This document is intended as a starting point reference guide... UK STYLE

This document is intended as a starting point reference guide... UK STYLE

Lowfields Road
Leeds, LS12 6BS, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 113 244 5225
Fax: +44 (0) 113 244 5226
[email protected]
www.microdat.co.uk
UK STYLE BREWHOUSE DESIGN MANUAL – WHAT IS IMPORTANT, HOW DOES IT WORK, AND WHY
This document is intended as a starting point reference guide for new start brewers, expanding micros, and
engineers new to the UK brewing industry.
It provides a basic guide to best practice techniques and options for automation to improve the brewing
process in a UK ale style brewhouse, to produce consistent high quality beers.
Also covered is a brief description of European brewhouse principles, and a comparison between UK and
European brewhouse techniques.
1
THE UK ALE BREWHOUSE
The UK brewhouse style has developed around the type of barley grown in our temperate climate. It has
the ability to be very highly modified by the maltster, and by this, I mean the first stage of conversion from
raw grain to fermentable sugars, has been completed before the brewer gets his hands on it. Northern
European, and Russian, malts etc. on the other hand, do not have the same ability to be highly modified
by the maltster, so the processing equipment to extract fermentable sugars, have to be far more complex
and exotic, and even then, the amount of fermentable extract is not as good as what is available from UK
style malts, so in this respect we are very lucky.
A typical UK brewhouse will consist a Mash Tun, Wort Copper and Hop-Back, or to be technically
accurate, a Single Temperature Infusion Mash Vessel, Wort Boiling Kettle, and Hop-Back. It should also
include some form of grist hydrator, and of course the wort cooler.
Microdat is a trading name of Microdat.co.uk Limited. Microdat.co.uk Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 4299819.
Registered Office: Microdat.co.uk Limited, Lowfields Road, Leeds, LS12 6BS. Telephone +44 (0) 113 244 5225, Fax: +44 (0) 113 244 5226.
Website: www.microdat.co.uk , Email: [email protected] , VAT Number: 780 5449 11.
2
EXTRACT PERFORMANCE
The performance of a brewhouse is usually measured by the ability of the equipment to withdraw
fermentable extract from the malt, and present it as sweet wort for fermentation. This is then compared to
what can be achieved in the lab, using a standard method for single temperature infusion type mashing.
A well-designed new UK style brewhouse will be rated at 98-99% efficiency, but some very small
breweries achieve much less than this, which means they realise much less saleable product from the
same ingredients.
3
TURN-AROUND TIME
An important factor in brewhouse design is the turn-around time between successive brews. Two UK
style mash vessels can produce the same level of fermentable extract, but one can have a 3-hour turn
around time, and another in 5 hours. When this logic is extended throughout the brewhouse, it makes one
brewhouse capable of two brews per day, and the other not.
With a small European style brewhouse, it is common to have multi-functional mash vessel / wort kettle /
whirlpool, and this design severely restricts turnaround times.
Careful brewhouse design produces both high levels of extract, and a quick vessel turn around time.
4
MILLING
Different brewing styles demand different milling specifications.
Typically, for a single temperature infusion mash tun, we want around
20% husk, 70% grits, and a maximum of 10% flour. Too little husk, or
too much flour, will result in poor cycle times, poor extract efficiency,
and poor flowrate during running-off, and can result in a compacted
bed.
5
GRIST HYDRATORS
The grist hydrator is vital in a UK style brewhouse for high yield to be
acheived. Full and regular hydration of the complete mash bed is the
target, with a regular, accurate temperature of mash, at 65°C or
thereabouts.
There are two main styles of grist hydrator.
Firstly, a steels masher, a motorised system, often with a screw auger driving the grist and liquor into a
section with beating tines.
Secondly the sleeve type hydrator, which is more often seen in smaller breweries. The modern design is
for the grist to pass through a centre sleeve, with liquor added via an outer sleeve, creating a swirling
vortex that creates a regular mash.
The target is for the grist to be completely and evenly hydrated, with a consistant liquor to grist ratio, and
importantly, machine also airates the mash.
There are draw-backs to the sleeve masher, it is less forgiving than a steels masher, in terms of flowrate,
and it also requires more vertical height, between the grist case and the mash tun.
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 2 of 13
6
BREWING HOT LIQUOR
It is vitally important that hot liquor temperature during mashing and sparging is carefully controlled and is
steady.
The target, with a mash tun, is to get the hydrated mash temperature consistant at 65°C. In winter, when
the grist is colder, a higher water temperature will be required to acheive the same mash temperature.
Liquor temperature control is one of the first places for automation, because you use the same liquor for
both mashing and sparging, but at variable flow rates.
In a manual system, adjustment of flowrate will alter the temperature in a mixing system, and so manual
control does not give as consistant a temperature as an automated system. Note that a mash
temperature, above 78°C will kill the enzymatic conversion capacity completely.
Too low, or a cycling temperature especially during sparging can cause the enzymatic conversion to slow
down significantly or cease altogether.
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 3 of 13
7
MASH TUN
(Single Temperature Infusion Mash Vessel)
The mash needs to steep in the mash tun, at the correct temperature (65°C) for the enzymatic change to
occur, creating the fermentable sugars, and the mash needs to retain this temperature for the complete
duration of the steeping phase. Loss in temperature at this stage means a drop in performance. The
mash tun should be brought up to operating temperature before use, or else the mash close to any cold
surfaces will quickly reduce in heat and the conversion will suffer. If the enzymatic reaction is started and
then stopped again for any reason, it will not properly restart, even during sparging.
Once the steeping phase is complete, the
liquor in the mash bed has already converted
much of the starches to fermentable sugar,
and is ready to be run-off.
If the mash bed has an uneven hydration or
temperature, then the sweet wort flow through
the filter bed will be uneven, and wort flow and
more importantly, extract performance
deteriorates. The ability of the mash hydrator
to airate the mash is also important at this
stage, as this helps the mash to “float” in the
sweet wort, and maintain an open filter bed.
As wort starts to run off, it is vitally important to retain the same level of hydration in the mash bed, to keep
it open and floating. A good sparging mechanism will provide even liquor distribution accross the whole
mash bed, typically provided by a rotating sparge arm.
Flow control is critical, and is one of the first areas we advocate to automate. Run-off, while being
manually controlled, can be run through a flowmeter, which in turn can directly control the liquor flow into
the sparging system, allowing an exact balancing act to take place.
The old fashioned valentine tube design was perfect for controlling run-off and sparge flowrates, because
once the position of the tube was correctly set at the top of the mash bed, then the sparge flowrate alone
dictated the run-off flowrate, but these devices are open to misoperation, and are difficult to integrate into
a modern brewhouse, so have fallen out of favour.
Liquor temperature control during sparging changes, to around 75°C - 78°C (to the brewer’s preference).
The temperature through the mash bed slowly increases, and other enzymatic changes occur, with further
fermentable extract generated. Again temperature control is critical, as continuing extract only occurs on
a steadilly rising temperature. As already mentioned, if the mash temperature exceeds 80C, this will kil
the enzymatic process completely, but also a mash temperature above 80°C will start to wash out
starches, which is not desirable.
Run-off flowrate at the beginning (when worts are strongest) is slow, as the filter action of the mash bed
presents a very high resistance to flow. As the run-off progresses, the wort weakens, and the filter bed
opens up, as the sugars are washed out, and so resistance to flow lessens, and the flowrate can be
increased. This is where automatic sparging flow control comes into it’s own, modulating exactly in
temperature and flow rate as the run-off flowrate varies.
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 4 of 13
214 hl/hr 2.5"OD
3 Te
GRIST CASE
Too little hydration, or a too high
run-off flow rate, will tend to suck
the mash bed down onto the false
bottom plates, compacting it,
sometimes irrecoverably, but at
minimum, compounding the ability
of wort to flow, and strongly
compromising extract yeild.
SAFETY
INTERLOCK
SWITCH
1"OD
82 hl/hr
2"OD
160 hl/hr
2"OD
9600 kg/hr
2"OD
Vent
1"OD
107 hl/hr
107 hl/hr
STEELES
MASHER
SA3353
2"OD
2"OD
2.5"OD
LIGHT
3200 Kg
MASH TUN
SA3354
120 hl/hr
1.5"OD
UNDERPLATE
JETTING
WORM &
GEAR
1/2"NB
1.5"OD
UNDERLET
GRAIN
DISCHSRGE
SA3355
P107
2"OD
82 hl/hr
2"OD
FARM TRAILER
8 mm
Sparging continues until very weak
worts are produced. At this stage,
extract with some gravity is still
occuring, but very little of it is
fermentable, and the laws of
diminishing returns come into play.
STRIKE
TEMP
SP
Mash bed depths are not so important as some think, the primary consideration is the turn-around time of
the vessel. The lesser the mash depth, the quicker the run-off and sparging phases, as the filter bed
creates less resistance to flow. However, as the bed depth decreases, the relative vessel diameter
increases, and so a very quick mash tun will be bigger in diameter than a slow one, which has an impact
in cost.
Mash tun false bottom plate design is also largely irrelevent to exytract yield, as you must remember it is
primarily the mash bed that creates the filter, not the plates. It is critical is that the holes through are small
enough to retain the husk, are plentiful, regularly spaced, and completely covering the mash bed base.
Any obstructed area with no holes in, will have a column of mash above with poor extract yeild. Typical
hole or slot sizes would be 1/32” with a
5-10% free area.
The consideration of milled plate false bottom, versus wedge wire, is only relative to the longevity of the
false bottom, it’s carrying capacity when operators have to enter the vessel, and the performance of the
spent grains discharge gear. This is definitely a case of buying what you can afford at the time.
A wedge-wire system might need to be replaced after 10 years, wheras a milled plate will last forever.
8
UNDERBACK
The purpose of the underback (sometimes refered to as a grant) is to provide a break between the flow
out of the mash tun, and the pump used to transfer sweet wort to the copper. Otherwise the pump would
pull the bed down in the mash tun. Other features can be built into the underback to provide a means of
sugar block dissolving, often with a steam coil in the tank. The underback is also often used as a CIP
make-up tank for a low-cost UK style of brewhouse.
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 5 of 13
WORT COPPER
SAFETY
INTERLOCK
SWITCH
LIGHT
MANUAL
HOPS ADDITION
OVER
BOIL
PROTECTION
EWB Temp/Press Control
1"OD
(wort kettle)
The purposes of wort boiling are many, the main points are:
Vent to Atm
10"OD
To sterilise the wort
Isomerisation of hops, to create a soluable extract
Deactivating proteins and enzymes
Evaporation of unwanted volatiles, DMS etc.
Protein coagulation to enable trub removal
Formation of colour and flavour components
Wort concentration
110 BRL
WORT COPPER
SA3359
CONTENTS
MEASUREMENT
EWB
SA3360
LT
TI
THERMO-SYPHON PATH
VSD
2"OD
9
SA3445
CASTING
PUMP
The wort kettle is available in many forms, and some are better than others. The majority of the
functionality of a wort copper is time & temperature dependent, but it is vitally important to produce a very
rigouous rolling boil, with two-phase nucleate boiling, where steam bubbles pass through the wort, and
large circulation currents thouroughly mix the contents of the kettle.
The best standard, low cost solution, comes with an external wort boiler and fountain with a venturi
arrangement in the approach to the fountain, which helps induces a big rolling boil action in the vessel.
The purpose of the fountain is that a thin film is created with a large surface area, where evaporation can
take place. Another benefit of the fountain is for foam suppression, particularly in the initial raise to boil
phase, before any hops are added, where the fountain beats down the foam head.
Different breweries operate with differing evaporation rates, and boil times. The accepted general practice
is for a minimum of 60 minutes, and for evaporation of approximately 7 - 10 % per hour.
Steam control is critical in the wort kettle.
Manually controlled systems and steam coils,
usually suffer from either burn-on, or
insufficient heating. A low cost automatic
steam control system can be acheived using
a simple pressure control system (steam
pressure being proportional to temperature).
During mash tun run-off, gentle heating with
low pressure steam, is applied so that the
contents are close to boiling point when the
copper-up volume is reached. A second
steam pressure set-point is then used to bring
the wort to the boil, and a third set-point in
evaporation mode.
The primary objective is to create the massive vigourous rolling boil, but with an external wort boiler, it is
very important to limit the surface temperature of the tubular heat exchanger, to reduce the amount of
fouling and burning-on the wort heating surfaces. Fouling of the heat exchanger results in less heat being
transferred to the wort in successive brews between a full wort kettle CIP.
A more expensive system uses a steam mass flow meter, where you can control both the pressure and
flowrate of steam used. This can be used to control the theoretical completion of evaporation, to a recipe,
and can compensate automatically for external wort boiler fouling, however, steam meters are expensive,
and this capital is usually more effectively spent elsewhere, in a small to medium sized brewery.
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 6 of 13
A well designed wort kettle with external boiler, if flushed out immediately after use with hot water, should
be able to operate for a complete brewing week between full caustic cleans.
Note that an external wort boiler is designed differently for whole hops, than for pellet hops, in terms of the
tube diameter, and whole hop EWBs are larger and more expensive to manufacture than pellet hop
versions.
10
HOP-BACK
The job of the hop-back is to retain the whole
hops and to form a filter bed to entrap the
coagulated solids (trub) from the wort copper.
Late hops can be added to hot liquor in the hopback prior to casting, which maximises the yield
with late hopping, in terms of flavour and aroma
qualities.
Wort is allowed to stand for 10 – 15 minutes with
the hops, and is then usually slowly recirculated,
to assist the formation of the hop-leaf filter bed,
and the filtering of trub, until clear bright wort is
created, which is then pumped forwards through
the wort cooler.
At the end of running-off, the hop leaf bed can be
sparged with hot dilution liquor, to flush out any
residual wort, and to purge the wort through the
wort cooler.
Again the false bottom plates are actually not that
critical, typically having a larger hole or slot size
than the mash tun at around 1/16”.
The main design issue with the hop-back, is the
surface area of the base of the vessel, which
should be designed to create a hop leaf filter bed
of somewhere in the region of 6 - 24”.
It is not un-common, due to heavy trub formation, to have to scrape the hop bed during either recirculation
or wort cooling.
The hop-back is normally fitted with an anti-vacuum relief tube, either internal or external to the vessel. It
is required, so that the wort pump doesnot create too much negative pressure, or else the hop filter bed
will be compressed and sucked down onto the plates, and then run-off is very difficult to restart.
(The issue of spent hops is covered under health safety)
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 7 of 13
11
WORT COOLING
Wwort cooling is usually the first area to be automated in a
brewhouse, allowing wort run-off from the hop back to vary,
and letting the instrumentation look after the temperature
control. Yeast strike temperature in the FV is what is being
looked for, and this varies from yeast to yeast, and brewer
to brewer, but 17°C is a good enough estimation.
Energy efficiency concerns are also strong with wort
cooling. Innapropriate heat exchanger design will result in
too much hot liquor being created, at low temperature, to
the extent that it overflows the hot liquor tank and flows to
drain.
Careful design of the heat exchanger allows you to use a
water temperature of only around 5°C lower than the wort
outlet, to acheive the desired cooling, and as a side effect,
this allows the brewer to collect hot liquor at 80°C (high
grade energy), with no waste to drain.
A well designed heat exchange system will cost more, but will pay back in no time in energy conservation,
compared to a cheaper system.
Wort oxygenation takes place around the wort cooler, sometimes on the hot side, sometimes on the cold
side, according to brewer’s preference. For sterility, the hot side is better, as is the hot wort continually
sterilises the injection system.
12
HEALTH & SAFETY, SPENT GRAINS & HOPS
Discharge of spent grains is a pre-requisite in todays world of health and safety, except in the smallest of
brewhouses. Automatic spent grains discharge is not a difficult affair, requiring a fairly hefty motor and
double reduction gearbox, with arms rotating at around 8 RPM. A dead flat false bottom is required in
order to set the gap between the arms and plates to a minimum.
Under-slung vessel discharge systems are more expensive than above vessel motor gearboxes, but are
preferrable, as there is no possibility of oil leakage into the mash tun, and they are also much more easy
on the eye in a showcase brewery.
From the mash tun, the spent grains can discharge into a chute and wheeled skip, or via a screw
conveyor, or spent grains pump, into a farm trailer or silo.
Feedmass regulations now in place, mean that the spent grain system has to be hygienic, ignoring the
farmer’s muck trailer of course.
Removal of spent hops should be carefully considered. In a small vessel, it is simple to provide a large
rectangular manway, flush with the false bottom, at a convenient height, where spent hops can be raked
or shovelled out into a wheeled skip.
Automatic hops discharge gear is notoriously unreliable. There are systems that work, but their success is
often attributed to the consistancy of the hop leaf/trub bed, which is not consistant between different
breweries, or even between different brews in the same brewery.
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 8 of 13
All brewhouse vessels should have a written procedure for full isolation, to allow a man to enter the
vessel, but is particularly important for the mash tun and hop-back where ingress into the vessel is
expected in normal practice.
Surface temperatures mean that vessels, hot wort, and of course steam pipework, should be insulated
where practical, for safety reasons and energy conservation. In a large brewery, nearly all the pipework in
the brewhouse would be insulated, however in a smaller brewery, a compromise is reached.
13
MASH CONVERSION VESSEL
This type of equipment is usually used in European style beer production, primarilly because the barley
has lower levels of modification carried out by the maltster.
The mash conversion vessel mash has a much higher level of hydration, and the conversion is at
minimum in two temperature steps. Firstly the temperature of the mash is controlled at around 52°C,
where protelitic conversion takes place, (this is essentially the job that the maltster does to get highly
modified UK style malt). The mash is then raised in temperature, with steam jackets, to sacarification
temperature, at 65°C, note this is the same temperature as the single temperature infusion mash tun.
Lastly, the temperature is gradually brought up to 78°C, to convert the last of the fermentable extract,
again, just like when sparging a traditional mash tun.
The mash conversion vessel has a mixer to aid mashing-in, maintain a homogenous mix, and to keep the
mash moving over the heating surfaces.
Note that if well modified malt is used, a mash conversion
vessel and traditional mash tun are almost identical in
terms of extractable yeild.
Further enhancements are made when using poorer still
ingredients, Chiniese, South African, and Siberian barley,
might be considered as unfermentable by some brewers,
but careful use of the mash conversion vessel with 5, 6,7
even ten different temperature set points means that a
meaningful extract can be made, and beer can be
produced.
Some Geman brewers and beer styles use the process
known as decoction mashing, where part of the mash is
removed from the mash vessel, while at a low
temperature, and is raised to the boil, before being added
back to the mash. More exotic double and tripple
decoction mashing are also currently used.
Extract efficiencies of this type of equipment excedes the lab measured malt extractability, as the industry
standard lab method uses only a single temperature infusion. Thus extracts of above 100% is usually
acheivable against the standard lab test.
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 9 of 13
14
LAUTER TUN
The lauter tun does not do the same job as the mash tun, it is essentilally there just to allow the sweet
wort to be flushed out of the grain.
A Lauter tun enables a different milling specification to be used which increases turn-around times and
extraction yield but which demands a higher technology mill. Less husk, and more flour is created which
causes a more “stodgy” mash, and so the run-off and sparging is a little more complicated.
Initially wort recirculation occurs to set-up the mash filter bed, then strong worts are run-off without
sparging. Once the filter bed starts to get drier, and more compact, instrumentation is used to detect
negative suction pressure under the false bottom plates, meaning the filter bed above is starting to blind.
At this time sparging comences, usually at a higher flowrate than the wort run-off. The differential
pressure accross the mash bed is monitored until a second, maximum set-point is reached. At this point
the bed is lightly raked with automatic arms, which opens-up the filter bed, allowing wort to run-off again.
The rake design is important, so that the whole mash bed is opened up. The rake arms are adjustable in
height and allow regular and deep bed raking functions. Run-off usually continues during some of the
raking, but not usually during a deep bed rake, and the operation does differ according to the ingredients
used, and the brewer’s preferences. Raking may occur several times during a brew, according to the
differential pressure of the mash bed. At the end of run-off, the rakes operate almost continually to allow
the last weak worts to be collected.
Turn-around times are considered as important as extract performance, and a good mash conversion
vessel - lauter tun combination can turn around in as little as 2 hours, an important consideration when
you are brewing a million hectolitres a year in a 24 hour operation.
Oxygen pickup with European style of brewing is critical, and is kept to an absolute minimum, as the beers
are generally intended for keg and small pack, and so long shelf life.
Lauter tuns and mash
conversion vessels are
usually partially or fully
automated, but can be
operated manually.
Lauter tun mash bed
depths are far thinner
than mash tuns, and the
vessel diameters are
huge in comparison, and
with the cost of the rake
gear included, it makes
for a very expensive
vessel.
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 10 of 13
15
WHIRLPOOL
The whirlpool is used where pelletted hops are used for bitteness, and usually in a European style
brewhouse with a Lauter tun. The whirlpool is a simpler, and lower cost vessel than a hop-back, is easier
to clean and is less expensive to buy.
With a whirlpool, wort is cast tangentially, creating a big swirling mass. Centrifugal and centripedal forces,
cause the solids, the ground hops and trub, to collect over time into a cone in the centre of the vessel.
Wort is then run off, first from ½ way down
the shell of the vessel, the ¾ down the
shell, then from the base of the shell.
The solids cone, steadilly decreases in
height as the wort depth decreases. The
vessel needs to be carefully designed so
that suffitient swirling is induced, and so
that the run-off system does not disturb the
trub cone.
There are many opinions on the use of
pelletted hops, mostly centred around late
hopping for aroma, and the varieties
readilly available in pellet form.
Reluctance to switch to pelletted hops is
also a tradition decision.
16
TWO-VESSEL EUROPEAN STYLE BREWHOUSES
A two vessel European style brewhouse consists of a multi-functional vessel and a lauter tun.
The mash is converted in the combination vessel, which is
used as a mash conversion vessel, and the contents are all
transfered to the lauter tun, allowing the combination vessel to
be flushed out. The lauter tun then runs-off back into the
multifunctional vessel, which now acts as the wort kettle.
Finally wort is recirculated tangentially in the vessel, to create
the whirlpool effect, thus the same vessel is used three times.
This makes excellent sense economically, and it also saves
space, however, the overiding draw-back is the turn around
time, which extends to somewhere in the region of 7.5 hours,
before you can mash-in a second brew. Compared this to
around 4 hours between brews for a simple UK style mash tun.
The two vessel brewhouse also demands high levels of automation, which adds cost and complexity to
the brewhouse, and requires more highly trained brewers, and some in-house engineereing skills to keep
running.
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 11 of 13
17
MASH FILTERS
Mash filters have been around for a very long time and are making a comeback. They are used in place
of Lauter tuns, to filter the wort from the grain. Esentially the whole mash is pumped into a vessel
containing pourous membranes or tubes down it’s length, the mash pump squeezes the mash against the
pourous tubes, and strong wort passes through. Much higher pressures can be accomodated in the mash
filter, compared to the differential pressures of a lauter tun, and so the milling specification can be
changed yet again to a finer mill, and allows a faster turn-around time in the brewhouse. At the end of first
wort run-off, the mash is “squeezed” and then weaker wort and eventually sparging liquor is pumped
through the mash. At the end, when weak worts are being collected, the mash is given a final squeeze,
and that’s it. The mash filter is primarilly used for high gravity brewing, and it is very poor at collecting
weak worts. Mash filters are always fully automated.
18
BREWHOUSE CLEANING
It is usual to caustic clean a UK style
brewhouse just once per week, so long as the
individual vessels are rinsed with hot liquor
immediately after use. The caustic clean can
be a much simpler, less automated function,
as it is only carried out once per week.
Caustic can be made up in a simple vessel
and then recirculated around the rest of the
brewhouse, and is boiled in the wort copper.
Design of false bottomed vessels in particular
need careful attention to ensure the
underplate areas are cleanable.
In theory, you should only have to lift the false
bottom plates a few times per year.
A European style brewery needs a much more automated external multi-tank CIP system, with higher
levels of automation, and all these aspects add cost.
19
BREWHOUSE HEAT RECOVERY
It is standard practice to recover heat from the wort cooler, and this should be designed to produce high
grade heat at 80°C while producing a low liquor to wort ratio.
Another opportunity arises in recovering heat from the wort copper during evaporation.
It is possible to extract 7 x the volume of wort evaporation of hot water at 90°C. So if you have an 80 Brl
brewlength, and you evaporate 7%, you will evaporate 5.6Brl, and can theoretically generate 39Brl 90°C
water from this. However a vapour condensing system is expensive, and adds complexity to the
brewhouse, so should not be undertaken lightly.
There is also a finite amount of energy that can be re-used in a brewery, and the water balance needs to
be carefully designed. The best use of vapour condensing energy is to use it to heat wort en-route from
mash tun or lauter tun, to the wort copper, instead of steam heating, however, this necessitates yet
another brewhouse vessel, as the heat transfer needs to be done at a higher velocity than wort is run-off
from the mash/lauter tun. The resulting energy savings are very significant, and have a clear payback
over time. This application is a good case currently for a carbon trust grant.
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 12 of 13
20
SUMARY
Milling, mash consistancy, liquor temperature control & flowrates, and steam control, all contribute to
quality, yield, and good functionality, and automation can help, to produce a more consistantly high quality
of beers.
European style brewhouses are higher in technology, use more automation, are more expensive to
purchase, and require higher levels of in house skills to run and maintain, when compared to traditional
UK style brewhouses.
Two-vessel European style brewhouses, which are sold in competition to 3-vessel UK style ale
brewhouses, have a very long turn around time for double brewing, and higher levels of technology
equipment to maintain.
If the type of beer to be brewed does not dictate the style of brewhouse, then a simple UK ale brewhouse
is an easy choice, being simpler to operate and maintain, and lower in cost, while still being capable of
producing a consistantly high quality product.
This document is intended to be lightweight in content, compared to other more authoritive brewing
information widely available, and is only a very quick-start reference guide for new start brewers, and
engineers new to the brewing industry.
21
MICRODAT
Microdat manufactures a full range of brewery equipment from malt intake to cask washing and filling.
In 2010, Microdat’s brewery process division commissioned 3 brand new complete breweries:
Joules Brewery – A 30 Brl traditional uk style brewery.
Meantime Brewery – A 100Hl high end European style brewery.
Moorhouses – A 100 Brl traditional UK style brewery
For more information, you can e-mail your enquiry to :
[email protected]
Alternatively contact:
Andy Humphrey
Sales Director, Microdat
07785 930931
Technical paper written by: Matthew Hadwen, Chief Process Engineer, Microdat.co.uk Ltd.
© Copyright Microdat.co.uk Ltd.
You are not permitted to distribute this document, either in paper, or electronic form, without the express
permission of Microdat.co.uk Ltd.
Microdat UK Style Brewhouse Manual
Page 13 of 13