water use

[newbrewery]

Needing a little help.
How many gallons per day on average does a 15 and 20bbl system require for brewing, cleaning, washing etc?
Any help would be great.
Thanks

[MatthewS]

There are so many things to consider. How many batches per week do you expect to brew?
For a general idea...
A decent benchmark may be around 4-6 bbls of water per bbl of beer.

Am I close?

[newbrewery]

MatthewS
Lets say 3 times per week brewing. Also looking specifically to try and determine the discharge (waste) based on the above.
Thanks

[nohandslance]

Are you on septic or sewer.

[newbrewery]

septic, i am located on long island

[nohandslance]

PM a poster named: brewpuppy , they inquired about a septic engineer two months ago, hopefully they can share info on the obstacles of a septic system.
Good luck
keep us posted on your start up.

[Moonlight]

Good to assume that 4-6x production figure, (knowing that your wastewater will be that many gallons minus 1x.) Search the forum archives for all your answers on this topic.

[Ted Briggs]

Total usage can be 10X beer production. If your asking because your planning for incoming Supply, ie: water main size, id plan for the larger number. Obviously we all want to minimize this though, but its better to start small and plan big.

[Alex T]

Hi,

As per previous post - I would uses 10 times your finished beer volume. 4 to 6 is a decent ratio, but I think you will struggle to get that running small volumes. Even large breweries with serious automation systems find it tough to get to 5. So if I was in the planning phase I would use a figure of 10.... (or at least 8!)

Cheers,

Alex

[beermkr]

I am a little confused with some of your figures. You are saying that if I have a 10 barrel system each batch uses 100bbls of water. I have to flag that one.

Lets do some math here....

Mash accounts for .1 gallon per pound of malt. 500 pounds of malt - 50 gallons
Cleaning a fermenter using Caustic/Acid/Sanitize with burst rinsing - 60 gallons
Misc system cleaning - 60 gallons
evaporation @ 10% - 31 gallons
Beer itself - 310 galons
Serving tank cleaning Acid/Sanitize Burst Rinse - 40 gallons

Grand total - 551 gallons.

I am sure someone is going to ask about chilling water... we collect our chillling water back to the HLT and use it in the next batch or for cleaning as listed above.

I would go as high as 3x your brew length but think that 10x is very excessive.

Mike

[Ted Briggs]

New Guy-
Dont forget the TYPE of discharge. Caustic/acids, Yeast and spent hops, DE- ect. I would think you'll have to take BOD reduction steps such as a settling tank where you can ph adjust and oxygenate the discharge. Also, ways to try to capture as much solids as possible.
Good luck- now I have a better appreciation for my city sewer!

Grand total - 551 gallons.
I would go as high as 3x your brew length but think that 10x is very excessive.
Mike

Mike-
Thats why TOTOL was is caps. It means all uses in the brewery. Some you forgot:
Filtering
Keg cleaning
bottling line
Scrubbing the floor
washing out grain buckets
lab work
Washing hands
Flushing the toilet
Get my point??
Also I bet you use alot more water than you think you do, even on some of the things you listed.
10X is the Industry Standard figure for brewery installation planning and as I said is the HIGH number. Wouldn't it suck to have sewage in your parking lot and find it will cost 10's of thousands of $$ to put in a new septic system?? Or pay thousands to install a new water main cause you didn't plan for enough in-flow?? And what about growth? You cant just plan for today- what's your 5,10 year production goals and how will your infrastructure meet those demands? Brewery planning and installation takes more than just some simplified math-------

[Smuttynose]

I just had the absolute joy of renewing our industrial wastewater discharge permit. Our usage came out to be 5.3 bbl water / bbl beer. That's for a 21K bbl / year brewery. I'm not sure how it scales down, but it's at least a real world figure.



dave

[newbrewery]

thanks everyone for all the posts.. Ted - seems as if you have a good rule of the 10x so we don't cut ourselves too short. Does anyone have a recommenedation on a water main size to a facility based on a 20bbl system? 2 or 4 inch, would that do?

[fdkassik]

I'm running a 7bbl system with 28gpm on a one inch line. I would think that a two inch would be plenty. Also consider using the most septic safe chemicals available. I've been on a septic for three years now and so far no problems, but to keep it running has required a lot of extra work to keep all that excess yeast, trub, grains, from going down the drain. We also pump twice a year.
Good luck,
Frank Kassik
Kassik's Kenai Brew Stop

[Alex T]

Hi,

10x could be high if you aren't packaging or kegging - forgot about that. So it really depends on your installation.

I would go with 10x and if there is a large cost involved for waste water, then you will have to go back and relook.

Cheers,

Alex