Application: Arcadia Brewing Company, one of Michigan’s most recognizable and decorated craft breweries, with more than 18 well-known beer brands and 16 beers consistently on tap, recently moved brewing from Battle Creek back to their hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Located on the Kalamazoo River, the new $6M facility design included concerted efforts to minimize environmental impact. High on that punch-list was finding a way to provide plenty of cooling while saving energy and space.
Arcadia approached Dimplex Thermal Solutions to build a high capacity Koolant Koolers chiller to cool the fermentation tanks. The concept included a desire to use the same chiller to provide comfort cooling for the keg and fermentation warehouses.
Specific Challenge: Every environment and application process has challenges to providing proper cooling. It can be a contaminated fluid, salinity in the air, equipment size restrictions, or special engineering constraints. The biggest hurdle for this process was the need for consistently low temperatures – as low as 27˚F. This consistency is absolutely critical – too much variation will quickly destroy the beer and send a lot of liquid down the drain.
The Solution: The Arcadia solution was designed around a central chiller platform. The entire facility now has glycol available for any cooling need. Specifically in the cellar, glycol drops were incorporated to each of the tank’s cooling jackets. These jackets allow the brewery to cool up to 3800 gallons of beer from a temperature of 70˚F to 32˚F within a day, a drastic improvement from the chiller system used in the previous facility. In addition to the cooling jackets, the central chiller design was utilized for ambient temperature control of the open fermentation cellar. With the Koolant Koolers chiller, Arcadia is able to maintain a steady 68˚F in the cellar; the perfect temperature for fermentation.
Similar to the open cellar, the Koolant Koolers chiller is used in conjunction with the air handling units to keep the Finished Product Warehouse at a cool and dry 45˚F. Arcadia brews the highest quality beer around and uses a Koolant Koolers chiller to make sure that same great flavor and quality makes it to the customer all over the country.
The Chiller: The unit is a nominal 90 ton unit offering three independent modules, each utilizing three 10 HP scroll compressors. With a turn-down capability of around 10%, Arcadia can save energy and reduce run time on components. The modular design also allows for preventive maintenance on any one circuit while still providing 60 tons of nominal capacity. The brewery cannot afford any downtime, the design of this system is absolutely critical to keeping product moving within the specifications of great beer.
The Service: “The product is operating as intended but has not been without issue – any custom product of this magnitude needs to be refined and conditioned to perform as the process requires – Koolant has been right next to us each step of the way. They stand behind what they sell – which in most processes is even more important than the purchase price.” ~ Ryan Stockinger, Arcadia Ales
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