Pinpoint Carbonation

[CraftBeerIndia]

Any opinions out there on using a "Pinpoint" carbonator?

I've looked into 2 suppliers, Wittemann and Esau & Hueber.

Any opinions or recommendations on other suppliers to look at?

We are planning to install this with our expansion for 150-300BBLs per hour.

Cheers!

[CraftBeerIndia]

pinpoint carbonator

*Bump*

For a change, this is one equipment/topic that has not really been discussed in too much detail on this forum.

I'm not sure if it's because using a pinpoint carbonator is not too common in micro-breweries or the cost doesn't justify its function, etc...

Looking for some feedback/tips on those out there using this.

Thanks and Cheers!

[gitchegumee]

Hello Alex.

Pinpoint carbonation is more common than you might think. Most folks in US use Wittemann. It's usually done between conditioning and bright, after filtration (if filtered). Keep the beer very cold, keep about 2psi more head pressure in your receiving tank than you wish to saturate with, use long hoses after the pinpoint (or some other restriction), keep the carbonation elements clean, install a CO2 flow meter (even a rotameter works well), ask for and read everything you can from Wittemann on the subject. Why go elsewhere when they are located right in your back yard? Keep it local! They might be your best customers.

[BrewinLou]

We have a Wittemann and love it. That said I do not think there is any reason you can not make one out of a carbstone, a T, and a sight glass. I would experiment around and see what kind of results you can get. If you have a pile of cash sitting around by all means. They were not the best company to deal with. They sent us a 2" model after we ordered a 1.5". Then had us send it back, they just cut the ends off and welded 1.5 ends on it. Not exactly the answer I am looking for on a 10K piece of equipment. Ours also developed a leak around one of the purging valves and they really did not want to talk to me at all. It was a bear to fix as it is very thin ss welded to very thick ss. Still having problems with it, but since there is positive pressure and it is not leaking much...

Like was said, the beer has to be in the low 30s, and you want a foot of hose for every bbl per hour you are pushing the beer after the carbonation point before the destination tank.

[Woolsocks]

Mixed Messages

You love the Witteman but then talk about all the issues with the product and the company, and how for a couple hundred bucks you could build your own. Would you buy it again if you had it to do over?

[BrewinLou]

Yes I love it, I was not in charge of the purchasing back then. It saves us a lot of time in production waiting for carbonation in a tank to complete. Looking back we may have been able to save thousands by looking at alternatives. I would most certainly try a long thin stone down a 1.5 or 1 inch hose before spending thousands. Does the Wittemann work? Yes quite well, but they like many companies have their issues, but the original design is not one of them. It is a question of tuning in the temp, speed, and pressures, and as usual making sure that stone gets cleaned VERY well every time.

[dick murton]

I used manually controlled Witteman units ages ago, but since then have used Esau & Hueber (CO2, nitrogen, oxygen, air - according to purpose of course), Centec (CO2 only), GEA (CO2 only) kit. These were all automated systems. For the sort of flow rates you are talking about, make sure that whatever you get is fully automated and has feedback control / measurement from suitable in-line instrumentation, such as Anton Paar, Centec, Hach (Orbisphere) or Haffmans.

My personal choice would be the venturi based systems by Esau & Hueber, as I have had better results from them than Centec, but that was largely down to detailed design of the rest of the system and the control. The GEA partial recirc system works very well as well. The key is not just the injection system, but the whole beer flow control / CO2 injection / solution / back pressure / mesurement / control system design.

Not knowing anything about Witteman, I guess they will also be able to sell you a suitably designed, hygienic complete installation, in which case you are down to price and service available locally.

Make sure you specify the maximum and minimum beer flw rates, temperatures, start and finish CO2 content, and the accuracy you want to control to, and let each of them supply you costs etc for a complete skid based system.

[Molly Pitcher]

Pinpoint carbonation is more common than you might think. Most folks in US use Wittemann. It's usually done between conditioning and bright, after filtration (if filtered).

This question is off topic, but you mention conditioning and then bright as separate phases. What do you define as the conditioning stage and which vessel would this take place in? I was under the impression that took place in the bright tank, which could also be where you carbonate the beer before filtration (if filtered) and then final packaging. Are you defining the conditioning phase as still taking place in the fermenter, then once the yeast is dropped and beer is conditioned you transfer to the bright tank for carbonation? New commercial brewer here, so I appreciate any insight!

Cheers.

[dick murton]

Well as far as I am concerned bright / brite means the beer has been filtered, and is crystal clear the sort of clarity you would expect to see out of a bottle of Bud (sorry - but they do have their uses as standard setters for some aspects). I get the impression that many, perhaps even most micro brewers in the states (not very many true micros in the UK filter the beer - so they don't use bright beer tanks) use the term brite for whichever is the final tank prior to packaging, or even dispense staright out of the tanks.

Nothing wrong with that, but it can create (and obviously has created) slight problems when terminology is not absolutely consistent (don't worry this sort of confusion happens between breweries in the same company as well, when the breweries originally were part of different companies).

Anyway, back to the question -

Conditioning uses separate tanks, sometimes also known as cold storage or maturation tanks, or even green beer tanks. The newly fermented beer is transferred into these from the FVs after removal of the crop for re-use yeast, and settled excess waste yeast. In a larger brewery, it may be carbonated on transfer, have finings added, or krausen beer or primings added. It is stored here for a few days up to months, typically at minus 1 C before it has the settle yeast and protein removed, then filtered into a bright tank from where it is packaged. The beer will be carbonated in-line between the filter outlet and the bright beer tank, so that it does not have to be adjusted, which takes far more time and is less accurately controlled, in the bright tank.

Hope this helps

[Molly Pitcher]

Well as far as I am concerned bright / brite means the beer has been filtered, and is crystal clear the sort of clarity you would expect to see out of a bottle of Bud (sorry - but they do have their uses as standard setters for some aspects). I get the impression that many, perhaps even most micro brewers in the states (not very many true micros in the UK filter the beer - so they don't use bright beer tanks) use the term brite for whichever is the final tank prior to packaging, or even dispense staright out of the tanks.

Nothing wrong with that, but it can create (and obviously has created) slight problems when terminology is not absolutely consistent (don't worry this sort of confusion happens between breweries in the same company as well, when the breweries originally were part of different companies).

Anyway, back to the question -

Conditioning uses separate tanks, sometimes also known as cold storage or maturation tanks, or even green beer tanks. The newly fermented beer is transferred into these from the FVs after removal of the crop for re-use yeast, and settled excess waste yeast. In a larger brewery, it may be carbonated on transfer, have finings added, or krausen beer or primings added. It is stored here for a few days up to months, typically at minus 1 C before it has the settle yeast and protein removed, then filtered into a bright tank from where it is packaged. The beer will be carbonated in-line between the filter outlet and the bright beer tank, so that it does not have to be adjusted, which takes far more time and is less accurately controlled, in the bright tank.

Hope this helps

So in homebrew terms, it would basically be "secondary" fermentation, or cold crashing the beer before carbonation and the bright tank?

We are not planning on filtering our beer, at least at first, and were planning on carbonating the beer in the bright tank. Any pros or cons to carbonating in a bright vs. inline? I think our plan is to ferment, remove the yeast and trub, cold crash, remove whatever else settles out (all in 1 FV so far), then transfer to the bright, carbonate in the bright, then keg. Does that sound about right for a fairly small (7 bbl) bootstrapping operation?

[dick murton]

Sounds OK to me, but to be honest, I don't work in micros much, as most of my expereince has been in large breweries. So any other contributions from regular micro brewers would be better than mine.

There are loads of posts about in tank carbonation on this site. You would do as well to have a trawl through and pick out what seems to fit your equipment best.

I wish you well

[BrewinLou]

Molly, the advantage is in saving tank time. You have to ask yourself,"where is the bottle neck in our operation". If it is the time it takes to carbonate beer in the BBT then you need to look at inline or another BBT. Also if you are not filtering you would have to transfer the beer via a pump to use inline carbonation. I think in your situation I would push the beer over using gas to the BBT and carb using a stone in the BBT.