Energy saving technology and processes

[FullsteamBrian]

I am looking for information regarding cost and sizes available on the market for energy efficient technology, especially mash filter presses, Steinecker Merlin systems, and CO2 recovery systems. Has anyone done any pricing of these and are you willing to share what you found? If not, do you have recommendations on where to find this information? Thanks!

[dick murton]

You don't say what size kit you are looking for, as not all the following do small brewery kit.

For prices, you are best off going direct to the manufacturers, e.g. Meura, and Ziemann for mash filters (though as far as I know, only Meura do a microbrewery sized (25 hl) version of the mash filter), Steinecker, Ziemann, Huppman, Briggs, Krones for lauter tuns, and all of those plus Meura for wort boiling & whirlpool operations.

If you want to do a wide variety grist weights to give you different volumes / gravities, then the chances are that a mash filter is not suitable as they have very tight limits on effective grist load to prevent damage to the mash filter plates. Lauters are far more flexible in that respect.

For what it is worth, I believe Merlin is no longer supplied as they have changed the technology. The kit I have seen was prone to bad scale build up on the cone and was not as effective at reducing DMS in particular as some other systems. Conventional WPs are still installed widely, but with different wort boiling technology to ensure evaporation of DMS and other unwanted volatiles before gentle treatment in WP.

Beware wort stripping systems such as Merlin or the Meura wort stripping systems if you want to produce beers with hop character - or indeed any real character. A an ex colleague (now retired) of mine produced British cask beers using Meura wort stripping systems, and said they stripped all the hop character out of the beer - it was basically bitter brown liquid with no character, and apparently also (and neither of us fully understood why) changed the mouthfeel - but presumably though loss of volatiles.

Re CO2 recovery systems, try Pentair / Haffmanns. I think GEA also do CO2 recovery / purification systems.

Start initially with the internet.

[dick murton]

Don't forget that to fine tune energy usage, if you are a large brewery, you may wish to look at brewhouse energy recovery systems - GEA/Huppman, Steinecker, Meura, Alfa Laval, to recover energy used in wort boiling to preheat wort ex lauter / mash filter. You used to have to run a 4% + evaporation for these to prove cost effective, even in jumbo breweries, so doubtful if you are, for instance a 50 brl brew length brewery due to the capital cost of tanks, pumps, heat exchangers etc. (and space!!). Oh, and they don't really work if you are only brewing once or twice a day - you need to be brewing 24 hours for a few days to make them work well, and for them to pay back.

[Matt_K]

As far as I know, IDD is the only US company making a filter press brewdeck. They use the smaller Meura press. Tell Jeff I sent ya his way.

Since California varies the electric rates depending on time of day, we're also looking into a system from STEM to help during peak load charge times. We haven't made a decision on that yet. Still pondering.

[FullsteamBrian]

Thanks for your leads on things to look at, Dick and Matt. I appreciate it.