Exhaust Fan

[Northernbrews]

Just designing the new brewery and working on the exhaust system. We will have a 5bbl direct fire system and I have sourced a 10ft hood fan with outdoor exhaust fan with .5hp motor that will move 1200 CFM. Moving this much air I know we will need some return air system and curious how others have done theirs. We are trying to keep it simple and thinking about putting the return air fairly close to the exhaust to avoid pulling in cooler air across the whole brewery. Obviously new to this exhausting game and just wondering how other have their systems set up and any thoughts on what i have planned ? Thanks

Jeff

[TiminOz]

You will need two flues. One for steam from the kettle and one for direct fire burner. You can scrape by without the steam flue (which needs to be SS) but the flue for the direct fire burner is a must for health and safety.

[beerguy1]

You also need to check with your local building dept. Since there is going to be CO2 produced in the building you might need to totally refresh the air in the building "X" amount of times per hour. Plus you might need a automatic CO2 detector that will turn the exhaust fan on. I cant stress enough that you review everything with the building dept. or you could end up paying huge $$ to replace or rebuild what you already bought. Also, you need to get rid all that humidity in the brewery that can cause mold ect. So, you might want to consider putting that intake further away from the exhaust vent to allow some air exchange

[Northernbrews]

Thanks for the info guys. I have checked with our local inspector and as long as we have a fresh air return we meet any requirements from the town. We will be running it full time when brewing anyways.

The system we are looking at is designed to removed condensation as well as air in the form of one large hood vent. As long as we meet code requirements and have the return air near by and near the floor to create air flow, any other problems we may encounter? Thanks for your help...

[FarGohnBrew]

exhaust

I have a direct fire 5BBL. My first set up used a kettle over a standard commercial kitchen hot plate at ~200k btu. Type II exhaust hood. For make up air I have a powered damper that feeds outside air to my HVAC unit that is connected the hood fan switch. When I turn on the hood fan it also opens the damper that then allows the HVAC to pull in outside air that is then "conditioned" back into the space. That satisfied my inspector. Of course none of that was my idea. I had an engineer draw up the mechanical plans and he figured out how to accomplish this with minimal expense. You have to balance incoming and outgoing air and new regs require conditioned air in certain cases, way too complicated for lay person to understand as there are competing regs that can contradict one another.

I have since upgraded to a new kettle that has a 400kbtu ring burner. That HAD to be vented directly outside via 'B' vent materials as the exit temp of the flue was ridiculous (guessing 800 degrees) and the hood fan couldnt handle that temp. Water would boil of the sides of the ductwork and fan housing when I sprayed it. Now I have the flue vent pulling out firebox gasses and the hood just handling steam and residual heat. It is WAY more comfortable brewing now as with my original set up in summer temps would go over 100 inside. I couldnt brew on summer days the tap room was open because it took hours for the temp to come back down. So far this year the one hot day I brewed it stayed in the 70's inside. Much nicer.