We both know that the typical problem in a brewery is simple: A bucket-load of energy is used (and paid for) to create the heat and the chill needed to produce the beer.

But the worst thing is that for decades, breweries have been wasting (‘blowing’ even) 30% – 50% of their brewing energy … costing them thousands of dollars a month (or even a week).

For the past few years, some ‘smart’ breweries have been doing just the opposite: saving 30% – 50% on their brewing energy costs.

There’s nothing magic, secret or crazy about it: Their brewing process is the same.

What they did change, however, is the way the make and use all the heat and chill that’s made during the brewing process.

Let me explain…

We both know that to brew the beer, a lot of heat is required: For the mashing, lautering and boiling… and after that, a lot of chill is required to cool the beer from the kettle, fermentation and maturing.

Then the beer needs to be kept cold after it’s bottled (unpasteurised craft beer that is).

Plus some hot water is required to clean everything at the end of the day…

and to keep people happy at the brewery, there is also heating and cooling in the offices.

The old way of doing this is to have a separate piece of equipment for each of these tasks: A boiler that heats the beer. A chiller that cools it down. A refrigeration unit for your cool room. A hot water system. A heating and cooling system for the offices. And if you have a restaurant/pub, then you also need to heat/cool the patrons, keep the beer lines cold, keep the food cold, and plenty of hot water for the kitchen.

They each work fine alone, sure… but since each machine works separately from the other, you “pay” them for creating ‘reject’ energy that gets blown into the air… without being used:

For example, whenever a chiller produces cold glycol to cool things down, it also produces hot air on the other side of it… and this hot air is blown out into the atmosphere.

So what’s the big deal? Well because in the brewery you’re using plenty of heat and chill energy… it doesn’t make sense to reject any by-product heat or chill… you can use it within the brewery!

For example, when the storeroom is keeping the bottled beer cool, the heat created as a by-product is not rejected into the atmosphere, but used create hot water. This replaces the need for a hot water system that’s used for cleaning various equipment.

No energy is wasted. It’s all captured and re-used… and your energy bills are much lower.

From our experience, the best way to recuperate the energy is by having a single central unit that automatically sends and receives the necessary chill/heat wherever you need it.

This single unit can replace the chiller, the refrigeration unit, the hot water unit and the heating/cooling system in your building, and reduce the workload of the boiler.

(And if you have a pub/restaurant attached, it will also chill the beer for serving, cool the food & beverage fridges, keep the customers comfortable, and provide plenty of hot water for the kitchen)

Because it’s using energy that would have been otherwise lost, using this central automatic unit lowers your energy consumption and saves you between 30% – 50% on your brewing energy costs.

If you decide you want to achieve these savings in your brewery too, we at Euroheat would love to be the ones to help you:

Energy Calculations & Modelling for Brewing. We’ll sit down with your head brewer, and listen to how you brew your beer. We’ll get the processes, temperatures and times down for your different brews… and then we can model in our software how much energy is exactly required to for each type. From this we can figure out precisely how much energy you need and when you need it, and design for you the most energy efficient method of achieving this.

Central Heat Recovery Heat Pump. This will be the heart of your brewery’s operation. This unit will provide all of the hot and chilled water needed for your brewery (and pub/restaurant) super efficiently… plus it will recuperate the waste heat that would traditionally be rejected into the atmosphere… allowing you double the operational efficiency.

Thermal Insulation: Did you know that even if you install thermal insulation to your building, your energy bills can still be sky-high? That’s because of two reasons – the first is that if the insulation is installed poorly (gaps, airflow between, compressed or dusty) it can effectively null the performance. The second is, not all insulation products are as good as they’re touted (e.g. foil and blanket insulations). Due to technicalities, they are allowed to state their performance as higher than it actually is in any real-life application. But we’ll only recommend to you what we know works (based on the laws of physics). And we’ll install it so that it works to its best ability – no gaps or holes that will leak energy.

Building Management Controls: Having exact oversight and precise control of your building services allows you to properly manage not only the internal environment, but also your energy consumption. We will design, program and install a customised building management system to help you create a low-energy or net-zero building. All of your building services, such as heating, cooling, ventilation will be included, along with your hot water services, photovoltaics, and even blinds & lighting.

The best thing is, we will monitor and optimise your system over the first year of running – meaning you truly will achieve efficiency.

Hydronic Floor and Wall Heating & Cooling: We will expertly install your floor or wall hydronic system to the highest of European standards. Each pipe will be well insulated where it should be – meaning no needless energy losses. The pipes will be the right size – meaning the energy is delivered and well transferred to where it needs to go. They’ll be positioned only where they will provide benefit in your building (and not waste you money). And most importantly, every single metre of pipe is tested, making sure there will not be any problems in the future, and they will service your building well for at least 50 years.

Fresh Air Ventilation: Keeping the air quality in your building high is super easy. We will monitor the CO₂ levels (so we know precisely when fresh air is needed). And we can mix in this fresh air either with your aircon, or supply it direct. Even a dedicated heat exchange ventilator can be used to exhaust the stale indoor air and supply fresh outdoor air (without losing much thermal energy). All you’ll see is some good-looking grilles that we install in the ceiling, and you’ll feel the benefit of fresh air.

Integrated Hydronic HVAC: You don’t need to have 10 separate pieces of equipment for the services in your building – we’ll combine them all into one for you e.g. combined floor, air, hot water, fridge, beer lines, cool room, etc.). Why? Because this way you not only save space, but you dramatically increase the efficiency of your services by having them work together (and not against each other).

If you’d like to save on your brewing energy costs, give us a call and we can have an quick introductory 15 min. consultation over the phone with you about your plans. To help you understand the process. To help you select the right building products or HVAC systems. And to answer any questions. We promise no salesy pitching, just info on physics, energy flows, thermal efficiencies and how to use it all in seamlessly heating/cooling your brewery… 08 6468 8895

If you´d like to get our detailed expert opinion and guidance, please see our expert consultation option here.

Want to achieve the same in your brewery?

The next step…