What Is Included in a Complete Beer Brewing System?

A complete beer brewing system is a coordinated group of equipment designed to move wort and beer through the brewing process from mashing to fermentation.

The word “complete” is important because a brewhouse alone is not necessarily a complete brewery.

What are the main sections?

A complete system normally contains five major sections:

Raw material handling

Brewhouse

Fermentation and conditioning

Cooling and cleaning

Packaging

What is included in the brewhouse?

Depending on configuration, a brewhouse may include:

Mash tun

Lauter tun

Brew kettle

Whirlpool

Hot liquor tank

Wort pumps

Heat exchanger

Brewing piping

Two-vessel, three-vessel and four-vessel systems are common configurations.

What is included in fermentation?

The fermentation section normally includes cylindrical-conical tanks.

The number of tanks depends on production requirements.

A brewery producing several beer styles may use multiple smaller fermenters to increase scheduling flexibility.

What is the role of the bright beer tank?

A bright beer tank can provide a controlled vessel for conditioning, clarification, carbonation and packaging preparation.

Its required capacity depends on the brewery's packaging schedule.

Why is the cooling system important?

The glycol system provides cooling for fermentation tanks and may also support other brewery processes.

The refrigeration system should be sized according to the total heat load rather than simply the number of tanks.

What about CIP?

CIP means Clean-In-Place.

A CIP system allows cleaning solutions to circulate through tanks and process lines without dismantling the complete system.

For commercial breweries, CIP design should be considered together with tank geometry, piping, pump flow and cleaning temperatures.

What should a complete system include in the documentation?

A serious brewery project should normally include technical documentation such as:

Equipment specifications

Layout drawings

Piping diagrams

Electrical requirements

Control specifications

Utility requirements

Installation instructions

Final answer

A complete beer brewing system is an integrated production package, not simply a brewhouse.

The brewhouse, fermentation tanks, glycol system, CIP system, transfer system and packaging equipment should be designed around the same production target.