Cold Water Tank ( CWT) And Glycol Water Tank ( GWT)

Today, let’s talk about what is the difference between CWT and GWT? For our microbrewery, what size GWT should I use?

Many customers have misconceptions about these two types of tanks. A glycol water tank is required, not a cold water tank. A glycol water tank includes a mixture of glycol and city water, and its temperature is usually -3 to 4 degrees Celsius. It is cooled by the chiller and the glycol water is used to cool the distillers and wort. In cooling the wort, the first stage is city water and the second stage is glycol water.

However, for the chiller tank, it includes only city cold water, not glycol. It usually comes with a jacket and is cooled by glycol water from the glycol water tank. This is good for the wort because you know that in case there is any problem with the heat exchanger, the wort will not be contaminated with glycol water. Many of our customers like to have both glycol tanks and chilled water tanks in their larger systems.

In our standard, without a chilled water tank, the glycol water tank is typically 2-2.5 times the capacity of the brewing chamber. We have some reasons for such a large capacity as follows.

(1). Enough glycol water will ensure that the hot wort is cooled within 40 minutes, which you know is an important step.
(2). Our standard glycol water tank volume can support up to 8-10 double batch fermenters or bright tanks. Many of our customers have small beer production in the early stages. But they want to expand their business in the future by adding more fermenters. Therefore, our glycol is also sufficient to support future fermenters.
(3). Sometimes, customers may have many pieces of fermenters and glass tanks that need to be cooled during the busy brewing process. They may brew several batches per day, so the wort is cooled by the glycol water, and the glycol water temperature will be higher than before. If the glycol tanks do not have enough volume, the fermenters will not have enough glycol water to cool them at the same time. Therefore, we have equipped such large glycol tanks in our standard.