CFD modeling of subcooling process for beer fermentation liquid

Abstract A model of subcooling process for beer fermentation liquid was established at the base of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique which assumed that all the biochemical reactions were suppressed to a lower extent by the cryogenic condition and their influences on heat and momentum transfer of liquid could be ignored. The subcooling process of fermentation liquid in a cooling tank was simulated, where the temperature was from 10 to − 1 °C. The transient temperature and velocity distributions of the fermentation liquid were obtained by the simulation. The results indicated that the temperature delamination was distinct in the direction of the tank axis, while the temperature gradient was inconspicuous along the radial direction. The fermentation liquid showed a complicated movement including numerous local small circumfluences, which was different from our conventional knowledge. Copyright © 2008 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.