What Kind Of Heating Method Should We Have On The Brewhouse

Heating a brewery is one of the most important issues we need to consider when setting up a brewery.
Here are the three main types of heating suitable for craft breweries – electric, direct fire and steam.

What are the differences between these three methods in terms of equipment.
Electric heating requires an electric heating element.
Direct fire heating requires a burner and a fire chamber under the tank, both of which have additional costs.
Steam heating requires a steam boiler at an additional cost.

For reference, think about the way a brewery is heated.
While there are different options here for brewhouse heating (steam, direct fire and electric), our opinion is to decide on the heating elements by combining these two main factors.

1) Budget
Steam boilers are more costly and may put pressure on the budget.
Therefore, if budget is paramount, then you can prioritize electric or direct fire heating for your brewery.

Also, please take into account the difference between gas and electric tariffs, which will also affect future costs.

2) Another important issue is the brewing method
For electric or direct fire heating, the wort/fermenter cannot be heated.
Therefore, breweries with electric heating are suited to achieve the desired temperature by mixing hot water.

If we want to sweeten in the kettle (direct heating of the sweetening solution), it is not suitable for making high pulp beers that use more grains.
This is because the wort will easily burn to the electric heating element or the bottom of the kettle if there is a fire at the bottom.

For steam heating, the wort/fermenter and kettle/whirlpool are jacketed.
Therefore, brewing chambers with electric heating bring more convenience in utilizing the jars (for example, we can use steam heating to heat the fermenter).
Since the steam is gentler and heats the jars more evenly, we can brew freely and without too many restrictions.

If we brew a regular Plato beer and use the tanks in the easiest way possible.
Then electric heating/direct fire heating is a very good choice.