incoming and outgoing water lines

[rhartogs]

Hi, we are a brewery in planning and are looking at a building. We just got the water specs coming into and out of our building. We are planning a 15 bbl system.

Water line coming in is ¾” but looks like that can be upgraded at a reasonable cost. (Going to 1.5-2”) depending on what the county lets us use.

My main concern is the sewage line going out is only 4” that seems a bit small compared to others. Will this be sufficient, or would we need to upgrade this as well. To upgrade this at the location would be a significant cost.

Thanks for your help!!


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[beerguy1]

Are you going to have a kitchen? if so you most likely will need a grease trap. But having worked at both I would encourage you to go with 6". But, I pay the bills here and know that at times that can be cost prohibitive. So, here are a few of my thoughts. First keep a close eye on the amount of grain going down the drain sounds simple but sometimes people get lazy and just try to dump it and that is a easy cause of plug ups. We bought from the local plumbing store a hose nozzle that expands to fill the inside of my drain and then blasts water down the drain we do this once a week and since have had no plugs. Lastly no matter what know where your clean outs are and if you need more add them now so the drain cleaners can get easy access to all of your plumbing

[rhartogs]

Thanks Mike!

Have talked with a few other local breweries today here and they all have 4" lines going out. Seems like standard in our area. We will not have a kitchen, so no,worries there. We are going to pay for a larger line coming in, but if we have to pay for a larger out, that would be a deal breaker for us.
Your suggestions and pro tips are quite helpful.

Cheers,

Richard

[TGTimm]

Go with 2" line all the way to the brewery. You can't have too much water in the brewery. The branch line to the kitchen can be 3/4. Use a separate pressure reducer/backflow preventer for the brewery and the kitchen, and make sure they're easy to get to for inspection.

Install a ball valve at every branch in your water system. If this does not make sense right now, it will, and it's worth ten times the price of the valves.

Be sure the brewery and kitchen DWV lines are kept separate until after the grease traps and sedimentation tank--if you have a bathroom in the brewery, that goes to the kitchen drains. You don't want bathroom wastes in your brewery sedimentation tank, or any chance of it backing up into the brewery in an emergency.

Over-slope your drain lines for the brewery. Yeast slurry does not move like normal sewage. 1/4-1/2" per foot if you can. No line in the brewery should be less than 4". Make sure you have plenty of easily accessible clean-outs for both the kitchen and brewery. Keep the DWV lines as simple as possible to make cleaning easier.