How Brewery Water Treatment Works to Create Tasty Beer and Happy Equipment

Breweries require meticulous water treatment to serve customers a high-quality pint. Chardon Labs is a terrific source of information because of our extensive experience with brewery water treatment. The process requires filtering the water, removing chlorine, and adjusting the hardness and pH levels. If your brewery uses a steam boiler, the process also includes familiarizing yourself with the steam boiler and other critical components. Let’s look at how brewery water treatment works for the brewery to produce the tastiest beer possible and keep its brew systems in top condition.

Improving Water Quality

First, you must consider the source of your brewery’s water. Facilities within metropolitan areas likely have access to municipal water. Even if there is a limit on how much water the company can use, this strategy may still work for smaller breweries. If you have a more extensive operation, you may need to rely on more substantial sources such as underground aquifers. Regardless, you should test the water quality before doing anything else.

When water arrives at your brewery, you need to look for a few things. While municipal water is generally safe to drink, breweries often take extra precautions to ensure the best possible quality of their beer. One of the top concerns for tap water is forever chemicals. Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are harmful to humans, possibly increasing risks of cancer, so you don’t want them in your beer. Testing is essential to see what treatment is necessary for the water.

Filtering out the Contaminants

Once you determine the water quality, you need to filter out the contaminants. Removing these unwanted particles requires a filter, and breweries have many options, one of which is activated carbon filters. The structural properties of carbon trap impurities such as organic compounds and chlorine. You can also find particle filters made from ceramic and polypropylene, with physical screen traps to catch tiny impurities.

While water for the brewing beer needs treatment, brewers must also be conscious of wastewater, the aftermath of brewing. Perhaps even more that brewing water, wastewater requires filtration before exiting the brewery. The level of filtration needed depends on the wastewater’s next destination. Is the brewery going to reuse the water? If so, it can be recycled in a way that ensures it’s safe for future use.

Using Reverse Osmosis

Reverse osmosis (RO) is another standard filtration method for breweries. (While it is popular with beer producers, another everyday use for RO is regular drinking water.) In the RO process, pressure forces water through a semi-permeable membrane, removing up to 99.99 percent of water contaminants such as lead, PFAS, bacteria, and viruses. Breweries that want maximum control of the brewing process and the taste of their beer begin by removing all the minerals. They can then add back any minerals they feel are necessary to get the perfect beer taste.

Another reason you see RO across breweries is its efficiency. Well-maintained systems produce consistent results each time. This process could also reduce your brewery’s environmental impact. A 2020 study found RO was the best brewery-effluent treatment because it doesn’t rely on chemicals or need much space to operate. This method is environmentally friendly for breweries because it controls water usage and reduces the wastewater leaving your facility.

Removing the Chlorine

Chlorine is another element you must remove from brewery water because it can significantly affect the taste of beer. Chlorine is present inside breweries because it is a less expensive disinfectant than bromine and other oxidizing biocides but is as effective at removing contaminants. However, you want to eliminate as much chlorine as possible from the water used to brew beer because your customers may be able to taste even trace amounts that can significantly alter the brew.

Removing chlorine is also integral to the health of your machines. For instance, you can use it to shock the cooling tower’s water and eliminate the contaminants. However, excessive use can damage the tower because chlorine is highly corrosive and expedites wear and tear of the structural components. Therefore, it’s necessary to eliminate chlorine through a carbon filter or RO.

Softening the Water

How brewery water treatment works depends on your area and the water’s characteristics. For instance, water’s hardness or softness will determine the enzyme reaction in the mash. Municipal water may be challenging because of high concentrations of calcium, magnesium, and other elements. While hard water exists nationwide, you’re more likely to find it in areas with mineral-heavy rocks or former seabeds. Regardless, the brewery must treat the hard water to make it usable for brewing beer.

Beyond brewing the beer, hard water matters to your brewery systems. If your brewery has hard water, the cooling water systems are more complex to maintain. The average water supply has about 95 parts per million (ppm) of hardness, whereas hard water could reach 500 ppm in some areas. How can you soften the water? There are a few ways to perfect this process. Chemical softening, exchange softening, and separation softening are effective strategies for breweries.

Modifying the pH Levels

The mash has a pH “sweet spot,” between 5.2 and 5.6, where the enzymes work most efficiently. Higher beer pH can result in dull-tasting beer. Low beer pH can cause the beer to lose complexity. Sometimes you see breweries adding lactic acid during brewing to change the pH.

In terms of brewery equipment, the pH in your brewery depends on which system you’re talking about. For example, your heat exchanger should have a pH between 2 and 3 to prevent contaminants from building up inside. While the heat exchanger prefers a highly acidic pH, your cooling tower water requires a different approach. A pH between 6.5 and 9 is optimal for a galvanized-steel cooling water tower. However, the water in a stainless-steel system has more flexibility and can reach a 9.5 pH. Lowering the pH could require adding calcium carbonate, calcium sulfate dihydrate, or another safe mineral.

Water Treatment and Steam Boilers

Most breweries require a steam boiler for efficient, even heating and a quality brewing process. Boiler water treatment keeps your brewery boiler safe, reliable, and running at peak condition. Chardon La-boratories has the experience and knowledge to make these factors possible.

Mashing, Lautering, Sparging

Steam boilers are involved in various parts of the beer-brewing process. They heat the water and grain in the mash to activate the enzymes. Your boiler generates the hot water that sprays onto the grains to keep the released sugars moist and usable. Then, in lautering and sparging, water recirculates to filter through the husks of the used grains, and additional hot water pours over the grains to remove the sugars. During this step, you need your steam boiler to provide the proper water temperature for effective heat transfer, ensuring that these processes run smoothly and on time.

Boiling the Hops

Hops are an essential component of most beers, requiring a boil to provide the desired bitterness by turning their alpha acids into iso-alpha acids. Steam boilers are vital to this step because they provide the consistent heat to remove harmful oxygen and increase acidity to stabilize the mixture.

Fermenting

During fermentation, the yeast break down the wort’s sugars and convert them into alcohol and carbon dioxide (CO₂). You need to maintain a carefully calibrated temperature in the fermentation vessel so the yeast can do their work most efficiently. Your steam boiler helps provide the precise level of heat you need.

Sterilizing the Equipment

Learning how brewery water treatment works also includes sterilization and sanitation for the steam boiler. Cleaning your equipment is essential because you don’t want contaminated water for your beer or the wastewater exiting the facility. The steam boiler is critical because it kills microorganisms with high-temperature steam, thus eliminating harmful bacteria and spores. Although dry heat and chemical treatment work, steam cleaning is the most effective cleaning strategy. Steam boilers also sterilize mash tuns, brite tanks, and other tools.

Cleaning the Kegs

Breweries depend on kegs to minimize oxygen exposure and keep the beer quality as high as possible. If air penetrates the container, the integrity of your brew can decline dramatically. While critical to the brewing process, steam boilers also stand out because of their keg cleaning. After use, a keg can trap tiny leftover particles from the beer. Thus, kegs need a thorough cleaning to ensure bacteria doesn’t grow. The boiler produces steam to sanitize kegs before they hit the road.

Brewstilleries and Distilleries

Your brewery may decide to expand its services beyond beer. If your business distills spirits, you need a steam boiler to heat the alcohol properly. In a still or pot, the alcohol is boiled at a particular temperature based on the concentration of ethanol (pure ethanol’s boiling point is 175°F/79°C as a reference). Rum, whiskey, and vodka temperatures depend on your mash’s ABV, so it may require more heat.

Brewery Services from Chardon Labs

Chardon Labs has been in business since 1965. Our water-treatment professionals have seen it all, whether you run a brewery, brewstillery, distillery or other sort of business. Here are the services you get from the Chardon Labs experts.

Complimentary Assessments: Brewery boilers are crucial to your operation’s success. If you think something is wrong with your system, Chardon Labs will evaluate it for free to determine its current condition and assess the next steps. Your boiler could have insufficient water or too much fluid inside the system. Besides the water, there could be problems with the burner, valves, leaks, or fuel combustion. The boiler needs an optimal air and fuel combination.

Chemical Treatments: Your brewery boiler needs chemical treatment to protect its structural integrity. Chardon Labs will protect your boilers from the most damaging chemical processes, such as corrosion. Treating your machines could include alkalinity builders, scale inhibitors, and anti-foaming agents. With these resources, your boiler increases efficiency and reduces water usage. Treatment is also necessary to prevent scale buildup on the walls and tubes.

Regular Testing: Water is integral to a brewery’s daily performance, so ensuring its quality year-round is essential. Chardon Labs meets with your business to determine a water treatment plan to test the water directly, thus helping the experts outline the necessary chemicals. For instance, your water may need pH control, oxygen scavenging, or biocides to optimize the quality. Consistent testing also lets you detect problems in the steam boiler and stop failures before they happen.

Optimized Care: Brewery operations may scale up and down depending on the time of year. Your business may see higher demand in the summer as more people want to spend time outdoors at music festivals and other hangout spots. Alternatively, your brewery may see more winter sales if you’re in a hotspot for skiing or other winter tourism. Regardless, Chardon Labs ensures optimal care during peak use and the off-season. Even slower times deserve high-quality maintenance.

Ongoing Maintenance: Ongoing maintenance is one service that sets Chardon Labs apart from other chemical water-treatment businesses. It provides upkeep at a fixed price to ensure you never receive a higher-than-expected service bill. Chardon Labs’ professionals perform ongoing maintenance for boilers, cooling towers, and closed-loop systems. Your machines will receive ongoing chemical water treatments to ensure quality.

Chemical-Free Treatments: While chemical treatments are effective, you can select a chemical-free option. This could reduce wastewater, work toward sustainability goals, and earn LEED credits for your brewery. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) says you can earn LEED credits by complying with the EPA’s water standards and health advisories tables. Reducing or eliminating chemicals from water treatment could also mitigate costs associated with chemical disposal.

Learning How Brewery Water Treatment Works

As you can see, brewery water treatment is intricate yet important for producing high-quality beer. Chardon Labs has specialized in water treatment for nearly 60 years and specializes in clean systems. Our experts will craft a treatment plan and ensure your systems are up to par.