The problem of clogged and blocked spray balls
Seeds, skins, pulp, stems, and grains in a tank which uses a recirculated CIP water system can cause blockages in many tank washing nozzle designs, preventing them from working correctly. Cleaning tanks and maintaining a sanitary environment is obviously essential to success in the food processing and beverage industries and problems within these systems lead to loss of time, money and resources which is clearly an unacceptable situation.
We get numerous enquiries from companies in the food and beverage sector who are having problems with their CIP systems. A tomato processing plant engineer observed clogging caused by seeds and skins that were in their recirculated water system. The constant blockages meant too much time was wasted on secondary cleaning of the tanks and on nozzle maintenance. A large beer producer was having continual problems with clogging spray balls in their lauter / mash tun. The spent grain and husks were finding their way into the recirculated cleaning fluids and were plugging the small holes in the spray ball which resulted in ineffective cleaning. Rotary spray balls also clogged or jammed and stopped spinning for similar reasons.
A wine maker was similarly frustrated by the problems they were having with their CIP systems. Even with a preliminary rinse before the cleaning process, leftover grape debris in the fermentation tanks such as seeds, stems, and skins had a habit of finding its way into the nozzles during recirculation cleaning cycles.
In fact, it was a wine maker from Napa Valley in California which prompted our manufacturing partner BETE to develop a new kind of tank cleaner, the HydroClaw™. This CIP system has a nozzle with a full 360 degree spray pattern with three times the free passage of a comparable static spray ball and no moving parts to jam. The only previously suitable non-clogging device was a spiral nozzle, such as BETE’s TW range. However, they only offer 270° coverage. Furthermore, the spiral nozzle tends to atomise the fluid. Good, efficient atomisation is one of the key benefits for spiral nozzles in many applications but in tank cleaning this is a distinct disadvantage. What this means is that the TW range is limited in scope for tank cleaning.
Key features of the HydroClaw™ are:
• Nozzle designed to let particulates and sediment flow through with no clogging
• Clog resistance and low maintenance = reduced downtime and more economical water usage
• 316L stainless steel construction means it is perfect for clean-in-place (CIP) and food grade applications
• Complete 360-degree coverage
So how does it work?
A glowing customer testimonial
After installing the HydroClaw™, the winery came back with:
“I have some very, very good news for you. We are smack in the middle of peak harvesting right now, and the winery is cranking full-blast. Did our first hard-trial test on the HydroClaw today, and…..I can’t stop smiling. We threw that thing into a tank post-ferment without any pre-rinsing whatsoever (had probably 3 gallons of grapes, yeast, garbage in there), and did a sequence on one of our 2-ton tanks and it is absolutely sparkling clean.”
So, if you are a brewery or winery or food processing company struggling with a similar problem, call or email us to find out more about the HydroClaw™.
Tel: 01273 400092
info@spray-nozzle.co.uk
