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Air Compressors and Breweries - What You Need To Know

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  • Air Compressors and Breweries - What You Need To Know

    Hi all, I do these Q&As over on the Reddit Brewery subreddit every year or so and thought it may be good to do here

    I'm Mike, I work around Illinois and Iowa in the compressed air industry. We also handle on-site nitrogen generation and blowers/using air for blowing off. We've recently expanded into point of use and whole-system glycol chillers and opened an online store that enables us to ship compressors, dryers, filters, etc around the country.

    One of the most common things I've seen with craft breweries is using an oil-lubed piston compressor to make air and then send it to a keg washer/packaging line without using any filters or dryers to clean up the air. You're going to damage the keg washer, possibly contaminate the cleaned kegs with oil, and generally have poor air quality.

    The most common question I get is on compressor type and the correct kind of filtration/dryer you should be using. I have a quick post here about the differences between compressor types. Drying and filtration will depend on the compressor but in almost every case I recommend NOT using those canister-style desiccant filters. If your compressors passes oil (and it will unless it's oil-less) they become useless pretty soon after you install them.

    Got any questions about compressors, air filtration, or on site nitrogen generation? I've got answers.

  • #2
    7.5 kw screw type compressor with oil filter

    I'm wondering if you can give me feedback on this system. I'm opening a 5 bbl brewery in Japan. I'll need compressed air for my keg washer (2 head) and bottle filler (6 head). I have a quote for a 7.5 kw screw-type compressor, which uses oil. I was told that using a filter I can get the oil down below 2 ppm. Here are the specs:

    Compressor:
    1. motor power: 7.5kw/10hp; 2. air pressure: 8bar;
    3. air flow: 1.0m3/min;
    4. direct drive type;
    5. noise: 65dB;
    6. voltage: 200V/60HZ/3PH; 7. cooling method: air cooling; 8. exhausting oil content: < 3ppm;
    9. size: 780*680*800mm;
    10. weight: 320kg.

    Air Dryer:
    1. capacity: 1.5m3/min;
    2. pressure: 8bar;
    3. voltage: 220V/50hz;
    4. cooling method: air cooling; 5. inlet pressure: 6-10bar;
    6. dew point: 2-10°C;
    7. size: 800*350*730mm; 8. weight: 55kg.

    Filter:
    1. capacity: 1.5m3/min; 2. pressure: 8bar;
    3. height: 270mm; width: 95mm;
    4. weight: 2kg.

    Air tank capacity: 300L

    Thanks!

    Comment


    • #3
      Seems like a lot of power for a small brewery...

      You sure you have the air requirements right? That's a massive amount of air for a small brewery. Especially if you don't use both packaging options at the same time.
      Phillip Kelm--Palau Brewing Company Manager--

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by kmukai99 View Post
        I'm wondering if you can give me feedback on this system. I'm opening a 5 bbl brewery in Japan. I'll need compressed air for my keg washer (2 head) and bottle filler (6 head). I have a quote for a 7.5 kw screw-type compressor, which uses oil. I was told that using a filter I can get the oil down below 2 ppm. Here are the specs:
        2ppm seems a lot tbh. The specs make sense for what you need, you have the compressor, dryer, and tank. What you really should have is a coalescing filter before the dryer, and an extra fine particulate filter after the dryer, followed by a vapor filter. After all of this the oil concentration should be down to at least a 0.8 if not 0.08 ppm. In addition, you really should consider using food grade oil in the compressor.

        EDIT: Also, you'd probably be fine with a 5 or 7.5HP instead of the 10 HP. If you dont intend to run everything at once all the time, the 10 HP is oversized. You dont want to oversize screw compressors, they need a certain amount of use to get the oil sump up to temperature to burn off condensation. For reference, a good 5 HP screw compressor should give you ~ 20 CFM/0.6m3/m and that is normally good enough for a keg washer and bottling line, not ran together. Heck, depending on the air use of the equipment it may run both together.
        Last edited by DeltaMike; 09-04-2019, 10:16 AM.

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        • #5
          Thanks for those tips!

          Comment


          • #6
            Follow up on Coalesccing and vapor filter

            Deltamike:

            I inquired about a coalescing and vapor filter as per your suggestion and my quote came back at almost $1000 more. I asked the company to help me understand why this filtration system costs so much, and how it compares to the standard filter I had on my order. This is what came back:

            "...coalescing filter is a kind of filter whose working principle is gravity settlement. It integrates centrifugal separation, coarse filtration and fine filtration to effectively remove impurities such as dust, moisture and oil mist of compressed air. Vapor filter is a kind of filter can guarantee the high precision and high clean production. It can achieve a bactericidal effect by high temperature of the steam, and ensures the cleanliness of the filtered steam. The two filters are made of stainless steel 304.

            And the standard filters for the screw air compressor can't acheive that result. They can only filter liquid and coagulation above 3um, filter dust above 0.01um, and make the oil content to be <3ppm. The material of the standard filters is die-cast aluminium."

            My question is how important is it that I get this coalescing and vapor filter system?

            Thanks again!

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by kmukai99 View Post
              Deltamike:

              I inquired about a coalescing and vapor filter as per your suggestion and my quote came back at almost $1000 more. I asked the company to help me understand why this filtration system costs so much, and how it compares to the standard filter I had on my order. This is what came back:

              "...coalescing filter is a kind of filter whose working principle is gravity settlement. It integrates centrifugal separation, coarse filtration and fine filtration to effectively remove impurities such as dust, moisture and oil mist of compressed air. Vapor filter is a kind of filter can guarantee the high precision and high clean production. It can achieve a bactericidal effect by high temperature of the steam, and ensures the cleanliness of the filtered steam. The two filters are made of stainless steel 304.

              And the standard filters for the screw air compressor can't acheive that result. They can only filter liquid and coagulation above 3um, filter dust above 0.01um, and make the oil content to be <3ppm. The material of the standard filters is die-cast aluminium."

              My question is how important is it that I get this coalescing and vapor filter system?

              Thanks again!
              I think they are misunderstanding the filters. They probably quoted you a sterile filter which does use steam to achieve high quality air but you dont need that. If you look here you'll find examples of our filters. When I mentioned a vapor filter it is also called a carbon filter and you can find an example of that on our site. It will scrub the air of all oil smell and taste and we recommend those in food and beverage applications.

              If your air dryer is standalone then yes, I absolutely recommend a coalescing filter before it. It will spin a lot of condensate out of the air before it hits the dryer and will protect your dryer. Then comes the extra fine particulate filter and then vapor filter. The ideal system in a brewery looks like this:

              Compressor -> Coalescing Filter -> Dryer -> Particulate Filter -> Vapor/Carbon Filter. Your tank will be in that system somewhere but it depends on whether it is a dry or wet tank.

              If you want to PM me, I can give you my email and I'll send you our version of compressor and filter literature and can look over your quote for you.

              Comment


              • #8
                DeltaMike, I sent you a PM with my email. Thanks.

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