Sewer line question

[BruWerkz]

Local folks are telling the contractor that we will need stainless steel sewer line due to the temperature and caustic nature of brewery waste. Can anyone debunk this for us?

[Rich_Ness]

Gotta ask... Do they expect you to replace the main line all the way to the treatment facility, costing you hundreds of millions of dollars, and at least 8 years of planning, environmental impact studies, engineering and construction? NOPE. The caustics and microbials you will contribute do need to be neutralized prior to ejection, but running a stainless main line is absurd, and makes no sense. Whomever is giving you this info is not a professional, nor are they educated about our process and regulations. TTB specifically addresses wastewater handling as set forth by the EPA, and approval of such methods. There is more harm from dumping Drain-O into a sink, than there is from neutralized caustics from our CIP, or the minute amount of fragile yeast cells.
I've been a General Contractor for over 25 years, and heard some wild stories, dealt with over-engineering and many FDA regulations, (I used to build Cold Stone Creameries), and this is a new one for me!
It's better to do your homework on how you will be neutralizing your waste and explaining the science. If this is true, we all have a whole lot of infrastructure to replace, and no beer will be made for years...
Best of luck!

[BruWerkz]

Many thanks. Nothing like taking on City Hall.

[WaterEng]

PVC sewer piping will handle the pH and temperature swings typical for brewery wastewater. If they don't accept that, its probably more appropriate to incorporate an equalization tank into your waste circuit so that temp and pH are moderated prior to discharge.

[thatjonguy]

PVC sewer piping will handle the pH and temperature swings typical for brewery wastewater. If they don't accept that, its probably more appropriate to incorporate an equalization tank into your waste circuit so that temp and pH are moderated prior to discharge.

I haven't put too much though into my wastewater yet, so to benefit everyone on the forum....

What size equalization tank for a 7 bbl brewpub? 2x week brews and 40x week keg cleans.

Any specifics for equalization? We will treat yeast as soils waste, minus the yeast washed out in CIP.

[Guestimate]

"Acid waste" is what you are looking for. Several manufacturers have composite sewer piping that is rated for acid waste. The acid waste spec goes well beyond brewery effluent. The most important part is they are usually rated for greater than 213 degree effluent. The problem with PVC and breweries is hot temperatures destroy the adhesives used to connect the pieces and will eventually crack the PVC itself. Keep in mind this system is under your brewery, so future repair is difficult. Be prepared, acid waste systems are expensive and only a few underground contractors will have experience with it. Stainless steel is an option, but welding will be difficult and finding a contractor with experience in installing a stainless steel sewer will be next to impossible as it is rarely done. I suppose if you can find a welder with a 4" orbital machine and that is willing to work in a trench, that could be a viable option. You are responsible for the sewer laterals. The main is the responsibility of the municipality to maintain. However, if they think your effluent is damaging their pipe, they will be knocking at you door.

If you are building a manufacturing facility, it is only a matter of time before the municipality will expect you to perform some sort of effluent treatment. So, it might not be a bad idea to have all of your brewery trenches drain to an underground tank or vault and then have that pumped/lifted and discharged into the municipal system. This should lower your effluent temperature and adding an effluent treatment system in the future will be easier.

Kevin

[fatheads]

We used a combination of galvanized pipe...and pvc schedule 80

Galvanized is the cheapest and easiest

[RedBeardBrewer]

As I am a little late to respond I hope you have already got past this issue but just to add some knowledge for those who might find this thread in a search...

Standard sewer lateral service pipe is called SDR35 and is a light green in color. There should not be anything so far out of tolerance with your waste stream that it requires a different style of piping. What you will want to find out is a little information about the system and treatment plant receiving your effluent and whether they have an "Industrial Pre-treatment Program" (they should). Pre-treatment programs monitor waste streams coming from facilities that have "strong" effluent. The word "strong" in the wastewater business refers to anything well outside a nuetral pH range. The goal of the pre-treatment program is to make sure what your putting in the system won't come into their wastewater plant and kill all the micro-organisms that are breaking down the waste, because wastewater treatment is a biological process.

Worst case scenario is they determine you have a strong waste stream which requires you to perform some kind of treatment to the the effluent prior to discharging to the sewer. Whoever told you you need a stainless steel sewer pipe has no idea what they are talking about.

[sbradt]

I'd suggest that you look at CPVC if you go for plastic. It is more expensive but has a much higher temperature resistance than PVC, which typically maxes out at 140 °F. Unless you plan to send all your hot waste straight to a buffering tank that bypasses the sewer line completely before cooling and dumping it, you'll probably experience higher temperature levels than 140., rinse water, late runnings from the mash, tails from the kettle, etc.. There is plenty of experience that will tell you that PVC can work in this application but if you want a safety factor, I'd look at the CPVC. Some of this may depend on the installation. If the drains are poured into a slab, you may have a better chance of achieving the desired longevity. On the other hand, it will also be pretty expensive to replace if you have to. If you're running the pipe on hangers, such as in a basement area below the brewhouse, I'll pretty much guarantee that you'll see a lot of sag start to develop pretty quickly. You should take the same thing into consideration with your selection of trench drain materials. I usually spec to 180°F to keep on the safe side.

[gointomexico]

We used ABS plastic for our drains. Could that be an option for you?

http://www.ppfahome.org/faq.aspx