Dealing With Steam

Through a series of lucky events I have gotten to be friends with the owner of a local brewery/restaurant in my area. He has two locations but only brews at one of them and has to drive about an hour each way to get beer to his second location. He has a brewing setup at his second location that is just about operational but that project got scrapped. The reason for that is because it is located in the basement area of the restaurant and he is worried that the steam will have a negative impact on the wood floor of restaurant above it.

I know that he has some piping to the outside that to deal with the majority of the steam from the mash tun and brew kettle. The worry is more about generally having a higher moisture in that environment.

What are some ways to make sure that the steam/moisture will not have an impact on the wood over time? How have you dealt with a similar problem in the past?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

I have never dealt with something like thus, but I'd think a moderately sized dehumidifier run during and a few hours after the brewing process is done should suffice in getting the humidity back to it's previous level.

I'd get one of those humidity readers and put it by the brewery area and record the %'s before, during, and after to make sure things are back to normal.

I am no expert, but proper ventillation should handle a lot of the moisture concerns. There are also devices to measure humidity. I would establish a baseline to detect any increases. You can run a dehumidifier or run an A/C.

Any decent ventilation or dehumidifier should be sufficient. This is why you have to size an AC unit to the area it is cooling and heating. Not only does it cool and heat but draws moisture out. Since steam rises, i would guess that a decent vent hood would work as well

Agreed. Like any other kitchen a hood above the HLT, MLT, and BK paired with a dehumidifier could possibly keep it at an even lower humidity level than it would have normally.

A local brewpub in my area has the brewery in the basement of the "Tasting bar" with Plexiglass in the floor so you can see the equipment. I've been in there when they're brewing, and in that instance I would think condensation would be immediately obvious. It appears to be about a 7bbl process, so I don't have any doubt that with adequate ventilation there would be any problems

Gunfighter04 said:

A local brewpub in my area has the brewery in the basement of the "Tasting bar" with Plexiglass in the floor so you can see the equipment. I've been in there when they're brewing, and in that instance I would think condensation would be immediately obvious. It appears to be about a 7bbl process, so I don't have any doubt that with adequate ventilation there would be any problems

Click to expand...

I bet the brewers just stand around looking up on busy nights
HVAC with a decent air turnover should deal with excess moisture.