https://www.engineeringnews.co.za

A GEA solution for Delta Beverages’ Sorghum Brewery in Zimbabwe

22nd July 2016

  

Font size: - +

This article has been supplied.

Delta Beverages  (0.04 MB)

Delta Beverages’ Fairbridge Brewery in Bulawayo has undergone an extensive upgrade to turn it into a modern facility with state of the art brewing and packaging technologies.  Delta wanted to offer their customers the new and improved type of Sorghum or Chibuku Beer called Chibuku Super, which uses new technologies that dramatically extend the product shelf life from only a few days to a couple of weeks.

This new technology required a chiller plant firstly to cool the secondary refrigerant, glycol, which cools product coming into the bottle filling machines and secondly, to cool chilled water being circulated in the cooling jackets of the fermenting vessels.

GEA Sales Engineer Mike Maccallum offered two GEA Grasso Duo chiller packages, models FX GC VP SA1050. The units were fitted with GEA Grasso V600 compressors, and condensers were supplied by Evapco of Johannesburg. These chillers, which use ammonia as the refrigerant, not only have the highest efficiency but this refrigerant is also the greenest, having global warming potentials and ozone depletion potentials of zero. Furthermore, unlike many synthetic refrigerants, it is not subject to phase-down or out in the future.

The project planning was done to maximise offsite fabrication and minimise the installation time on site. This saved an estimated 50-60% of the site and accommodation costs. The chillers and pump skids were manufactured at the GEA Cape Town workshop.

Pipe route planning, equipment layouts and pipe prefabrication drawings were done using a new Autodesk Inventor plant design package. “From a project manager’s perspective it was brilliant working with the 3D models. We could eliminate most of the onsite issues”, says Maccallum.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

Article Enquiry

Email Article

Save Article

Feedback

To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here

Showroom

Essentra Components
Essentra Components

We are responsible manufacturers of essential components. Manufacturing 80 million parts a week, we have over 1 billion parts in stock.

VISIT SHOWROOM 
Rittal
Rittal

Rittal is a world leading provider of top-quality integrated systems for enclosures, power distribution, climate control, IT infrastructure and...

VISIT SHOWROOM 

Latest Multimedia

sponsored by

Magazine round up | 01 May 2026
Magazine round up | 01 May 2026
1st May 2026
Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau
IDC addresses public scrutiny, repositions itself
30th April 2026 By: Tasneem Bulbulia

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION







301

sq:0.05 0.085s - 137pq - 2rq
Subscribe Now