my math is right. I'm putting together a 7 bbl system and thinking a 440k burner may be overkill.

It would be overkill if we were getting 40% efficiency. We are currently getting about 20%. Note that our BK honeywell controller is one of the two stage ones that allows for different levels. We had originally assumed we would turn the burner down once we approached boil. We were getting about 4% evaporation/hr before these changes. We believe we should be at around 7% now.

[ColdFusion]

Had a pretty good brewday after all the changes. Last thing we did was to tune the burners down to about 370k BTU. We came to boil about 30min after sparge was done and we knocked out a little over 8 BBL. Firebox is definitely hot but not nearly as bad as when we had the burners up to 440k. We'd still like to do some things to improve the efficiency but this is workable now.

[BFBC]

I know I am following this...their prices are very competitive. I would love to get additional info and thoughts from any brewer's using their brewhouse/fermentors.

[Catfish002]

Brew kettle

Had a pretty good brewday after all the changes. Last thing we did was to tune the burners down to about 370k BTU. We came to boil about 30min after sparge was done and we knocked out a little over 8 BBL. Firebox is definitely hot but not nearly as bad as when we had the burners up to 440k. We'd still like to do some things to improve the efficiency but this is workable now.

I too have been looking at the glacier brew kettle's. I see from the drawings on their website that these kettles look to have flat bottoms. Are you whirlpooling in a separate kettle or are you conducting the whirlpool in the flat bottom glacier kettle? Are you able to get good separation of hops etc. from the wort in these flatbottom kettles? Also, does your brewery have a Facebook page with pictures of your glacier tank setup? If so, what's the name of your brewery? Thanks!

[ColdFusion]

I too have been looking at the glacier brew kettle's. I see from the drawings on their website that these kettles look to have flat bottoms. Are you whirlpooling in a separate kettle or are you conducting the whirlpool in the flat bottom glacier kettle? Are you able to get good separation of hops etc. from the wort in these flatbottom kettles? Also, does your brewery have a Facebook page with pictures of your glacier tank setup? If so, what's the name of your brewery? Thanks!

They aren't really flat, more of a shallow dish bottom on the HLT and BK. We had Glacier put in a diverter plate around the outlet. Trub and hops make a nice cone after whirlpool and the plate really holds back the collapsing cone. We estimate that we only lose maybe 5 gallons. We don't have any pictures up on the web as we aren't open just yet. People get way too excited and end up at the brewery trying to buy beer we don't have.

If you want I could email you pics of the tanks but I'm not sure how informative it would be. The only change I can think of that would be nice in the BK would be to have the bottom sloped to a dump valve. Trying to get all the crud out of the kettle is a bit of a pain. You might not need a diverter plate depending on the slope, I'd imagine.

[Catfish002]

They aren't really flat, more of a shallow dish bottom on the HLT and BK. We had Glacier put in a diverter plate around the outlet. Trub and hops make a nice cone after whirlpool and the plate really holds back the collapsing cone. We estimate that we only lose maybe 5 gallons. We don't have any pictures up on the web as we aren't open just yet. People get way too excited and end up at the brewery trying to buy beer we don't have.

If you want I could email you pics of the tanks but I'm not sure how informative it would be. The only change I can think of that would be nice in the BK would be to have the bottom sloped to a dump valve. Trying to get all the crud out of the kettle is a bit of a pain. You might not need a diverter plate depending on the slope, I'd imagine.

ColdFusion, I just sent you a private message. Thanks!