Whirlpool Vessel: Angle Of The Dangle?

[schooey]

So I found this big pot... h34r:

...and I'm thinking of turning it into a whirlpool vessel. I have a few questions;


I know I have seen this here somewhere, but I can't find it anywhere, or I've spoke to someone here about it, but anyway, what I want to know is;



What should the angle, theta, be between the tangent and the inlet centreline for optimum whirlpool?

Should the whirlpool suction point be directly opposite the inlet(A) at ( B) ?

Cheers!

 

[jonocarroll]

A separate whirlpool vessel... that one's new to me.

Some more info might be helpful - do you plan to stir this, or just let it pour in to form the whirlpool? If you're stirring [or as I might otherwise guess, using this as your kettle], it doesn't much matter what angle it enters at.

Otherwise, maximum tangential velocity will be when the inlet is... tangential.

 

[MHB]

30^o in from the tangential, usually a quarter to a third of the way up from the bottom of the pot to the top of the liquid, keep the velocity under 3 m/s
MHB

 

[schooey]

I plan to pump wort from the Braumeister into this vessel after the boil and once in there, recirculate with the pump to whirlpool. There are a few motivations; It will give me the height I need to then run through the plate chiller back down into the fermenter in the fridge without having to lift hot wort, and still keep the braumeister at a height where I can get the grain basket out under a 9 ft ceiling. The other is I can add some whirlpool hops and a few other things... as well as leaving a lot of the kettle trub in the braumeister and get a second bite of the cherry with the whirpool vessel.

 

[schooey]

30^o in from the tangential, usually a quarter to a third of the way up from the bottom of the pot to the top of the liquid, keep the velocity under 3 m/s
MHB

Aha.. It was you! I was planning on calling in and picking your brains tomorrow anyway, but now I can start drawing....

 

[stuchambers]

I have used this principle in a very large fish aquarium to separate a large amount of the soilds before biological filtration.
It was done in a conical vessel pumped into the bottom third and overflowed off the top.
The solids would collect in the bottom of the conical, there was a valve that could be cracked at the bottom of the conical at remove the solids along with only a small amount of the water.
Obviously you would need to draw from lower down to ensure you can easily empty the vessel.
If this is the case how will you need to place a valve on the outlet to allow time for the vessel to actually fill first.

Cheers Stu

 

[schooey]

This is not a conical, it's a 90L stock pot. I had a brief look at the whirlpool at Murray's, and it has a reasonably flat bottom, so I figured on the HB scale of things the stock pot would be fine. I plan on having a take off point at the very bottom, fitted with a three piece valve, for draining.

 

[Malted]

I plan to pump wort from the Braumeister into this vessel after the boil and once in there, recirculate with the pump to whirlpool. There are a few motivations; It will give me the height I need to then run through the plate chiller back down into the fermenter in the fridge without having to lift hot wort, and still keep the braumeister at a height where I can get the grain basket out under a 9 ft ceiling. The other is I can add some whirlpool hops and a few other things... as well as leaving a lot of the kettle trub in the braumeister and get a second bite of the cherry with the whirpool vessel.

But I thought the idea of the Braumeister was to be able to have a single vessel system?

Speculative only:
Could you put in a side outlet with a pick-up tube and an auxillary tangenital inlet (I spelt it right but thought it looked funnier this way) back into the Braumeister (from an external pump since the meister draws from under where the cone would form?) to whirlpool into it and then once the trub cone forms, suck from either the tangential or other side outlet?
Or maybe as some suggest, trub isn't so bad as it will settle in the fermenter with the yeast when it drops out?
At any rate, it sounds like you need a march pump to go with your brew wenches (I'd hardly call it brew porn because you seem to own all the brew porn stars). :icon_drool2:

(edit why not whirlpool with a manual stirrer post boil, let the trub settle, suck the first bit out i.e. the trub and discard it, then pull the flow out through the chiller? You can redirect where the inbuilt pump goes to can't you, maybe I have this wrong? Maybe it just goes back up through the malt pipe and you can't change that?

 

[donburke]

i received my goodies from beerbelly today, the one on the left is a pickup tube, the one on the right is a whirlpool outlet, and i am not quite sure if i put it in the compression fitting the right way, its longer on one length of the bend than the other, and i have the long end in the compression fitting

 

[schooey]

But I thought the idea of the Braumeister was to be able to have a single vessel system?

For a lot of people, primarily it is..... but a man loves to tinker

A lot of the time, I will only have the time to do a NC brew and I will cube straight from the braumeister. This new vessel will give me a bit of flexibility to do a brew, chill and ferment straight away as well as adding some whirlpool hops and a few other things if I have the time to.

(edit why not whirlpool with a manual stirrer post boil, let the trub settle, suck the first bit out i.e. the trub and discard it, then pull the flow out through the chiller? You can redirect where the inbuilt pump goes to can't you, maybe I have this wrong? Maybe it just goes back up through the malt pipe and you can't change that?

No you can't direct where the inbuilt pump goes without a mod and a fair bit of frigging about. And as I said above, this will allow me to do what I want to do with limited space and headroom, without lifting boiling wort above my head.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

if you are going to have a separate whirlpool, then there a couple of little tricks you might try to make it "very" effective at doing its job.

A ring in the bottom - whirlpools sweep matter in from the edges and into the center, a nice way to keep the stuff in the center when you are draining off, is a sump for it to fall into, or a ring to contain it - a perfect ring would slope gently from the edge so the currents could sweep the particles up a sort of a ramp and then they fall off into a holding ring, basically a raised sump, but with lots of nicely dispersed drainage holes to let the wort out.

and you could include a Denk ring to break up the small eddy currents that interfere with the efficient gathering of particles into the center - basically its a flat ring of mesh about a third of the way up the liquid height.

and i would consider having the whole thing on about a 3-5% slope towards the outlet. That should be a small enough slop to not interfere with the cone formation, but enough to nicely channel wort to your pick-up tube and give you a little extra volume.

 

[schooey]

Cheers TB, some good food for thought there and a bit more research to be done...

 

[kevin_smevin]

Here's a handy little website to calculate your flow rate http://www.1728.com/flowrate.htm. Solve for velocity, plug in the diameter of your inlet and then measure the amount of liquid that comes out in 1 minute and plug that in the flow rate section. It will then tell you your velocity in m/s. If you go faster then 3m/s you end up breaking all of your trub into smaller particles that dont settle well.

 

[QldKev]

So I found this big pot... h34r:

...and I'm thinking of turning it into a whirlpool vessel. I have a few questions;


I know I have seen this here somewhere, but I can't find it anywhere, or I've spoke to someone here about it, but anyway, what I want to know is;

View attachment 44128

What should the angle, theta, be between the tangent and the inlet centreline for optimum whirlpool?

Should the whirlpool suction point be directly opposite the inlet(A) at ( B) ?

Cheers!

Your new pot already looks dented

QldKev

 

[schooey]

Thanks, but being a Mech Eng with a history in pumps and hydraulics, I got that bit down pat..

Using a March 815 PLC and 1/2" tube should give me a velocity of around 2.7 m/s with losses

 

[kevin_smevin]

Thanks, but being a Mech Eng with a history in pumps and hydraulics, I got that bit down pat..

Using a March 815 PLC and 1/2" tube should give me a velocity of around 2.7 m/s with losses

I find i get alot less then that. I cant remember what exactly but its below 2m/s. Alot of 1/2" barbs have in internal diameter much smaller then 1/2" which would bring the velocity right down, as would any elbow in the system. If you can get 2.7m/s, thats pretty much spot on for a whirlpool.

 

[mschippr]

What height is best for the whirlpool fitting in a standard "keg type" vessel for an average single batch?

 

[adryargument]

i received my goodies from beerbelly today, the one on the left is a pickup tube, the one on the right is a whirlpool outlet, and i am not quite sure if i put it in the compression fitting the right way, its longer on one length of the bend than the other, and i have the long end in the compression fitting

View attachment 44135

View attachment 44134

Looks good,
However with larger pots like mine (98L), i find that if you have a 90 degree fitting between the inlet and the whirlpool fitting then it will position itself somewhere near the side of the kettle at a 30 degree angle.

Mine is at about the 40L mark in the 98L kettle, and is angled downwards a bit.

 

[domonsura]

Looks good,
However with larger pots like mine (98L), i find that if you have a 90 degree fitting between the inlet and the whirlpool fitting then it will position itself somewhere near the side of the kettle at a 30 degree angle.

Mine is at about the 40L mark in the 98L kettle, and is angled downwards a bit.

Sorry 'adryargument', but I tested the best position of these tubes quite a bit before I started adding them to vessels and breweries and angling the tube downwards will continue to disturb the hop cone un-necessarily during whirlpooling, even in a 98 litre kettle. Angling slightly upwards (as it is designed to be positioned) will cause debris to remain suspended until it falls into section in the middle of the kettle, where it no longer has the velocity to remain in suspension, and will therefore drop to the hop cone at the bottom.

This whirlpool fitting is also not designed to be used with a 90 degree fitting, and doing so will reduce the velocity of the liquid entering the vessel to the point that the whirlpool is not effective. It is specifically designed to extend into the kettle to where the liquid will ALWAYS be travelling at a slower velocity than it does closer to the vessel wall, so the liquid entering always has something to 'push' to increase the whirlpool velocity. The max velocity of the whirlpool will only ever match the velocity of the liquid exiting the whirlpool tube, so if it is positioned too close to the wall of the vessel, it limits the potential speed and therefore overall effectiveness of the whirlpool.

Around the 40 litre mark is a good position for the inlet in a 98 litre kettle though.

 

[domonsura]

i received my goodies from beerbelly today, the one on the left is a pickup tube, the one on the right is a whirlpool outlet, and i am not quite sure if i put it in the compression fitting the right way, its longer on one length of the bend than the other, and i have the long end in the compression fitting

View attachment 44135

View attachment 44134

That tube is two different lengths so you can swap it around to suit a vessel of different size if required Don, further into a larger vessel, closer to the side for a smaller one.