Glycol drops bursting when we hot rinse

[ShawneeCraft]

We have been having some issues with the lines we used for our glycol system. It seems like the hoses we used to run from the mains to the jackets on the tanks are only rated up to about 140 degrees, there fine when they are cold but when we rinse our bright tanks we use water up to 170 degrees to rinse and sanitize (we are at a resort so we have steam on demand) I was wondering if anyone else runs into similar issues and what kinds of hoses you are using for your drops

Sorry if this has been answered i did a search and came up with some information but not exactly what i was looking for. Thanks in advance

[BrewinLou]

What kind of hose are you using? Is it reinforced? I come out of our tanks several feet with metal before switching to pex.

[gitchegumee]

Not ideal....

Sounds like you have a hose between two valves. A plumbing no-no. Liquid expands a bit when heated and will burst hoses and even pipes if there is nowhere for the liquid to expand. You need to examine your entire glycol system to prevent this. Then use hoses that are rated for AT LEAST twice the maximum pressure you could ever possibly see in your system.
On another note: Personally, I would ditch the extreme heat in your cleaning regime. You can clean and sanitize a tank without much (or any) heat and do it less expensively and less dangerously. Heating a vessel to those temperatures stresses welds and heats your glycol, which then has to be cooled again, using even more energy. Talk to some chemical suppliers about a CIP schedule that is less energy intensive. Keep the heat in the kettle and your brewery cool. You will use less energy, save chemicals, and keep more money in your pocket. Good luck!

[Starcat]

Some additional comments

Sounds like you have a hose between two valves. A plumbing no-no. Liquid expands a bit when heated and will burst hoses and even pipes if there is nowhere for the liquid to expand. You need to examine your entire glycol system to prevent this. Then use hoses that are rated for AT LEAST twice the maximum pressure you could ever possibly see in your system.
On another note: Personally, I would ditch the extreme heat in your cleaning regime. You can clean and sanitize a tank without much (or any) heat and do it less expensively and less dangerously. Heating a vessel to those temperatures stresses welds and heats your glycol, which then has to be cooled again, using even more energy. Talk to some chemical suppliers about a CIP schedule that is less energy intensive. Keep the heat in the kettle and your brewery cool. You will use less energy, save chemicals, and keep more money in your pocket. Good luck!

By looking at the original post, I'm not quite clear on the exact sequence of events, that being external applied rinse to the outer structure or quite what is being said...
The one thing I will add to what Phillip has stated is if your tank interior is smoking hot, do not engage the glycol system. That type of thermal shock can lead to major problems as well.

[liammckenna]

By looking at the original post, I'm not quite clear on the exact sequence of events, that being external applied rinse to the outer structure or quite what is being said...
The one thing I will add to what Phillip has stated is if your tank interior is smoking hot, do not engage the glycol system. That type of thermal shock can lead to major problems as well.

We have physical isolation valves (in addition to solenoids) on all glycol drops.

Close glycol inlet, but leave glycol outlet (on the tank) open for the wash cycle. Give the glycol somewhere to expand to (the glycol return header)

This should solve your problem.

Pax.

Liam

[ShawneeCraft]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

By looking at the original post, I'm not quite clear on the exact sequence of events, that being external applied rinse to the outer structure or quite what is being said...
The one thing I will add to what Phillip has stated is if your tank interior is smoking hot, do not engage the glycol system. That type of thermal shock can lead to major problems as well.

We are not having issues when we rinse the outside of the tank, when we hot rinse the inside of the brights the glycol gets very hot and causes the hoses to expand and then burst. We dont engage the glycol system when this is happening, we actually let the tanks cool a bit and then send beer into them, the beer is at 32 degrees and ends up cooling the glycol again before it makes its way to the chiller.

We have physical isolation valves (in addition to solenoids) on all glycol drops.

Close glycol inlet, but leave glycol outlet (on the tank) open for the wash cycle. Give the glycol somewhere to expand to (the glycol return header)

This should solve your problem.

We also use a manual ball valve above the motorized ball valves that are connected to our temperature modules in case we need to detach a tank from the main glycol loop for service. We always close both the send and return just in case we do have a failure we dont lose much glycol. I will definitely start keeping the send close and the return open to give it some space to expand into, great idea!

[gitchegumee]

Your beer will be happier if your BBT is at least as cold and at least as pressurized as the beer is when you push to BBT. Warming beer breaks out CO2 into foam. You don't want that. BBTs don't need to be heat cleaned, and are better off without. We acid wash ours cold and without opening them in a pressurized CO2 environment. Less energy, less chemical, less oxygen pickup, less CO2 usage, less equipment stress... Try it, you'll like it!

[ShawneeCraft]

gitchegumee
Your beer will be happier if your BBT is at least as cold and at least as pressurized as the beer is when you push to BBT. Warming beer breaks out CO2 into foam. You don't want that. BBTs don't need to be heat cleaned, and are better off without. We acid wash ours cold and without opening them in a pressurized CO2 environment. Less energy, less chemical, less oxygen pickup, less CO2 usage, less equipment stress... Try it, you'll like it!

Thanks for the info, ill be sure to give it a shot!

[TGTimm]

Wow. If you've been closing the outlet lines from the vessels when hot-rinsing, it's no wonder that your lines are blowing. You've been lucky that your lines were the weak point, as the next thing to go is the cooling jacket! Valves on the outlet line are for maintenance only, and should be kept open at all other times. I remove the handles from ours so no one will accidentally close one.