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  • tankless water heater

    does anyone have experience useing a tankless/in-line water heating system to generate sparge water? or any ideas along the lines of suplementing an undersized boiler.
    (this is something actually said to me!) "If your beer was any better than budwieser, they would be making it."

  • #2
    Some thoughts.....

    We use a Ruud hot water heater currently in our process to develop sparge water. it is not an in-line unit and does run out with extended use.
    We are planning to change this over to an in-line unit in the future, but are doing the research now.

    It really depends on the size of your mash tun, batch size, etc., that sort of thing. In our 7 Bbl brewhouse we probably sparge over about 124 gallons (4 Bbls) in 45 minutes. This equates to around a 2.75 - 3 gal/min demand for 170 F water.
    Figure that your ground water is 55 F in the winter, and 60 F in the summer (for buried water lines entering into the building), you'll need an in-line unit that produces a 110 F - 115 F temp rise @ 3 gpm.

    That's the type of data you'll need to select an in-line unit.
    So.......it's kind of a serious of assumptions and calculations:

    1.) Select or know the size of your brew system. this is where you get your mash tun size.

    2.) Make some assumptions about how much strike water you will use for your mash.

    3.) Make some assumptions on how much of the strike water will remain in the spent grains.

    4.) Make some assumptions or know how much you collect to your brew kettle at the start of boil.

    5.) From 2.), 3.), and 4.), you will know how much water you need for sparge over a minimum 45 minute time. By dividing the gallonage by the amount of sparge time you will have your gallon/min (or metric equivalent if using that system).

    "......supplimenting an undersize boiler"............do you mean a steam boiler, or a brew kettle, or a hot water heater?
    If you mean you have an undersize hot water heater, then there are a few threads on this site that answer questions regarding alternate methods for storing sparge water heated in the brew kettle.

    Regards,

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    • #3
      tankless heater

      We took the biggest tankless heater we could find and plumbed it to an old dairy tank. We fill the tank through the tankless heater (water to 120 F first pass). When the tank is full we recirculate the water through the heater. About one hour and fifteen minutes to take 480 gallons of water from 120 F to 170 F. We put a temp controller on the system so we can fill the tank the night before and in the morning it is ready to go. We also plumbed the water out of the heat exchanger through the tankless heater and into the dairy tank. We get 180 F water that way and are ready for the next brew. Whole system ran $2100 and paid for itself in a year.

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      • #4
        tankless water heater

        We just installed a rinnai Model 2532WC External Commercial tankless water heater and we have been really happy with the results. You can run these units in parrell and heat a bunch of water or you can run them in series and pick up a bunch of heat. They claim that you put in up to 199,000 btu at an efficiency rating of 85% for propane. You can get a 90 degree rise at 3.7 gallon/min and 140 degree rise at 2.4 gallon/min. Make sure if you want to get water any hotter than 140 that you get a unit with the optional remote. The unit is factory set to 140 degrees and it not adjustable without the remote. Check out their website at www.rinnai.us We bought ours through a local plumbing supply (Fergusons) for just under a thousand dollars and we feel like it is a great bargin Hope this info helps

        Brad Farbstein
        real ale brewing co

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        • #5
          Thanks!

          Thanks, Brad........that's a tip I can use! I'll look into those for our 7 Bbl site.

          Regards,

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          • #6
            These are primarily for the home but there might be a heating unit suitable for your application:

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            • #7
              Tankless Water Heater

              For my home's hot water needs we use a Tankless Water Heater. The interesting thing is how I came to know about these tankless units. Turns out that one of my buddies does a little home brewing as a hobby. I asked him what that thing was in his plumbing contraption, and sure enough, a Tankless Water Heater. If its good enough for a mini brewery, it sure can heat the hotwater in my house.

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