Ask The Brewmasters

Looking for suggestions on helping to mitigate temperature rise in process hose on the way to the packaging line.  Our brewery gets very hot during the warm months and we start to see issues with the temperature of our finished product creeping up as it travels through the process hose on the way to the packaging line.  We are running through 1" process hose, with the shortest hose length that we can use with the layout of our brewery.  Has anyone encountered this and come up with any solutions to help?  I have to assume we aren't the only brewery that has run into this issue.

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Moriah Guise
On-Site Production Manager
Levante Brewing Co
West Chester PA
(615) 972-8252
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Hello Moriah,

This is a common problem encountered by a lot of Craft Brewers. You could make adjustments at packaging to deal with the higher temp beer or as you suggested look for a method to keep in cold on the way to packaging. 
I have seen a couple of different approaches; some brewers will but a glycol trace line around the hose from the bright tank to the filler or put a heat exchanger very near to the filler to rechill the beer.

Cheers,

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Darin Bertsch
President
Waukesha WI
(262) 888-3401
darin@craftbrewerysolutionsllc.com
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Getting our hose off the floor helped the most.  We'd grab dented, clean cans or anything else at hand and prop the hose off the ground between the tank and the filler.  It helped prevent the hose from warming up just enough to save us a lot of hassle.  I wouldn't call it a permanent solution and we only struggled with a few high carb products but it did help.  Once we could get the filler going the product itself kept the line cool enough.  Good luck.

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David Delcourt
Denali Brewing Co
Talkeetna AK
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Hey Moriah,
I had some experience with this issue in previous roles. A few questions and some lo-tech solutions. 
Jacketed Brite tank or tank in cold room? For both, make sure your cold room/tanks are as cold as possible and confirm that the temps are accurate. Not sure if this applies to your situation, but I've seen cold room transfers to packaging equipment with the hose running out the door (leaving the door open by the width of the hose). This will lead to an increase temp in the cold room; small changes can have a big impact. Can the hoses be run through a process hole in the cold room wall and insulate the gaps around the hose. 
If you are using jacketed brites, can you insulate the hose from the brite tank to the filler? 

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Jason Weissberg
Mid Atlantic Sales
Roy Farms
Milford DE
(509) 452-3494
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Hi Moriah!
There are two solutions: insulation and jacketed hose. Both have high nuisance potential. Insulation is cheaper and will be a big improvement over nothing. You can get hot water pipe foam insulation at a hardware store that deals in plumbing supplies. It goes on ever the existing hose. You can take the insulation off to coil the hose. It can be cut to convenient lengths for storage. The foam insulation is a hollow cylinder with a split seam so you can put it on and take it off with only moderate nuisance. You probably don't need every inch of the hose to be insulated. It might work. For difficult cases, you may need jacketed hose. You would need to run coolant through the jacket. The jacketed hose will be thick and much harder to handle than regular hose. You can get it with sanitary fittings ($$).

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Roger Barth
Author (with M Farber) of Mastering Brewing Science ISBN 9781119456056
Retired
West Chester PA
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Hi Moriah

I'm curious if you experience this at the beginning, middle, or end of your packaging runs. If it is at the beginning, you can try pre-cooling your lines with cold de-aerated water to condition them to temp before sending beer.  This can also be a benefit to reducing oxygen pickup if you can transition to beer through a few valve switches on the fly.  Other solutions get more expensive quickly with insulated stainless piping, conditioning your cellar/package area to cooler temps, or adding in a drop chiller heat exchanger depending on severity.  Minimizing filler start/stops while running beer can also keep things colder.

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Louwrens Wildschut
Pilot Brewery Lead
Bell's Brewery Inc
Galesburg MI
(269) 250-8146
lwildschut@bellsbeer.com
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Hello Moriah,

My experience in Ontario sometimes is very hot in summer is to use pre-chilled water to flush the line prior to packaging. And if the line is very long, consider to hard pipe and apply with insulation. 

For the pre-chilled water, if you are not afford to have deaearted water system,

1) Have a dedicated tank with cooling jacket and capability, cleaned and purged.
2) If you do brewhouse CIP weekly, I suggest you send hot water (above 85 C) from HLT to the wort chiller (PHE) through hoses to the tank above. Use cooling water to cool down the water as much as you can.
3) Allow cooling to about 5 C and slightly carbonate the water in the tank.
4)  After the packaging line CIP, connect this chilled water source to rinse/cool/purge the line.
5) Once the desired temperature is achieved, keep the line full with this chilled water.
6) Switch to beer source and use beer to push water out to reduce chance of foaming.

*If you are packaging heavily, consider to include a small PHE to circulate the tank/further chill the water prior to be sent for line cooling.
** If you worry about integrity of the water, place a sterile water filer and run hot water to re-sterile the filter regularly. I will stay away from UV light.

I hope this may help you.

Cheers,

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James Tien
Whitby ON
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Moriah,
We had this problem most of the year in south Louisiana. We would put a extra Tee & Valve on the brite tank and would run CLT near freezing water through the line before startup to cool the line and save beer. We would also insulate the hose with cheap foam insulation- the kind that looks like swimming pool noodles - to keep it off the ground. We also had to move canning days up to a 4am setup start some days as it could be in the upper 90s by 8am. Once we were dialed in on the canning line, this was usually enough. If the canning line slowed down, or there was an issue, we would have to flush the line with CLT water again to cool it down and loose the beer in the line to get the temp back down. Hope this helps.

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Bill Mungai
Brewmaster
Hop Avenue Brewing - Bridge City, TX / Flying Heart Brewing - Bossier City, LA
Shreveport LA
(337) 661-1274
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Ambient temp is certainly going to be a factor, but it looks like you are running a 5 head Wild Goose open gravity filler. A 1" ID hose is more than sufficient. The the internal volume e.g. 1.5" ID hose at 25' is 530 cu in (2.29 gallons) whereas a 1" ID house at 25' is only 235 cu in (1 gallon). The 1.5" hose at a 55 cpm consumption rate will refresh its volume every 20 secs, but the 1" dia hose will change over once every 9 seconds. You will clear the smaller dia hose in roughly 1/3 of the time keeping the line set cooler and controlling breakout. Also you can then use closed cell armaflex to insulate the 1" line. I recommend the continental extreme flex for your process hose.

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JR Heaps
Managing Partner
South County Brewing Co.
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-12-2023 10:14
From: Bill Mungai
Subject: Keeping product cold en route to the packaging line

Moriah,
We had this problem most of the year in south Louisiana. We would put a extra Tee & Valve on the brite tank and would run CLT near freezing water through the line before startup to cool the line and save beer. We would also insulate the hose with cheap foam insulation- the kind that looks like swimming pool noodles - to keep it off the ground. We also had to move canning days up to a 4am setup start some days as it could be in the upper 90s by 8am. Once we were dialed in on the canning line, this was usually enough. If the canning line slowed down, or there was an issue, we would have to flush the line with CLT water again to cool it down and loose the beer in the line to get the temp back down. Hope this helps.

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Bill Mungai
Brewmaster
Hop Avenue Brewing - Bridge City, TX / Flying Heart Brewing - Bossier City, LA
Shreveport LA
(337) 661-1274
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