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  • Wastewater treatment process

    Hi all,

    I am planning a brewery (10bbl) and I'll admit, the one area that's got me stalling is a wastewater plan. I dont have a good idea on what this looks like for a small brewery. What kind of processes (and equipment) should I have in place for pre-treating and disposing of wastewater, yeast, etc. Like most, I plan to have a local farmer make weekly pickups for spent grain/trub but I am unclear on a good process for wastewater removal. I know it will vary depending on the municipality but are there some generic best practices and equipment suggestions for this? I'm on sewer not septic.

    I've been scouring the forums but havent quite found what I'm looking for. Any suggestions or a link to a thread (if already discussed) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

    Jay
    Jay
    Southern Swells Brewing
    Jacksonville Beach, FL

  • #2
    it may be a simple a a greas trap or a waste water tank depends on what they want in your area
    hope this helps
    matt 3GB also hop trub is toxic to some animals

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    • #3
      Have them call the City of Livermore CA sewer department, they are very fair to us. Only requirement was a sample box for them to take quarterly samples, we send all of our solids to the farm for feed or compost.

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      • #4
        With wastewater, ours just goes right down the drain to the sewer. We treat everything that is acidic or basic to neutralize it, or sometimes blend the two to get them within range. In San Diego, pH has to be between 5-12, which means even beer has to be treated before it goes down. At our new, much larger facility, we have a tank that all drains go into first that constantly monitors pH and then doses in buffers to get it within range. Before that tank we also have a solids separator to get anything solid to come out first. Spent grain and trub are mixed for the farmers. Yeast goes down the drain while water is running to both buffer it and dilute the solids.

        The water department comes and checks on us every now and again, especially since we have a storm drain in the back which is always being monitored and if we have anything go down there, we are fined $5k. We keep a record of what we dumped down the drain and how it was treated, with maybe 5 entries per day for tank cleaning, keg cleaning tanks, etc. The department really likes seeing a log.
        Peter Cronin
        Senior Quality Analyst
        AleSmith Brewing Company

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        • #5
          steps

          Im in the same process. I think the first step is to call your local wastewater department and ask what their limits are for BOD/TSS/etc. If the plant is at capacity and can't handle brewery loads then find a location that has a larger
          wastewater plant. Ideally you would want to be able to dump it all down the sewer except solids/grains and it not be a problem. Pretreatment is very expensive for a start up (as I am learning).

          I'm looking to do an equalization tank to buffer then dump overnight when the plant has a decreased load.

          good luck,
          Scott

          ps. Check out John Mercer wastewater website. I just sat through a wastewater seminar at CBC in Portland. But really if you haven't found a site yet---really find one with a large municipal wastewater plant is your best bet.

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          • #6
            Thanks for the input guys. This is really helpful.
            Jay
            Southern Swells Brewing
            Jacksonville Beach, FL

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            • #7
              Plumb Out

              There are a number of threads on this subject.
              The trap idea is useful as in you have a catch tank in the ground on your brewery waste line to catch solids and it gets pumped out on a schedule. This appears to be quite useful in some configurations and it is time tested to work. OVERSIZE it.
              The other major tenet that should be observed if possible is not to mix brewery effluent with any other building waste whatsoever.
              Existing limits have to be worked around creatively if you are dealing with a situation that cannot be siginificantly modified.
              Warren Turner
              Industrial Engineering Technician
              HVACR-Electrical Systems Specialist
              Moab Brewery
              The Thought Police are Attempting to Suppress Free Speech and Sugar coat everything. This is both Cowardice and Treason given to their own kind.

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              • #8
                Waste Water

                We are a small start up in NH and we ran into the same problem. Ultimately what we came up with was to have a trench drain with a sump well that isn't connected to the main building outlet. A sump pump will move whatever is in the trench drain to one of two IBC tanks under our tap room floor. These will be hard piped to the building drain and will only be released when the ph is between 6 and 9 and under 100 degrees f. The sump well is big enough to allow a 5 gallon bucket. We plan to cut out large holes in the bucket and then put it in a large hop sack and use it as a coarse filter for the sump pump. We want to keep as many solids out of the tanks as we can only because moving them will be a pain in the ass
                Bill Walden
                Oddball Brewing Co.
                Suncook, NH

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