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Industrial Water Chiller Systems

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Lautering in Brewing

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Temperature control is a vital part of nearly every step in the beer-making process. From boiling to fermentation, all brewers have to stay in charge of heat. 

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Hops being added to hot wort before wort chilling and fermentation

During the lautering phase of brewing, temperature control plays a critical role in ensuring flavors are developed correctly. Without control, beer flavors can vary and develop unwanted tastes and textures.

Lautering is broken up into three steps:

Mashout

Mashout is the term used to describe the heating of mash. Doing so helps liquify the mash and stop the fermentation of starches within the mash. This is where temperatures get precise. Optimum temperature of mashout is 170° F, which kills off bacteria that was formerly assisting the fermentation process. 

Recirculation

Once wort liquifies, it’s best to recirculate it through the mash repeatedly. The mash acts as a filter, catching small pieces of grain and other debris leftover from earlier phases of the brewing process. Recirculation is best performed by draining wort water out from the bottom of the mash and spraying it back over the top.

Sparging

Sparging is the most delicate part of lautering because any errors will significantly impact the flavors of the brew, especially the bitterness levels. Water is sprinkled on top of the grain to extract sugars that will be vital to beer taste. 

There are two methods of sparging, English and German. In English sparging, the wort is completely drained from the mash. Once the wort is removed, water is added to the mash. This time, the water is held at exactly 169° F. Eventually, the water can be drained and either be added to the wort or be used as its own light brew. 

In German sparging, water is added at the same rate as the wort is being drained from the mash. The main difference between English and German sparging is that German sparging generally results in a larger quantity of beer. 

Cold Control

keg cooler

Using temperature control equipment during lautering is important to protect these sensitive chemical changes. North Slope Chillers specializes in equipment brewers need to stay in command of their brew. Using Keg Coolers and Beacon Control technology takes the pressure off brewers as they move forward into the next part of beer-making, leading to a brew that drinkers can’t help but drain to the last drop. 

Contact North Slope Chillers to find the right temperature control equipment for your brewing needs at (866) 826-2993 or [email protected]. 

Conformal vs Conventional Cooling

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Injection molds are wonderful things. You can create nearly any object using an injection mold, but knowing the difference between different cooling options will make all the difference.

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conformal cooling
Conformal cooled mold for a power drill. Image from www.ogm.uk.com

Using injection molds to manufacture objects is a technology well-known across the world. Injection molds use cooling channels to allow molded objects to cool quickly, leading to faster turnaround times as more objects are quickly molded.

Know Your Cool

There are two types of cooling channels that are incorporated into injection molding: conventional and conformal. 

Conventional

Conventional cooling, also known as standard cooling, consists of straight line cooling channels that are generally located in the center of the object, regardless of the object’s shape.

Conformal

Conformal cooling channels follow the shape of the interior of an injection-mold object.  

Conformal is the obvious choice for most injection molds. Compared with conventional cooling channels, conformal cooling allows for greater heat transfer due to the cooling channels filling out more of the interior of the object. On the other hand, conventional cooling only cools outward from the inner center of the object, taking away less heat. 

Save Time, Save Money

conformal cooling
This injection mold contains a conformal cooling system. Notice how the cooling channels curve along the shape of the mold. Image from www.3dsystems.com

So why is this important? Because time is money. When your injection molded products need to cool, it takes a lot of time to come down from the high temperatures achieved during the injection process. The longer it takes to cool down, the longer it will be before you can get another mold made.

Several companies around the world have striven to perfect conformal cooling technology in their manufacturing processes, but none have been successful as The LEGO Group. In 2010, a study was completed by the toy company to see if conformal cooling was as effective as other methods when using injection molds to create LEGO brick elements. The survey revealed that conformal cooling was the method of choice. While its cooling effectiveness was matched by bronze inserts, conformal cooling proved to allow for higher quality bricks to be produced. 

Complete Control

Maintaining control over temperatures is critical in any manufacturing environment. Trust North Slope Chillers to meet your cooling needs. For more information, call (866) 826-2993 or email [email protected]. 

Industrial Water Cooled Chillers

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If You Can’t Stand The Heat…

…get a water cooled chiller. Industrial water cooled chillers are versatile workhorses that provide on demand cooling for a huge variety of industries. Let’s take a closer look at the inner workings of water cooled chillers.

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Water cooled chillers use the refrigeration cycle to produce chilled fluid, typically water or a mix of water and glycol. This chilled fluid is then capable of removing heat from machinery, food, or other equipment and continuously run back through the chiller.

Air Cooled vs. Water Cooled Chillers

Air cooled and water cooled chillers have many things in common. They both belong to the same vapor compression chilling family, and they both use an electronically driven mechanical compressor to force refrigerant around the system. In fact the majority of their components are the same. The main difference between the 2 is how unwanted heat is ejected from the system.  Water cooled chillers pump water through a sealed condenser and disperse it through a cooling tower. Air cooled chillers use fans to force cool air across the condenser.

Because water is more effective at dissipating heat than air, water cooled chillers remove unwanted heat more efficiently than air cooled chillers. Water cooled chillers also are more energy efficient and last longer than air cooled chillers.

Components of Water Cooled Chillers

North Slope Chillers diagram of the components of a water cooled chiller

Compressor

The compressor provides the driving force for moving the refrigerant around the system.  There are 4 main types of compressors. 3 of them (screw, scroll, and reciprocating) use positive displacement to create pressure, and the fourth (centrifugal) creates pressure with centrifugal force.

Condenser

The condenser is a configuration of horizontal pipes through which hot refrigerant runs.

Cooling Tower

Cooling towers use evaporative cooling to remove unwanted heat. Water is pumped over the pipes carrying hot refrigerant before it is fed into the condenser.

Expansion Valve

The expansion valve expands the refrigerant from liquid form to gaseous form before it enters the evaporator.

Evaporator/Heat Exchanger

In the evaporator, chilled water is created when unwanted heat is drawn into the refrigerant before it is fed into the condenser.

Filter Drier

The filter drier protects your chiller by removing unwanted contaminants and moisture from the system. They do get clogged with repeated use and need to be replaced regularly.

Water Cooled Chilling From North Slope Chillers

Water cooled chillers from North Slope Chillers are portable and easy to use no matter the application. Our chillers are proudly made in the USA and excel at supporting a range of industries. They are perfect for cooling lasers, welders, food storage containers, lab equipment, printers, EDM, hydroponic reservoirs, plastic injection molds, fermentation tanks, server rooms, oil extraction equipment…the list goes on and on!

Contact North Slope Chillers to find the right water cooled chiller for your needs at (866) 826-2993 or [email protected].

MRI Chillers

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Cutting Edge Cooling

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines are among the most valuable pieces of equipment in a hospital’s possession; not just in terms of cost, but also in terms of versatility. Providing patients with a complete image of their internal systems is an important step in diagnosing and treating a wide number of health problems. As a complicated piece of machinery, an MRI machine has incredibly specific cooling needs to keep it operational.

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MRI Room Cooling Needs

If you have ever walked into an MRI room, either for yourself or to assist another patient, you know it is not the most comfortable place to be. Cooling the ambient air in an MRI room not only protects the equipment from heat stress, but also provides patients with added comfort during a lengthy and sometimes stressful medical procedure.

The magnets used in an MRI machine are incredibly powerful and can put off a lot of heat. Excessive heat within the machinery itself can lead to costly helium leaks as well as inaccurate image results for the patient.

What Does an MRI Chiller Need?

Industrial chillers typically consist of a compressor, evaporator, expansion valve, and a condenser. MRI chillers require a few additional components to effectively cool an MRI machine.

Advanced Temperature Controller

MRI chillers are highly specialized for a number of reasons. MRI machines do not operate at a constant, even power load. Their power usage and heat output ramp up quickly, so an effective MRI chiller needs to be able to dissipate that heat just as quickly. 

The most effective MRI chillers are accompanied by a top of the line microprocessor that can react quickly to the shock of rapid load surges and keep temperatures under control.

Scroll Compressors

Industrial chillers have different compressor types available to them: centrifugal, screw, reciprocating, and scroll.  MRI chillers most commonly include a scroll compressor because they operate at lower sound and vibration levels. On their own, MRI machines operate so loudly that patients are provided with ear protection. Operating a quieter MRI chiller reduces the sonic stress for hospital staff and patients.

Emergency By-pass Valve

MRI Chiller with city by-pass valve

Hospitals cannot afford to go dark if any power interruption occurs. Most hospital systems have emergency generators that can keep life-saving machinery up and running. However, MRI chillers require both electricity and water supply. MRI chillers needs to have a bypass valve that allows them to switch over to city water flow in the event of an emergency. This emergency by-pass valve ensures that MRI equipment is provided with cooling under any circumstances.

Medical Cooling From North Slope Chillers

In the bio-medical industry, process cooling should never be an afterthought. Hospitals need reliable chilling to protect patients, lab samples, and critical equipment. North Slope Chillers portable industrial chillers provide essential cooling for a wide variety of bio-medical needs.  Contact us about your bio-medical chilling needs: (866) 826-2993 [email protected]

Whirlpooling

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What Is Whirlpooling?

Whirlpooling. Dangerous when floating a river, but critical when brewing beer. To put it simply, whirlpooling separates the good stuff in your brew from the waste that can be thrown away. 

Because whirlpooling is such an important part of the brewing process, simply stirring just isn’t going to cut it. Let’s dive into the brew, shall we?

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whirlpooling
Image from Homebrewersassociation.org

Wort And Trub

Before you can ferment your brew, you have to separate the brewed wort from the trub. 

For those who don’t speak beer, here’s a quick glossary: 

Wort:

Wort is “the sweet, amber liquid extracted from malted barley that the yeast will later ferment into beer.” According to Howtobrew.com, whirlpooling helps prepare the wort for fermentation by “gathering most of the break and hops into the center of the pot to better enable the siphon to draw off clear wort from the side.”

Trub:

Beerandbrewing.com identifies trub as “a collective term covering sediments formed in the brewing process during wort boiling—called hot break—and upon cooling the wort before primary fermentation boiling—called cold break—as well as during cold storage of fermented beer, which is called cold trub.” In any form, trub is usually discarded by brewers as a waste-product. 

Whirlpooling is the process of steeping hops in a way that preserves oils essential for wort flavor while separating out the trub. 

Let It Whirl

The swirling motion of the brew prevents most of the hop oils from boiling away. You can whirlpool your brew by using a spoon to stir or anything that will get the water moving. 

The main benefits of whirlpooling are preserving flavoring oils from boiling off and collecting trub to be disposed of. Experts in whirlpooling will do so in a way that shapes the trub into a cone at the bottom of the boiling pot: 

Whirlpooling

Once you’ve moved the wort brew to the fermentation chamber, you can throw away the trub. Some homebrewers use trub as a fertilizer for their lawns and gardens. Others use it as a drain filter due to the trub’s straining properties. 

Temperature Control

Throughout the brewing process, ensuring your brew doesn’t get too hot or cold is critical. North Slope Chillers offers fermentation chillers and Keg Coolers to help keep your brew at the desired temperature during each stage. For more information about how North Slope Chillers can help you brew the finest craft beer you’ve ever made, call (866) 826-2993 or email [email protected].