Franconia Brewery Accident

I've been to Franconia a couple times for their tour, Dennis and all the guys there are good people, and they make great beer. Hopefully everyone is ok.

http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/02/two-injured-in-beer-explosion.html

That big fermentor laying on it's side in the pic was originally in another room, separated by a wall, about 20 feet or so away. Scary stuff.


Someone that was there tweeted this pic of the bulging fermentor before the explosion:



And what was left of the wall if flew through:

Wow, reading the twitter posts at the bottom, it sounds like a tour group of 100 people were in the room with the fermenter three minutes prior to it exploding. This could have been a major accident...

You'd think those would have a pressure release valve on them considering the amount of damage one could cause. Not sure if that is a pressure gauge on the right or what the scale is but it looks like its pegged pretty high.

There could have been a pressure relief valve, but sometimes they fail or cannot relieve pressure quick enough, depending on what was going on in the tank. Anyway, some of the nicest brewery folk I've talked to. Hopefully nobody is injured too badly.

That gauge is pretty high, no doubt!

That tank, should have had a PRV on top of the dome, sometimes you see the PRV on a blow off or CIP line. Generally they attach via a 1.5" Tri-clover fitting. Sometimes a Spundig valve will be used. The static PRVs are usually calibrated to a specific pressure, whereas the spundigs are adjustable. Some people will attach a spundig valve and assume it will blow off at it's last pressure setting. This is a dangerous practice. They should be adjusted with EVERY use.

One company I worked for I was the corporate brewmaster and had two additional pubs under my supervision. One of the brewers didn't check his spundig on a tank and it caused the manway door to buckle. These tanks used a much lighter door than the one in the pic and if it had given way, it would have just popped the door. A manager at the pub saw the manway and alerted him before it got ugly. This was one of several things that led to this guy's walking papers. The INSANE thing is that his replacement did the SAME thing within a couple weeks of starting. He didn't last long either.

I am NOT saying this is what happened here - I wasn't there, I don't know and don't want to slander anyone.

Anyway, SCARY... I hope the people who got hurt recover quickly

So sorry to hear this. The owner is a good guy, very friendly and deserving of success. I bet his insurance company will forbid any future tours... :-(

Hope everyone is ok, and this doesn't affect business too much.

fratermus said:

So sorry to hear this. The owner is a good guy, very friendly and deserving of success. I bet his insurance company will forbid any future tours... :-(

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I was too wondering, what, if any, impact there would be on future tours. Hopefully they can keep them going.

What would lead to a build-up of this kind of pressure? Could the blow-off tube have been blocked or something?

dedndcrusr said:

What would lead to a build-up of this kind of pressure? Could the blow-off tube have been blocked or something?

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A blocked blowoff tube wouldn't be enough, the blockage would give long before the tank... look upwards at my previous post for some thoughts.

Basically the possibilities are these; a faulty, uncalibrated or even non-existant pressure relief valve

Could be lots of things - improper design, manufacturing defect, poor maintenance, operator error... Hopefully they'll be able to identify the cause and make the appropriate fixes, and I hope they'll take good care of the people who got injured.

Call me crazy, but I think Dennis mentioned they don't release much C02 during primary fermentation

Frogger42 said:

Call me crazy, but I think Dennis mentioned they don't release much C02 during primary fermentation

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Hmm... maybe they do use spundigs to carb their beer. Usually the spundig would be on the stainless line you see coming down in the right of the tank front pic. It is POSSIBLE (this is pure conjecture, don't want to slander them in anyway) that someone forgot to put the spundig on and no one noticed it. That would certainly account for this.

In a commercial setting, I much prefer a spundig to using carb stones in a BBT.. there are downsides though and you have to be totally aware of what you're doing with them or they can result in dangerous circumstances

The picture in the first post is not the fermentor that exploded. It was fermentor #3, not #4. Franconia does use spunding devices, but on a photo from their Facebook page it appears that the fermentors also have PRVs on top. Does anyone know if the the spunding device is closed off and no PRV on top... Could there be a PRV anywhere else? So far they say it was a faulty PRV, however, that particular tank did not have a PRV on top according to the pics after the accident. Where else could it be?

Ninkazi said:

The picture in the first post is not the fermentor that exploded. It was fermentor #3, not #4. Franconia does use spunding devices, but on a photo from their Facebook page it appears that the fermentors also have PRVs on top. Does anyone know if the the spunding device is closed off and no PRV on top... Could there be a PRV anywhere else? So far they say it was a faulty PRV, however, that particular tank did not have a PRV on top according to my pics after the accident. Where else could it be?

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While it is a good idea to have a secondary PRV when using a spundig, it isn't always the case that there would be such a device. The spundig itself would have an integrated PRV, you set the spundig to release at a certain pressure and it is supposed to keep the beer at that pressure, releasing when it passes that point.. closing again when it drops below it. This keeps the fermenting beer at a constant pressure, carbonating it as it ferments. If the integrated PRV was not set by the user... they need to be calibrated every time mounted... or it was indeed faulty... well, something is going to give.

Actually here is an update to the story where Dennis explains that the fermentor basically fell over due to the force of the valve failure, and did not actually explode.

Sadly, but understandably, it seems they may not being doing any more tours.

Franconia's facebook page indicates tours have resumed. It definately did not "fall" through the wall... It shot through the wall and injured five, not two. The media has been all wrong about the facts. According to facebook pictures, the other tanks had PRVs on top. This one, according to the picture in the newspaper, did not.

Thank you wailingguitar for the info! It's a bad thing to happen to good people.

Can confirm that Franconia is back doing tours on Saturdays.

Markd27 said:

Actually here is an update to the story where Dennis explains that the fermentor basically fell over due to the force of the valve failure, and did not actually explode.

Sadly, but understandably, it seems they may not being doing any more tours.

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I saw that report before. I would had have to see the tank in person, but judging from the damage to the wall and everything else that happened, the explanation given seems lacking. To quote someone on probrewer.com, "The owner/brewer Dennis says a valve popped off, which caused a leg to break, causing the fermenter to fall over. The reporter must have misunderstood something, because that doesn't sound reasonable, especially considering the tank destroyed a steel I-beam on its way into the adjacent room."

I have seen catastrophic tank failures before; implosions, racking ports giving way under pressure, etc. Without seeing the actual tank, if someone asked me what would cause that kind of destruction; leg breaking, tank crashing through wall, destroying steel construction, etc., I would say something blew out the side of the tank under high pressure.

I agree judging from the pics, including one of the tank laying on its side, that it didn't technically "explode", but there is certainly more to the story than has been released.

DeutscheMaster said:

Hope everyone is ok, and this doesn't affect business too much.

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I used to be stationed in Katterbach, 92-95, is stinky's still outside the main gate?