While there is a continued respect for the roll up your sleeves and put some elbow grease into brewing through manual labor, there’s also a fascination with equipment. Brewers are always looking at what’s new, what can help the process and efficiencies, and be better for the bottom line.
Equipment manufacturers, which often operate in other food industries have been turning their attention to beer over the years, offering new technologies and items that help modernize breweries and add sustainability to the practice.
Here are some companies that are embracing sustainability technology with brewers in mind.
Optisteep has what it calls “revolutionary water-saving technology,” especially for craft maltsters and its application in the steeping process. The company says its “transforming the steeping process by integrating advanced water conditioning directly into the process. This innovative approach ensures optimal water use and quality, further driving the efficiency and sustainability of malting.”
G&D Chillers has its alternate refrigerant series. “For the last 30-years we’ve navigated the tightening of environmental regulations – first focused on reducing a refrigerant’s ozone depletion potential (ODP); and now focused on reducing the refrigerant’s global warming potential (GWP). This constant progression, incrementally reducing the impact our chillers may have on the environment if a leak were to occur, has pushed our industry to improve the technology we use, and lesson our environmental impact.”
PRO Refrigeration has its PRO Green Solutions team that “focused on shifting away from synthetic, chemical-based refrigerants to natural solutions like CO2 which eliminates our impact on global warming without sacrificing operating efficiency.”
Chart’s liquid nitrogen dosing systems are used in the packaging of a wide range of products for “preservation, pressurization and freezing. Key benefits are extended shelf life, reduced weight and enhanced product quality.” The company says that in operation documented studies show a 26 percent increase in shelf life and 90 to 95 percent reduction in headspace oxygen compared to traditional gaseous nitrogen purging.
Earthly Labs’, SES’ and Howden’s carbon capture and compressor solutions enable breweries to capture CO2 emissions during fermentation process, boilers, or anaerobic digesters and reuse it onsite.
“Earthly Labs believes CO2 technology is a buttress to support our customers’ goals – emission reduction, cost reduction and value creation. We have developed a customer onboarding and implementation process that tracks and monitors customer success – from kick-off meeting to delivery to installation and post-sale support. Our team members have deep understanding of the industries we serve so we can integrate our solution knowledgeably, train team members effectively, and install equipment confidently, with minimal disruption to your processes. With more units in operation than any supplier at our scale, we have developed installation processes and training tools that enable quick time-to-value and sustained CO2 capture performance. During commissioning, our team helps build piping manifolds, install piping, tie in CO2 capture equipment to your fermentation tank, set-up remote monitoring software, capture and liquify CO2, train your team and ensure your continued success. We also have a catalog of tips and tricks in our manual and customer service portal, with post-sale customer support from industry and engineering experts. In addition, the cloud-based performance monitoring dashboard allows our customer service team to troubleshoot or offer proactive feedback to maximize CO2 capture. While our CO2 capture technology is unparalleled, our people and yours will ensure your success.”
The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has a great resource page on sustainable breweries and waste water management: https://portal.ct.gov/deep/p2/industry/sustainable-breweries
And, of course the Brewers Association has a Sustainability Benchmarking Tool that helps brewers track and decrease their use of natural resources.