Brewing: Tech. Upgrade Helps Brewery

Great news for fans of the Noble Defender Brewery, thanks to a generous Christmas gift, Noble Defender adds a top-notch wort chiller to the brewery's resources. "It has really increased our brewing effienciency," explained Mike Towle, "Now I can perform a complete brew-day in 5 1/2 hours and as our familiarity with the equipment increases, we should be able to improve on that time." One employee noted that the brewing on Saturday seemed "more relaxed, with smoother transitions from phase to phase."

Pictured here is the latest batch, an English-style porter:

As the pictures show, the wort-chiller is a coil of copper tubing with an inlet and an outlet. The whole unit is immersed in the hot wort, this sanitizes the tubing. The cold, incoming water swirls around the top of the pot (where the hottest liquid is) first. The chilled wort at the top falls to the bottom as the hottest wort rises. The heat of the pot is transferred to the water which finally goes down the drain. Five gallons of wort can be chilled in about twenty minutes instead of three or more hours in an ice bath. Other benefits of cooling the wort quickly are better clarity and safer sanitization from unwanted yeast and bacteria.

The lastest batch will be ready to sample in four weeks.