Brewery waste water

[dionbill]

Avid home brewer who would like to some day start a craft brewery. Reading up on the details around running a commercial brewery, I read that they have a massive amount of waste water.... like 3-5 bbl waste water per 1 bbl of beer. I’ve been racking my brains trying to figure out why it is so high. My plan would be to capture and reuse the chill water but I still don’t know where the rest of the waste comes from. Some is clean up. Any Ideas? Thanks.

 

[c673986]

Heat exchanger (or glycol or chilled water) cleanup, r.o. waste. I’ve seen chilled water add direct to the boil kettle and glycol used at the heat exchanger.

I helped build my local brewery. They wound up just chilling with tap water and wasting it. If sewer fees were more, I’m sure they’d recycle that. Probably run it back into a tank inside of a walk in fridge.

 

[dionbill]

Heat exchanger (or glycol or chilled water) cleanup, r.o. waste. I’ve seen chilled water add direct to the boil kettle and glycol used at the heat exchanger.

I helped build my local brewery. They wound up just chilling with tap water and wasting it. If sewer fees were more, I’m sure they’d recycle that. Probably run it back into a tank inside of a walk in fridge.

Thanks for the info. I’d recycle the chill water for sure. The problem is the that most places that I’ve looked (more of a curiosity) are on septic tanks and have limited capacity for waste water.

 

[Homercidal]

Brewery Terra Firma in Traverse City, Michigan is very eco-minded. I know that one of the things they do is pump the waste heat into the taproom area in the winter. They have ways of reducing the need, and then use the biodegradable waste water as irrigation for their "farm" area.

It might be worth it to have a look at their website and maybe contact the brewhouse manager. His name escapes me at this moment, but he engineered pretty much everything they do there.

They also have a very extensive Vinyl collection too, FWIW....

 

[mirthfuldragon]

I helped build my local brewery. They wound up just chilling with tap water and wasting it. [...] Probably run it back into a tank inside of a walk in fridge.

Then the question becomes the energy cost of chilling that much water. One could do the math on it, but my assumption is that, if it is cheap enough to chill with tap water and dump it, it probably is not worth cooling and recycling. Then again, I live in Chicago and my water is from Lake Michigan, so water is not a limited resource here.

 

[Scout]

Thanks for the info. I’d recycle the chill water for sure. The problem is the that most places that I’ve looked (more of a curiosity) are on septic tanks and have limited capacity for waste water.

If I was building from the ground up and had to use a septic, I would have the toilets only on the septic and the sinks and other wastewater on a cesspit or other separate system. Detergents and other non-poop stuff is bad for septic health.