Ask The Brewmasters

Good afternoon,

I am looking for some solutions concerning dealing with wastewater from my brewery.  It's on a public sewer system that pumps into settling ponds. Untreated brewery effluent could easily kill them through deoxygenation, pH level disturbance and nitrogen output.

Part of my problem is already solved as local ranchers want to take the spent grains and liquid yeast for their animals.

I'm contemplating construction of a closed loop CIP cleaning system in 4 parts: initial rinse to remove remaining solids; PBW wash; StarSan sanitizer; Final rinse which refills the initial rinse tank.  Initial rinse could go into a holding tank to adjust pH and remove remaining sludge by settling.

I'm thinking that the footprint doesn't need to be huge as I'm a pretty small brewery at this point.  I just want to do what's best for the community and environment in general.

Any thoughts?