 Brewing Industry Introduction During the brewing process, complex chemical reactions take place that convert malt, hops, water and yeast into beer. Steam is essential in this process for heating, cleaning and pasteurization process. To produce high quality beer while maintaining low production costs it is necessary that the brewing processes are operated as efficiently as possible, effectively using the heat available in the steam To achieve this, it is necessary to consider the design and operation of the complete steam and condensate system, taking into account the types of processes, their individual requirements, the local environment and the types of beer being brewed. Steam demand is not constant Sudden peak demands for steam in a brewery can lead to priming or carryover from the boilers, with wet steam passing into the distribution system. The boiler should be operated at the highest possible rated pressure to provide a degree of thermal storage, helping to cope with sudden high steam demands. Steam pressure can then be reduced to the required operation pressures by using Pressure Reducing Stations. Thermal storage can be further increased by specifying a larger than normal boiler shell or introducing a steam accumulator. An accumulator stores thermal energy under light load and supplements steam flow to the brewery during sudden high loads. This will protect the boiler from the effects of overload conditions, allow them to fire to the average load and ensure that a high sudden steam demand is met. Steam Utilization in brewing process A large proportion of steam produced in a brewery is used to help in the extraction of sugars and flavors in the mashing process and for wort boiling where the beer is sterilized and stabilized. These two processes alone can account for up to 50% of the connected steam load. Steam is used to provide the heat for pasteurization, for production of hot liquor, for bottle washing, in the racking, bottling and canning processes and in the CIP systems. In addition to the process requirements steam will often be required for the heating and air conditioning system in a brewery. Temperature Control Most of the steam using processes found in a brewery will require a Self Acting Temperature Control System to ensure the product is heated up to and maintained at the desired temperature. Bottle sterilization and drying takes place in different ranges of temperature. Steam is required to be supplied at pressure corresponding to temperature. Thus, proper steam Pressure Reducing Stations and Temperature Control System are required for automatically control. Spirax Marshall provides many different types of temperature control systems and will be able to recommend the most suitable for each of the many different processes. A
simple robust self acting control system will often be the most suitable for a
hot liquor tank, while a more sophisticated electro/pneumatic system will be required
on a mash tun to ensure that all of the appropriate rests are maintained at the
correct temperature for the correct time. Click over for additional pointers in : Steam Generation Steam Distribution Steam Utilization Condensate Recovery
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