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Beer equipment installation
2021-12-31
5 Ways To Brew On A Budget
2022-01-06
How to choose brewery beer equipment
- If you want to open a craft beer bar or build a craft brewery, the choice of brewery’s beer equipment has become a big problem. Baidu searches for craft beer equipment on the Internet, and the pictures of various manufacturers and beer equipment are dazzling.
- People who don’t know the brewery beer equipment can easily be misled by the sales staff’s various explanations.
- After all, the quality and strength of each beer equipment manufacturer are different, and sales staff will organize speeches from the perspective of benefiting their own manufacturers.
- Most people will follow the salesperson’s thoughts suspiciously. Professionals who have been engaged in beer brewing will not blindly choose when inspecting brewery beer equipment.
- They generally have their own set of ideas, from a few key points to evaluate the quality of beer equipment in the brewery. So, what aspects will experts pay attention to when choosing brewery beer equipment
1. Stainless steel is the foundation of brewery beer equipment
First of all, the material of the brewery beer equipment. The main body of craft beer equipment is stainless steel. The material is the foundation of the equipment, just like the foundation of a tall building must be laid first. Material is the most basic requirement and must be very strict without any discount.
304 stainless steel brewery beer equipment
- First, the material must be 304 stainless steel or higher 316 stainless steel. The beer brewing process has very high hygiene requirements, and the cleaning of tanks and pipes will use acid and lye.
- 304 or 316 material has strong acid and alkali resistance, which can meet the technological requirements of brewery beer equipment.
- Some manufacturers may use lower specifications of stainless steel, which is indistinguishable in short-term use, and corrosion will occur in long-term use, which will affect the taste of brewery beer equipment.
- Some manufacturers use steel plates from small steel mills. Although stainless steel is 304, it is actually difficult to meet the requirements of the national standard 304, let alone a higher standard.
Stainless steel thickness
- Secondly, the thickness of stainless steel should also be paid attention to.
- There are many specifications of stainless steel plate and stainless steel pipe in the world, so the choice is very large. For example, stainless steel plates generally have a certain thickness loss during processing, which is normal and meets the requirements.
- However, the difference in thickness directly affects the cost of the equipment. For 3 mm thick steel plates, you can find 2.92 mm, 2.85 mm, etc., with a small drop, or 2.6 mm, 2.5 mm, etc., with a large drop.
- From the cost point of view, there will be a 20% gap in material costs. The larger the equipment, the higher the proportion of material costs.
- Although the thickness of stainless steel does not necessarily directly affect the brewery beer equipment, it will have a certain adverse effect on the later processing and service life of the equipment. The same logic applies to stainless steel pipes.
2. Welding, polishing and other production techniques make your brewery beer equipment superior in quality.
The second is the processing technology of beer equipment. As a stainless steel-based equipment, the main processing technology is welding and polishing.
Welding without any hygiene risks
- Let’s talk about welding first. The welding of stainless steel is argon arc welding.
- Current control in welding, the technical level and stability of the welding master, whether the welding method is used properly, and the argon protection during the welding process all determine the welding quality.
- Because of the irregular processing of craft beer equipment, it is difficult to realize fully automated production, and most of them still use manual welding. As a large-scale manufacturer in the industry, Tiantai is the first to adopt automated welding equipment for tank welding and pipeline welding.
- The quality and stability of the welds have been greatly improved, but a considerable part of them still use manual welding, such as the welding of Maitreya plates. In addition to sensory judgment of welding traces, welding quality can also be judged by flaw detection test and pressure test. Tiantai’s five times with bracket inspection method can better and effectively inspect the welding quality.
- Welding quality is related to the service life and hygiene requirements of craft beer equipment.
- We often hear about beer leaks, glycol leaks and steam leaks in the equipment of a certain brewery, all of which are caused by unqualified welding.
- These are not only lost In addition, due to the poor control of the above points, there are dents, cracks, blisters, pores, welds, welding slag, etc.
- in the welding seam of the tank, which makes the tank and pipeline appear sanitary corners and cannot be effectively cleaned.
- There will be residues in these dead corners during brewing, which will easily breed bacteria and contaminate the wine when brewing again.
- This is also the reason why many beer brewers always suffer from the unpleasant smell and even the sour taste of beer. The processing defects of the beer equipment in these breweries are difficult to deal with later.
Polished to hygienic
- Let’s talk about polishing. The polishing of stainless steel is closely related to the welding quality.
- A good welding foundation is the beginning of a good polish. The internal polishing of the tanks and pipes of the beer equipment is more important than the external polishing.
- Internal polishing is for the hygienic requirements of beer brewing. The polished appearance is mainly the beauty of the beer equipment in the brewery.
- The internal polishing process is more complicated than the external polishing process, and the labor cost is higher. When buying beer equipment in a brewery, laymen often only focus on external processing rather than internal processing.
- This is precisely what is left to the end without paying attention to the main points. Experts first pay attention to the internal polishing quality, especially the polishing of the welds.
- If the welding quality is good, the internal welding seam is easy to polish. However, if the above-mentioned indentation, welding slag, pores, cracks, etc. occur, even a first-class polishing machine cannot compensate.
- Generally, polishing needs to achieve a polishing accuracy of at least 0.6 microns. In 2017, Tiantai took the lead in controlling the internal polishing accuracy to within 0.4 microns, which greatly improved the hygiene and safety of brewery beer equipment.
3. The quality of parts and components in beer equipment is one of the key factors
- The third is the brand and rationality of beer equipment accessories.
- The stainless steel tanks of beer equipment that we usually see account for the main part. When the stainless steel water tank is shipped, there is no problem in quality, and there will be no problem after using it for many years, because the water tank is still in use.
- There are some parts that are more difficult to judge the quality than the tank body. These components are generally mechanically active components, such as pumps, valves, sensors, electrical components, pneumatic components, etc.
- These components have service life and operating accuracy, and each component controls a node of the entire production process module.
- A problem with one node may cause the entire module system to shut down, affecting the normal operation of the brewing process. Therefore, the quality of these parts is more important, and a brand with a long service life and verified by experimental data must be selected. Of course, the choice of components also requires a comprehensive assessment of the cost-effectiveness of the investment.
- Some international brands have high cost of accessories, such as Germany’s Alfa Laval, Gea, e+h, Anton Paar and so on.
- Generally speaking, small beer producers cannot afford the investment costs of these foreign brand components.
- At present, the localization of many parts is very mature and the quality is very stable. We generally recommend that most of the parts can be selected from relatively well-known domestic brands.
- Some parts with higher accuracy requirements and higher software design requirements can be selected from foreign brands, mainly German brands.
- Of course, there may be too many domestic component suppliers to distinguish.
- There are only a handful of suppliers of regular brand brewery beer equipment accessories.
- The stability of quality depends on the company’s accumulation of production technology, design innovation and refined management.
- The selection of parts brands by beer equipment manufacturers also reflects the quality positioning of equipment manufacturers.
4. How to reasonably design the brewing process in the equipment
- Fourth, the design of the brewery’s beer equipment must conform to the brewing process.
- If brewery beer equipment tanks and parts are hardware, then the design and implementation of the process is beer equipment software.
- This involves an in-depth understanding of each process in beer brewing, the accumulation of various data achieved by the process, and the individual needs of different types of beer brewing.
- For example, the selection of a pump needs to consider the flow rate, flow rate, temperature, viscosity, density, pH value of the medium, as well as the sanitary level of the pump, shear force, suction lift, head, energy consumption, electrical load and other conditions; Consider these.
Pumps and pipes
- The pump is the heart of the process system, and the pipeline is the blood vessel of the process system.
- The calculation of the flow rate, flow rate, resistance and other data of the process pipeline determines the process realization of the mash, wort, water and other media.
- The pipeline must not only connect the two ends of the process correctly, but also plan the most reasonable route to avoid phenomena such as material storage, mixing, clearing of dead ends, and excessive elbow resistance.
- The brewery beer equipment manufacturer or professional consulting expert will generally provide a beer brewing process flow chart, which details the connection method of the two ends of the pipeline, and it can be known that the nozzle A should be connected with the nozzle B.
- However, the process schematic cannot express the connection route of the pipeline, nor the route from nozzle A to nozzle B.
- This leads to the connection of on-site construction pipelines relying on the experience of the installation engineer. Beer brewing pipelines involve wort pipelines, beer liquor pipelines, cip cleaning pipelines, carbon dioxide pipelines, compressed gas pipelines, brewing water pipelines, hot water pipelines, cold water pipelines, ice water pipelines, etc.
- These pipelines are intricate and systematic. The overall plan cannot be achieved based on experience alone. Therefore, during the on-site pipeline construction of many beer brewing projects, there are often problems such as pipeline connection conflicts, temporary changes in planned pipeline directions, changes in the optimal installation position of valves, and sanitary blind spots caused by pipeline changes.
- These problems caused by no plan are often difficult to plan and solve. Temporary changes cause material waste, and the labor cost of secondary rework is also very high.
3D drawing makes it visible and precise
- Three-dimensional drawing can effectively plan pipeline projects in advance.
- The extensive use of industrial 3D software (such as solidwork) makes it possible to present real scenes on site.
- The brewery brewery equipment factory can measure the site in advance and establish a three-dimensional space model of the site.
- The brewery beer equipment of the brewery is drawn in three dimensions according to the drawings, and the pipeline can also be drawn in the three-dimensional software in advance.
- In this way, for unreasonable problems, the overall planning and evaluation of the piping system can be modified in advance.
- The cost of modification in the drawing software is very low, and the efficiency is much higher. However, the price of professional legal software is very high.
- The cost of solidwork software purchased by Tiantai Equipment Company exceeded 200,000 yuan, and the cost of comprehensive 3D rendering software exceeded 1 million yuan. In the long run, this is conducive to the precipitation of technical data, is conducive to reducing on-site costs, and making the beer brewing process more scientific.
- With the development of craft beer, the customization of the brewing process has become simple, and the brewer can simulate and evaluate the pipeline design in advance.
- Compared with hardware, software is often not directly visible. This requires more professional industry knowledge and deep brewing experience.
5. Brewing equipment installation and after-sales service, allowing you to focus on brewing with peace of mind
- 5. Installation training and brewing service of brewery beer equipment. Generally, brewery brewery equipment factories will provide equipment installation services, as well as the pipes and accessories required for equipment installation.
- These are just minor obstacles. Here I would like to remind the other two aspects of the precautions during the installation process.
- One is the preparation and installation of the project. All brewery beer equipment requires water, electricity, steam, compressed air, etc. These equipment are not produced by brewery beer equipment manufacturers themselves.
- If there is no prior agreement that these supporting equipment will be packaged and provided by the beer equipment manufacturer, you need to prepare it yourself. We recommend that the brewery’s brewing equipment manufacturers pack them and provide them together.
- Although the price will be higher than buying by yourself, it can save a lot of communication and learning costs.
- This tested the ability of the brewery plant to complete packaging. The second is beer brewing training services. Some brewery beer equipment factories will build small brewing systems for research and training on brewing processes.
- These equipment factories will have their own professional brewers who can provide more professional brewing training and brewing recipes.
- In terms of brewing raw materials, it will also help users choose their own suppliers. The brewer who runs a craft beer bar or craft beer shop is different from the brewer who runs a brewery. Small craft beer bars generally brew fresh beer with rich flavors, and the brewing recipes are more flexible.
- The brewers of large breweries need professional industry knowledge and are best responsible for the brewing process and quality control of large breweries.
- There is still a big difference between a small beer brewing system and a large beer brewing system. This is also an important consideration when choosing a manufacturer of brewery beer equipment.
Be sure to learn some brewing courses before you start
- If you do not know how to brew, it is recommended to go to some training institutions for training and learning, such as the courses of Beijing Institute of Food and Fermentation
- Industry, the courses of Lampe College, the courses of Wuhan Beer College and so on.
- You can systematically learn the theoretical knowledge of beer brewing, and you can also watch the actual brewing operation. Different universities have different course fees.
- Before participating in the training, it is best to do it yourself, which can be done at home.
- You can also go to the brewing practice base of Tiantai Company, they will regularly hold free beer brewing practice activities, the purpose is to better understand beer brewing through hands-on practice.
- The above are the techniques often used when choosing brewery beer equipment manufacturers, I hope it will be helpful to you.
