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Flow meter into BBT? Or other method of determining taxable volume?

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  • Flow meter into BBT? Or other method of determining taxable volume?

    Is anyone using a flow meter to determine the amount of beer that actually his a BBT? What other methods of volume determination for taxable volume are being used?

  • #2
    3bbl brewery here. We use a sight gauge hose connected between the bottom and top of tank on hose barbs that is calibrated with the amount of liquid in five gallon increments. Easy peasy. Just fill the tank with several calibrated buckets of water and measure the offset to establish the increments for the rest of the tank.
    Kevin Shertz
    Chester River Brewing Company
    Chestertown, MD

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    • #3
      +1 on the sight glass. Also allows you to see the current volume. In Ontario, Canada we are required to have a calibrated sight glass which has been verified by a government inspector (using either a flow meter or measured inputs).

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      • #4
        I do the same as the previous 2 posters. Calibrated our sight glass with a water flow meter and made bbl marks on our 7bbl brite, all the way up to 8bbl to get a general idea and then record the number of kegs filled for tax purposes.

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        • #5
          Would anyone else like to weigh in? Is anyone actually using a flow meter to determine their taxable volume?

          Thanks!

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          • #6
            You can use an in-line flow meter for determining taxable volume, but it needs to be of a sanitary design - "turbine"-style flow meters are not suitable for this application, as they are not 100% sanitary. You'd be looking at a mag-flow meter, like something from E&H, which are pretty pricey. They are sometimes available used on sites like Ebay, but the most common place they're used is on a brewhouse, after the heat exchanger, so that you can know how much volume you're sending to FV.

            One note about using sight glasses: they need to be calibrated with a suitable in-line flow meter (this can be a turbine), and the flow meter needs to be installed correctly in the supply line, in order to read correct volumes. That said, they're easily the most common method of determining taxable volume.

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            • #7
              We use a mounted mag-flow to transfer from 80 and 40 bbl FV's into corresponding BBT's. Literally mounted to the same style cart our CIP pumps are so they are very easy to move and store. Older model (~3 years) so it reads to the tenth of a gallon and occasionally cuts out if you bump into it, but otherwise dead accurate and does not impede flow or ease of set-up. The functional parts are permanent, with a 1 1/12" TC fittings on each end, allowing for easy hookup of sanitized lines on both sides.

              Great for easy CIP inclusion if your regiment includes cleaning many hoses in bulk, keeping track of who's correctly tracking volumes on the brew side, and determining when your filter pads need to be changed. (i.e one tenth of a gallon every three minutes)

              *Edit because I missed the original point - We do use it for the taxable volume, I don't personally deal with it outside of recording the numbers though. The guy who does seems to have a love/hate with the accuracy depending on the batch
              Last edited by CoilTheDamnHose; 07-06-2016, 09:05 AM.

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              • #8
                flow meeter

                Originally posted by wailingguitar View Post
                Would anyone else like to weigh in? Is anyone actually using a flow meter to determine their taxable volume?

                Thanks!
                In large breweries, I think it is called a turbidity meter. It measures the solids in the beer and switches the flow when the beer meets the desired clarity. It does measure flow and GPM.
                Manually done via sight glass in the line. As soon as the beer is clear, they switch to a different line.

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                • #9
                  Funnily enough, turbidity meters do exactly what the name implies - measure turbidity. They do not measure anything else. As stated, they can be used to determine the difference between cloudy fluids, such as yeast slurries and the flush water, but interface control of wort, beer, both filtered and unfiltered is normally by conductivity meter, or occasionally pH meter. I ALWAYS specified flow meter backup to override faulty conductivity meters, and provide alarm handling and management info.

                  Assuming the brewery is say a 10 or 20 brl setup, then sightglasses are normally used - because accurate flow meters are expensive to buy, and expensive to maintain.
                  dick

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                  • #10
                    Cheap flowmeter

                    We used a flowmeter from Canadain tire http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/ga...-0598197p.html

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                    • #11
                      It would help if you stated if you are talking about Serving tanks or BBTs that you package from. Different methods for both, as the TTB wants you to determine tax in the Serving Tank, but in a packaging brewery you determine it post packaging. My 2 cents.
                      Joel Halbleib
                      Partner / Zymurgist
                      Hive and Barrel Meadery
                      6302 Old La Grange Rd
                      Crestwood, KY
                      www.hiveandbarrel.com

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                      • #12
                        If you have a 200' tall bright tank, it's going to be pretty hard to read the volume on a sight glass on the tank. So for larger breweries, they'll use a flowmeter to determine filter yield. Although their taxable volume will be what actually makes it into kegs, bottles, and cans.
                        Peter Landman | Brewmaster | Seabright Brewery | Santa Cruz, CA

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                        • #13
                          While the brite tanks are generally the tax determining tank, you do technically pay your taxes on the beer removed for sale, either packaged or kegged. The reason for having accurate, repeatable measurements on the brite tanks are so that you can see any discrepancies from brite tank to package. The TTB uses this to audit your filling processes and determine if you are over filling, under flling, adding water, etc. Previously, someone stated that turbine meters are not sanitary, indeed they aren't perfect, but they are sanitary if properly designed. Many of them carry a 3A rating. One drawback to turbine meters is they are effected by temperature, solids, gas bubbles, and anything in the line of different density. Hops bits can jam up a flowmeter quickly. If you are going to use a turbine meter, make sure it is on filtered product, or that you have an inline filter before the meter to keep debris out, also put it before any inline carbonation. Mag meters are pretty good for all around use, they can deal with temperature/density variation a little better and also don't have moving parts, so debris is not an issue.

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