Drains and drain pipe material

[Damien]

Folks--

In the near future I will be cutting in the drains into my brewhouse. I have planned a circular drain situated between the kettle and the mash tun, 8-10 inch diameter placed in the center of a 4' X 4' sloped square. There will be a long trench drain in front of 7 - 15 bbl fermenters sloped 2' either side. In the cold room there will be another 6-8" circular drain located in the center of a 4' X 4' sloped square servicing 5 - 15 barrel bright tanks. Finally, a 6-8" circular for the keg cleaner/racker and another one for the filler, of course sloped.

Any comments from the crowd regarding my plan? Any concerns about drain pipe materials and their ability to withstand standard brewhouse cleaning chemicals? Is schedule 40 pvc 4 or 6 inch OK?

Thanks,
Damien

[Alex T]

hi,

if planning on dumping a lot of hot liquor/hot caustic, ensure drain materials can withstand the temperatures. we have had 2 x drains melt over the years. sometimes you can have a stainless or copper section for the first few meters to allow some cooling time before going into the PVC.

cheers,

alex

[gitchegumee]

I would not consider using PVC for drains. Especially when you pour concrete over them. Instead,I recommend fiberglass trench sections. They are easy to clean and will stand up to boiling temperatures. And make sure your building inspector/health inspector signs off on drains inside a cold room. In most places, it is not allowable to have a drain in a cold room. Good luck!

[tarmadilo]

In most places, it is not allowable to have a drain in a cold room.

Never ran into that, every brewery that I've worked in that had a walk-in cold room with aging tanks or serving tanks had drains.

Cheers, Tim

[gitchegumee]

It is a health department issue. Might only really apply to foodstuffs, but I've been involved in several installations where the inspector saw beer as a foodstuff and enforced the "cooler with no drain" bit.

[Diamond Knot]

Actually....

..........ABS is the approved DWV (Drain, Waist, Vent) material used in the States (if you're in the States). I would never use PVC for drain systems. ABS is cheaper, and does a pretty good job. We dump hot water down pretty frequently. No problems. Just for FYI, our drain is 5 feet away from the kette.

For the past 11 years, we've used ABS in our floor drain system and have never had to replace it or mess with it. Our new Brewery has an ABS system I installed personally.

Slopes should be 1/8" per foot minimum with a max of 1/4" per foot max. This will give you a pretty good run-off, but caustic and yeast will eat the crap out of exposed concrete. Have a coating applied for your own protection.

[bbrodka]

old thread, but I found a good source for afordable trench drains for those who may be looking

http://www.infinitytrench.com/

[lhall]

We used a polycrete drain, it comes in 3 foot sections that have a built in slope to the end - just level the top of the drain and your trench drain will work properly. See your local building supply house. Also, we had to install a back-flow preventer fitting on our drains in the walkin coolers - sort of a floating ball inside a trap that prevents sewer water from backing up into the walkin. They were about $120 a piece. Check with your local plumbing inspector before you get too far in your plans.

[jipjanneke]

We used polycrete, too, and it is good and easy to install, just expensive, but I can't imagine the cheap hardware store stormwater trench drains lasting 5 minutes by comparison...

I'd say whatever you do, make sure you have a coolroom drain of some sort - I'm speaking from experience that it is a right royal pain not to have one (especially when you are responsible for overflowing the CLT and have to squeegie all the water out!)

[nohandslance]

Floor Drain reply

Make sure all areas cut/and re-installed look like minature "skateboard Parks".
I had a 3/8"/per FT slope on the drains we installed. Is very deep but the squeegeed water flows very well into the drains minus the over shoot that traditional contractor designs offer. If it is in a Handicap Accessable Area you may need to conform to your local codes. Also; we had a stainless steel "P" trap plus 20 ft section installed to handle all BH process waste this went into a sump then used normal Plumbing piping PVC from that point on. This will eliminate any excessive H20 temperature disfiguring of traditional PVC drain plumbing that is in contact with the brewery waste as it is discharged.

[VoodooBrewery]

Do not use PVC, or Plastic drains they will, will come loose. Everyone seems to take the grates out and the drains cannot handle the heat and chemicals no matter what the manufacture says. I've seen to many to tell you, that have had to replace them of make cement throughs out of the old void in the cement.
My recomendation is s/s or tile drains.

[sbradt]

drains in beer coolers

We have drains in the cooler floor at the pub, which makes sense since there is keg racking going on in the cooler and bright tanks to be cleaned, etc. I'm wondering how critical it is to have drains in the cooler for a packaging brewery where the cooler, aside from the occasional accidents such as bottle breakage, should stay pretty dry. My expectation is that the cooler will only hold pallets of kegs or cases. Do I really need to go to the expense of sloping the floor and putting in drainage?

[Wes]

We never use ANY extruded plastic pipe material for brewhouse drains in our installations. This is especially important where the drain is to be covered with concrete (cement). Firstly the coefficient of expansion is significant and will lead to cracking and breakup of the concrete and secondly, PVC will distort and sag if 80 degree C or so hot water is allowed to discharge.

Our specification is for either terra cotta waste pipe or cast iron for those sections encased in concrete.

Here in Australia it is NOT permissable to have a drain in the cool room. Real pain.

Wes