Wort Cooling Systems

From the physical point of view, cooling is an easy process. In practice, however, breweries can choose different ways of heat transfer using either a single-stage (chilled water only) or multiple-stage (ambient water, glycol) plate heat exchangers . Wort enters the heat exchanger at between 96 and 99°C and exits cooled to pitching temperature.

Single-Stage Cooling

The cooling operation can be achieved with a single-stage system using a glycol-jacketed cold-water tank to cool the wort.

Two-Stage Cooling

In a two-stage system the first stage utilizes water to remove the bulk of the heat, cooling the incoming wort to within 3°C of fermentation temperature. In the second stage, the wort is cooled to the fermentation temperature by a secondary refrigerant ( e.g., glycol, ammonia, etc).