When BrewDog, the hugely successful Independent Scottish craft brewer were looking to make stronger beers and implement a faster, more efficient cooling process, Advanced Refrigeration and Hydratech combined their expertise to provide a solution that spoke volumes, literally.
Renowned for their experimental and innovative approach to brewing, BrewDog were trying to create a higher ABV beer by transferring product between fridge and freezer containers, which was particularly labour intensive and made it hard to keep oxygen out of the product. Having worked with Advanced Refrigeration since their very early days, the brewers commissioned Advanced to run an experiment using two 4000L beer ageing tanks and a small chiller using mono propylene glycol (MPG).
All seemed ok until the temperature really started to drop, the viscosity of the MPG was increasing and shutting down the pump and system.
‘Everything was working until we got down to -9°C and at this point the viscosity of the heat transfer fluid was such that the pump would stop and trip the system. We couldn’t get it low enough, it needed to get to -20°C to achieve the final strength of alcohol BrewDog were looking for’
Jason Fraser, MD, Advanced Refrigeration
The team knew the chiller and pipework were good, it was the fluid that was letting them down.
Advanced called in long term partners Hydratech for advice. The UK’s leading manufacturer of specialist heat transfer fluids, have decades of industry experience and unrivalled technical knowledge of flow characteristics, thermodynamics and cooling systems.
Hydratech confirmed the expected viscosity issues of MPG at these low temperatures and immediately recommended Coolflow DTX. The high performance, non-toxic secondary refrigerant, with an operating range of -50°C to +80°C is widely used across the food and beverage sector by the likes of Beavertown, Tiny Rebel, Camden Town, Glenmorangie and Coca Cola.
The fluid was simply swapped out and the desired operating temperatures were achieved straight away, in fact the chiller managed to get down to -30°C.
Performance wise, Coolflow DTX has very similar heat transfer and pumping characteristics to Ethylene Glycol and therefore benefits from numerous operating advantages. Advanced Refrigeration were able to deliver a solution to BrewDog with reduced energy consumption, carbon emissions and time – better for business and better for the environment.
Advanced Refrigeration have installed DTX in many other systems and have seen similar savings on operational and running costs. It’s a proven solution they believe in.
‘We have a big installation going into a multi-million pound ice cream factory re-development which will also run on DTX. I’d recommend it to any clients that need to take their glycol down to extremities’
Jason Fraser, MD, Advanced Refrigeration
For more information on our member Hydratech, please click here.
