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  • Water Service size question

    Hi,
    I have a 10 bbl brewhouse I'm installing, and I need to improve the city water service from its current miniscule level. I can go up to a 1" line without much hassle, or I could go through a huge amount of administrative red tape and take it up to 1-1/4, 1-1/2 or more. This would also take more time.

    To me, I'm thinking that my biggest instantenous-use water-hog is the heat exchanger used to chill the wort (currently no CLT, but I have room for one in the future if growth requires it).

    Of course more is better, but I'd like to save the extra time involved if I can. Is a 1" line going to be adequate or am I setting myself up for headaches down the road?

    Thanks,
    S

    P.S. I am told that local water pressure is 50-60psi.

  • #2
    There is an easy and useful tool you could use here:



    (this is a great site for basic engineering info, lots of which would be useful to brewers (I am a process engineer, so I use it for all sorts of things! I've validated the software - it works fine!))

    You should aim for between 1 and 3 m/s (sorry - I'm metric!) velocity in your pipes, and/or about 20 to 50 kPa/100m pipe. According to the software, at 1 m/s, you would lose about 1.3 psi if your pipe run was about 20m long and 1" (inside) diameter. This isn't too bad (about 45 kPa/100m). This also assumes new (clean) pipe - if your water is hard, you may with to select a 'fouled' factor to account for future possible scaling. This would increase the dP/100m a bit, but probably you wouldn't lose sleep over it. You have plenty of dP to burn if your supply pressure is 50-60 psi.

    You will need to check that the flow you would get at 1 m/s is enough for you (through 1" nom. pipe, this would be about 62 ft³/hr), and work on about 90% of this, so 56 ft³/h. If this is too low, then, yes, you will need to increase the pipe above 1" and keep trading off pipe ID against flowing velocity against flowrate against pressure drop per my examples.

    Since pressure drop varies inversly proportionate to pipe diameter, increasing pipe diameter will only have a moderate affect on your total frictional pressure loss. You could continue to do this until other sources of pressure drop (e.g. your flow control valve or indeed the loss through the heat exchanger) become dominant. After that, there's not much further point in increasing the pipe size.

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    • #3
      How fast will you knock out? Let's say 10 bbl in 30 min; then that dictates a flow rate of about 11 gal/min. With 50 psi pressure, a 1" nominal pipe is more than adequate for almost any heat exchanger dP. Good luck!
      Phillip Kelm--Palau Brewing Company Manager--

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      • #4
        Hello!

        I just have a 3/4" water line for my 10 bbl brewery. As the other posts suggest flow rate is a great way to judge if your water supply is adequate. We always use 10 gal / min as a standard. Your 1" pipe should do the trick. But remember with the HE water temperature can have as important an impact as flow. For example in the winter we slow flow through the HE to a mere trickle, while in a summer heat wave full flow will only chill to 70*F. Depending upon your summer water temp, You may want to consider that CLT or a two stage HE with glycol assist.

        Aloha,
        Ron

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        • #5
          All the technical and practical information is a LOT of help guys. I get about 5gpm from my current 5/8" line, but it's an ancient feed from the city main - made of lead, and no doubt highly calcified, making its effective diameter smaller I'm sure.

          By the way, the pressure rating of 50-60 psi is what the city tells me is on the main, about 100ft from the brewhouse. - Still need to get through an RPZ, the meter, and the pressure reducer on that run, but I should still be in good shape on pressure from what I'm figuring.

          So, based on the knockout time frame calc and the 10gpm rule of thumb, it sounds like I can skip the red tape and go with a 1" line.

          Gotta love this forum. Thanks everyone!
          S

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