Brewhouse
General Features
An Aegir brewhouse is engineered and built to a very high standard with advanced features normally found on much larger systems. We use the highest quality components and fabrication techniques to produce a system that is built to last and give many, many years of trouble-free service.
Designed and built in America, all our systems are fully automated.
All major system components are skid-mounted, pre-piped and pre-wired for easy installation and quick start-up. Just run your services to the brewhouse skid, liquor tank skid and milling center and you’re good to go.
Mash Tun
Designed to match the system’s mash filter, the mash tun gives trouble-free, consistent conversion while treating the mash gently.
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Foundation water level and strike water to grist ratio are programmable by recipe
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Temperature control system that allows precise, automatic adherence to the brewing diagram for each recipe
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Direct steam injection that allows a rapid heating rate, precise temperature control, minimizes energy input, and eliminates possibility of jacket-heated fouling
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Grist hydrator provides thorough wetting and clump-free mashing
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Agitator blade designed for low shear, efficient mixing in combination with variable speed, minimizes turbulence and reduces oxidation and gel formation. Bottom mounting is available on most systems.
Mash Filter
A Meura mash filter lies at the heart of every Aegir system replacing the lauter tun and results in the following operational differences:
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Use of finely milled grist allowing thin-bed filtration with smaller interstitial distance than traditional roll-milled grist.
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Much more efficient sparging. Typically operating at a water to grist ratio of less than 2.2:1 (weight to weight) means short sparging cycles with an improvement in wort quality as a result
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5-10 times the filter area of a lauter tun
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Filtration and sparging using low pressure
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Compression of the filter cake
And provides the following benefits:
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Actual extract yields compared to laboratory results are typically above 98% and even 100% is common
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Production of higher-gravity worts, e.g., over 24° Plato in the first wort and over 16° Plato after sparging if desired
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Brighter wort, e.g., solids content below 5ml/l - Imhoff
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Higher productivity, e.g., 2-3 brews in 8 hours, 4-5 brews in 12 hours, 5-6 brews in 16 hours, 8-10 brews in 24 hours
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Drier spent grains, e.g., up to 30% solids content that are only damp to the touch. Simple, no-mess clean-up and easy transportation.
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Greater flexibility in recipe design since the range of materials that can be used to form the grain bill is so much broader
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Raw material, labor and energy savings Cost-Benefit Analysis
This is not a filter press! Although they both have plates, a frame and can separate wort from spent grains, the similarity ends there. Give us a call if you want to learn more.
Kettle
For the greatest energy efficiency and the highest wort quality our kettle includes the following:
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Proprietary-design wort spreader for rapid removal of unwanted compounds and shorter boiling time
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Automated steam flow control for precise, heat input and a controlled evaporation rate
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Over-boil detector and protection system
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An external calandria that allows heating of the wort to begin early in the kettle-filling process and virtually eliminates the possibility of wort burn-on, while providing other processing advantages.
Whirlpool
Although wort clarity is much higher with a mash filter and the volume of trub is lower, efficient separation is still important and an Aegir whirlpool is designed to do just that.
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Vessel and piping design together with a variable frequency drive on our brew kettle pump allows the boiled wort to be introduced into the whirlpool at the optimum velocity for efficient separation
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Our Trub Buster™ dispersing device that allows easy trub removal with less time spent by the brewer and less water consumption
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Clever design results in lower trub loss
Wort Chiller
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High capacity, post-whirlpool, heat exchanger to quickly and precisely cool the wort and recover the heat for the hot liquor tank
Automated Oxygen Injection
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Proprietary venturi-vortex injector that provides automated, ratio-controlled, wort aeration after leaving the kettle: giving consistent oxygen levels for optimum fermentation
Liquor Tanks
To support short-cycle brewing, our liquor tanks are sized to provide a generous buffer and have the following features:
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Available as just an HLT or CLT and HLT, these vessels are insulated on the bottom and sides
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Skid mounted for easy set-up and relocation if brewery expansion requires it
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Pumps with variable frequency drives
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The cold liquor tank has a glycol loop heat exchanger mounted on the skid. This system allows wort cooling to lager fermentation temperatures at optimum knock-out rate
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Heat is recovered from the hot wort to heat the water for the hot liquor tank to sparge water temperature levels.
Aegir Insight™ Control System
Control of the entire brewhouse and milling system is achieved with the Aegir Insight™ brewing software and can be performed on a desktop PC, handheld devices, or touch-screen HMI.
All process valves, temperature probes, pressure transducers, flowmeters, motors and pumps are monitored and controlled with the Insight™ system. And with internet access, remote online support is available with a phone call.
For cleaning, CIP loops and routines are built into the Insight™ software. CIP of the brewhouse and related process piping is done in batch form with chemical additions manually dosed into the brewhouse vessels and recirculated.
Control of the fermentation cellar can also be included if required.
The Insight control system can be remotely accessed over the internet allowing us to “look over your shoulder,” with your permission, to help with trouble-shooting or for down-loading system upgrades – a very handy feature!
See an Aegir brewhouse in action!