Pic(k) of the Week: Kettle calandria at Fair Winds.

That's a calandria, inside the 30-barrel kettle at Fair Winds Brewing Company, a production brewery in Lorton, Virginia.

A tubular heat exchanger that heats wort quickly and efficiently, enabling it to be boiled vigorously in the kettle. [...] Most kettle designs include a dish-shaped wort spreader device that suppresses over-foaming, mixes the wort, and drives off unwanted volatiles. [...] The higher temperatures achieved using a calandria, typically up to 220 °F, can reduce boil times up to 30% while also increasing hop utilization.

—The Oxford Companion to Beer.

Fair Winds opened in March of this year; in September, the brewery entered its beers at the Great American Beer Festival, and won a gold medal, the first time out, for Siren's Lure, a hoppy saison.

Charlie Buettner is the head brewer for Fair Winds. For 4 1/2 years prior to that, he had been the head brewer at Mad Fox Brewing, a brewpub in Falls Church, Virginia.

-----more-----

• More photos from Fair Winds: here.
• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, usually posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as a subject. Camera: Olympus Pen E-PL1.
• Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.


• For more from YFGF:
  • Follow on Twitter: @Cizauskas.
  • Like on Facebook: YoursForGoodFermentables.
  • Follow on Flickr: Cizauskas.
  • Follow on Instagram: @tcizauskas.