JP4865633B2 - Wort transport system - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique for accurately measuring the amount of dissolved oxygen dissolved in wort of an effervescent alcoholic beverage for yeast activation, for example.

  For example, in Patent Document 1, when measuring a component by irradiating light to a reaction vessel containing a mixed solution of a reagent and a sample, bubbles existing on the path of the measurement light are removed by sound waves to improve measurement accuracy. The technology to do is described. Patent Document 2 describes a technique for removing bubbles from a working liquid such as oil using a swirling flow.

In addition, a general beer / happoshu preparation process is disclosed in Non-Patent Document 1 (p215 to p290).
JP 2004-045113 A JP 2000-21503 A Beer brewing technology Hideo Miyaji, Food Industry Newspaper, 1999

  In the step of preparing the sparkling alcoholic beverage, aeration is performed on the wort cooled for yeast activation to dissolve oxygen. Oxygen dissolved in wort (dissolved oxygen) is an important factor that greatly affects yeast activity in the subsequent fermentation process. It is necessary to give a certain amount of dissolved oxygen to a certain amount of active yeast, and when using yeasts with different activities or using yeasts of different bacterial species, the dissolved oxygen amount should be set accordingly. It needs to be adjusted. Therefore, it is very important to dissolve the determined amount of dissolved oxygen in the wort and to accurately measure the resulting dissolved oxygen amount.

  However, the measured values of the dissolved oxygen amount so far have varied depending on the sampling position of the wort for measurement and the tank liquid amount (liquid depth). This may be due to bubbles that cannot be completely dissolved in the wort transport line and the influence of variations in pressure. These effects are thought to be caused by differences in the distance from the aeration apparatus to each fermentation tank, changes in the internal pressure of the line due to changes in the amount of liquid (liquid depth) until one tank becomes full from the empty space, and the like.

  And conventionally, since the wort taken out from the wort conveying line is directly guided to the dissolved oxygen meter for measurement, a measurement error occurs depending on the measurement location, the timing in the process, the position of the fermentation tank, and the like (see FIG. 3). The amount of dissolved oxygen in the wort in the line could not be measured accurately.

  Here, the above-mentioned Patent Document 1 does not have the problem of measurement error due to the difference in pressure in that the measurement is performed in a state in which the atmosphere is open. It is not the structure which dissolves and measures the amount of dissolved oxygen, and there is no predisposition which causes the said subject.

  This invention is made in view of the said subject, The objective is performing the removal of the bubble contained in wort, and pressure release simultaneously, and the technique which can measure the amount of dissolved oxygen of wort in a line correctly. Is to realize.

  In order to solve the above-described problems and achieve the object, the wort transport system according to the present invention cools the boiling pot 2 for boiling the wort of an effervescent alcoholic beverage and the hot wort boiled in the boiling pot. A cooler 4 that performs fermentation by adding yeast to the wort that has been cooled by the cooler, and wort that pumps the wort from the boiling pot to the fermentation tank via the cooler. Aeration devices 8 and 9 for adding air to the wort in the wort transport line on the downstream side of the transport line 1 and the cooler, provided on the downstream side of the aeration device in the wort transport line, A part of the wort from the wort conveying line, and a dissolved oxygen amount measuring device 10, 11 for measuring the dissolved oxygen amount in the wort, wherein the dissolved oxygen amount measuring device comprises the wort Take from the juice transfer line The wort includes a buffer tank 21 for removing the liquid pressure and temporarily stored at atmospheric pressure, a dissolved oxygen meter 25 for measuring the amount of dissolved oxygen in the wort is sent from the buffer tank, the.

  Preferably, a flotation tank 5 for separating unnecessary substances in the wort is disposed downstream of the cooler and upstream of the fermentation tank, and the aeration apparatus includes A primary aeration device 8 disposed on the upstream side of the rotation tank, and a secondary aeration device 9 disposed on the downstream side of the flotation tank, and the dissolved oxygen amount measuring device includes the primary aeration device A primary measurement device 10 disposed on the downstream side of the device; and a secondary measurement device 11 disposed on the downstream side of the secondary aeration device.

  Preferably, the dissolved oxygen amount measuring apparatus connects the wort transport line and the buffer tank, connects the buffer tank and the dissolved oxygen meter, and the wort flowing into the buffer tank. An upstream adjustment valve 22 for adjusting the amount, and a downstream adjustment valve 23 for adjusting the amount of wort flowing out of the buffer tank, and adjusting the opening of each adjustment valve to adjust the amount of wheat in the buffer tank The amount of juice is controlled to be substantially constant.

  According to the present invention, removal of bubbles contained in wort and release of pressure can be simultaneously performed, and the amount of dissolved oxygen in wort in the line can be accurately measured.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The embodiment described below is an example as means for realizing the present invention, and the present invention can be applied to a modified or modified embodiment described below without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

  FIG. 1 is a diagram schematically showing a wort transport system according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a detailed configuration of the air measurement device of FIG. FIG. 3 is a diagram comparing the measurement results of the dissolved oxygen amount between the conventional system and the system of this embodiment.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the wort transport system of the present embodiment has a boiling pot 2 for boiling wort of an effervescent alcoholic beverage from the upstream side with respect to the wort transport line 1. A whirlpool 3 that separates the coagulum (hot-trove) that is produced, a wort cooler 4 that cools the hot wort that has been boiled in the boiling pot 2 and from which the coagulum has been removed, and yeast is added after cooling A flotation tank 5 that separates coagulum (cold trowel) from the wort, and a fermentation tank 6 that ferments yeast wort that has been cooled by the wort cooler 4 and from which the coagulum has been removed in the flotation tank 5. Is connected. The process until the wort is transferred from the boiling kettle 2 to the fermentation tank 6 is called a preparation process. The fermentation tank 6 has a capacity of, for example, 200 kiloliters (corresponding to four times of charge when one charge is 50 kiloliters), and a conventional old fermentation tank and a newly installed new fermentation tank. There are about 20-30 each.

  Here, the sparkling alcoholic beverage refers to beer, sparkling wine, miscellaneous sake, and the like, and also includes a low alcohol fermented beverage (sparkling beverage with less than 1% alcohol). In addition, wort here refers to the liquid obtained by filtering the mash in the filtration step in beer sparkling liquor using malt, corn grits, etc. in the above-mentioned charging process, or only mixing raw materials such as miscellaneous sake In the production method without a filtration step, it refers to a mixed liquid raw material. In the latter case, some of them do not contain malt / wheat, but for the sake of convenience, it is expressed as wort.

  Pumps 7 for pumping wort between the boiling pot 2 and the whirlpool 3, between the whirlpool 3 and the wort cooler 4, and between the flotation tank 5 and the fermentation tank 6 in the wort transport line 1. Is provided.

  In the wort transport line 1, a primary aeration device 8 that adds air to the wort in the wort transport line 1 is downstream of the wort cooler 4 and upstream of the flotation tank 5. A secondary aeration device 9 is provided on the downstream side of the flotation tank 5 and upstream of the fermentation tank 6 to add air to the wort in the wort transport line 1.

  Furthermore, in the wort transport line 1, on the downstream side of the primary aeration device 8 and on the upstream side of the flotation tank 5, a static mixer that assists dissolution by stirring the injected air and wort, A primary air measuring device 10 for taking out a part of the wort from the wort conveying line 1 and measuring the dissolved oxygen content in the wort is provided, downstream of the secondary aeration device 9 and in the fermentation tank 6. On the upstream side, a static mixer and a secondary air measuring device 11 that takes out part of the wort from the wort transport line 1 and measures the amount of dissolved oxygen in the wort are provided. The secondary aeration device 9 is provided for additionally adding air because the amount of dissolved oxygen in the wort by the air added by the primary aeration device 8 becomes substantially zero in the flotation tank 5.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the primary and secondary air measuring devices 10 and 11 are configured such that the measurement line 20 connected to the wort transport line 1 and the wort taken out from the wort transport line 1 are under atmospheric pressure. A buffer tank 21 that temporarily stores and removes the hydraulic pressure, an upstream adjustment valve 22 that is provided upstream of the buffer tank 21 and adjusts the amount of wort flowing into the buffer tank 21, and wort that flows out of the buffer tank 21 A downstream adjustment valve 23 that adjusts the amount, an atmospheric pressure valve 24 that opens the inside of the buffer tank 21 to the atmosphere, and a dissolved oxygen meter 25 that measures the amount of dissolved oxygen in the wort sent from the buffer tank 21 are provided. The buffer tank 21 has a capacity of about 1 liter, and the opening degree of the regulating valves 22 and 23 is adjusted so that the liquid level in the buffer tank 21 becomes constant.

  The primary and secondary aeration devices 8 and 9 receive the dissolved oxygen amount measurement results (DO values) from the primary and secondary air measurement devices 10 and 11, respectively, and converge to a predetermined reference value by PID calculation. A feedback controller that controls the amount of air added by calculating such a control gain is provided.

  According to the above embodiment, the wort taken out from the wort transport line 1 is temporarily stored in the buffer tank, and the amount of dissolved oxygen is measured after removing excess bubbles and pressure at the same time. The amount of dissolved oxygen can be accurately measured.

  That is, the dissolved oxygen amounts L3 and L4 measured without the buffer tank in FIG. 3 increase with time, and the new fermentation tank with a long wort transport line dissolves when the liquid level in the tank increases with time compared to the old fermentation tank. The amount of oxygen is rising. This is because of the difference in pressure between the upstream side (0.2 Mpa) and the downstream side (0.3 Mpa) of the fermentation tank 6 in the wort transport line 1 and undissolved bubbles and wort transport in the line. This may be due to the difference in pressure between the line and each fermentation tank, or the difference between the distance (30 m) from the secondary aeration device 9 to the old fermentation tank 6 and the distance (230 m) from the new fermentation tank 6.

  On the other hand, the measurement results of the dissolved oxygen amounts L1 and L2 measured with the buffer tank shown in FIG. 3 are stable. This represents that the removal of bubbles contained in the wort and the release of the pressure can be performed simultaneously to accurately measure the dissolved oxygen content of the wort in the line.

  The wort transport system described above can be applied to other uses as long as the pressure varies and the amount of dissolved oxygen is measured without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

It is the figure which showed typically the wort transport system of embodiment which concerns on this invention. It is a figure which shows the detailed structure of the air measuring device of FIG. It is a figure which compares and shows the measurement result of the amount of dissolved oxygen by the conventional system and the system of this embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Wort conveyance line 2 Boiling pot 3 Whirlpool 4 Wort cooler 5 Flotation tank 6 Fermentation tank 7 Pump 8 Primary aeration apparatus 9 Secondary aeration apparatus 10 Primary air measurement apparatus 11 Secondary air measurement apparatus 21 Buffer tank 22 upstream regulating valve 23 downstream regulating valve 24 atmospheric pressure valve 25 dissolved oxygen meter

Claims (2)

A boiling pot for boiling wort of sparkling alcoholic beverages;
A cooler for cooling the hot wort boiled in the boiling pot;
A fermentation tank in which yeast is added to the wort after cooling by the cooler and fermented;
A wort transport line for pumping the wort from the boiling kettle to the fermentation tank via the cooler;
An aeration device for adding air to the wort in the wort conveying line on the downstream side of the cooler;
A dissolved oxygen amount measuring device that is provided on the downstream side of the aeration device in the wort conveying line, and that measures a dissolved oxygen amount in the wort by taking out a part of the wort from the wort conveying line; Have
The dissolved oxygen amount measuring device includes a buffer tank that temporarily stores the wort taken out from the wort transport line under atmospheric pressure and removes the liquid pressure, and a dissolved oxygen amount in wort sent from the buffer tank. and a dissolved oxygen meter to measure,
On the downstream side of the cooler and on the upstream side of the fermentation tank, a flotation tank for separating unnecessary substances in the wort is disposed,
The aeration apparatus has a primary aeration apparatus disposed on the upstream side of the flotation tank, and a secondary aeration apparatus disposed on the downstream side of the flotation tank,
The dissolved oxygen amount measuring device has a primary measuring device disposed downstream of the primary aeration device, and a secondary measuring device disposed downstream of the secondary aeration device, Wort transport system.   The dissolved oxygen amount measuring apparatus connects the wort transport line and the buffer tank, connects a line connecting the buffer tank and the dissolved oxygen meter, and an upstream side for adjusting the amount of wort flowing into the buffer tank. A regulating valve and a downstream regulating valve that regulates the amount of wort flowing out of the buffer tank, and controls the amount of wort in the buffer tank by adjusting the opening of each regulating valve; The wort transport system according to claim 1.

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