Hello brewers,
We are a relatively new brewery (7th month of operation) and we are now locally distributing kegs to bars and restaurants. We have quickly realized the demand of our product is causing us to make some necessary adjustments to our brewing operation. We run a 10 BBL system with 6 cold storage 10BBL brite tanks, and 3, 10BBL conical fermentation vessels. Our fermentation vessels are classified as unitanks, double jacketed and glycol cooled, equipped with a PRV rated to 15 psi (tanks are tested to 30psi) Our goal is to ferment and force carbonate our beer in the same vessel. Once conditioning has completed and we are at 0-0.5c for temp in the tank, we increase the head pressure to roughly 5psi on the tanks pressure gauge. We then start flowing c02, slowly, through the carbstone and let the tank pressure slowly climb, overnight, until the vessel has hit equilibrium. In our brite tanks, we haven't ran into any issues when doing it this way, and are pleased with the end result. What we are finding when we do this in the unitanks is, overnight, the tank pressure rises to about 8.5psi and anything exceeding that 8.5psi on the tanks pressure gauge causes the PRV on top of the tank to hiss and slowly bleed off co2. We made sure all of the fittings and clamps are as tight as humanly possible, and even pressure tested our gauges to make sure they were accurate.
When we take a sample off the tanks the next morning, the beer is carbonated to our liking (or within an acceptable range), but our 700lb co2 tank has a thick frost ring around the middle of it and we are under the impression that we are wasting co2. We are completely at a loss as to why the Pressure Release Valve (tested to 15psi) is not holding pressure above 8.5psi. We even replaced the PRV with a brand new one, before we tried a second time, and the same thing happened.
Does anyone have any idea why this would be happening, or better yet, how to prevent or fix the issue? Any advice or solutions would be much appreciated!
Mike Thoreson
Chief Brewer
Prairie Brothers Brewing Company, Fargo ND
We are a relatively new brewery (7th month of operation) and we are now locally distributing kegs to bars and restaurants. We have quickly realized the demand of our product is causing us to make some necessary adjustments to our brewing operation. We run a 10 BBL system with 6 cold storage 10BBL brite tanks, and 3, 10BBL conical fermentation vessels. Our fermentation vessels are classified as unitanks, double jacketed and glycol cooled, equipped with a PRV rated to 15 psi (tanks are tested to 30psi) Our goal is to ferment and force carbonate our beer in the same vessel. Once conditioning has completed and we are at 0-0.5c for temp in the tank, we increase the head pressure to roughly 5psi on the tanks pressure gauge. We then start flowing c02, slowly, through the carbstone and let the tank pressure slowly climb, overnight, until the vessel has hit equilibrium. In our brite tanks, we haven't ran into any issues when doing it this way, and are pleased with the end result. What we are finding when we do this in the unitanks is, overnight, the tank pressure rises to about 8.5psi and anything exceeding that 8.5psi on the tanks pressure gauge causes the PRV on top of the tank to hiss and slowly bleed off co2. We made sure all of the fittings and clamps are as tight as humanly possible, and even pressure tested our gauges to make sure they were accurate.
When we take a sample off the tanks the next morning, the beer is carbonated to our liking (or within an acceptable range), but our 700lb co2 tank has a thick frost ring around the middle of it and we are under the impression that we are wasting co2. We are completely at a loss as to why the Pressure Release Valve (tested to 15psi) is not holding pressure above 8.5psi. We even replaced the PRV with a brand new one, before we tried a second time, and the same thing happened.
Does anyone have any idea why this would be happening, or better yet, how to prevent or fix the issue? Any advice or solutions would be much appreciated!
Mike Thoreson
Chief Brewer
Prairie Brothers Brewing Company, Fargo ND
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