5 design mistakes to avoid in a brewing CIP SYSTEM
A brewery’s fate may ultimately depend on its ability to brew quality, consistent batches of beer. However, even the most skilled brewer, with the best recipes and superior ingredients, cannot overcome the distasteful effects of improperly cleaned equipment. The cleaning process isn’t rocket science, but it can require an inordinate amount of time and labor it to do it effectively and no matter how many gallons of chemicals you throw at it, you will not be able to overcome a poorly designed system.
Graham Broadhurst, Sprinkman’s Director of Brewing Operations and a +30 year veteran of brewery designs, compiled a list of five top CIP design pitfalls to avoid:
- CIP pumps and piping incorrectly sized or fitted. If undersized or not fitted with variable frequency drives this causes high or low flow and pressure or potential for cavitation in the CIP delivery pump or atomization of the CIP solution through the spray ball or cleaning machine in the vessel. This can interfere with effectiveness of cleaning as well as rinsing.
- CIP Tanks incorrectly sized. Tanks are sometimes grossly under or oversized. For example, if you have a brew kettle with an internal heater and periodically do a full caustic brew sequentially transferred from mash to lauter to brew kettle vessels, the CIP caustic tank often does not have sufficient capacity to supply the volume needed. So you either end up making up several batches to fill the brew kettle which requires extra time and leave you having to dump the caustic to drain after completion of caustic brew.
- Incorrect selection of cleaning machines. You need the correct type and size of vessel, for example, spray balls for high volume low pressure CIP versus rotary impact cleaning machines for low volume medium pressure CIP.
- Lack of reliable and rugged, self-cleaning strainer on CIP return lines. This can result in solids carryover into CIP tanks which can plug CIP spray balls and cleaning machines.
- Not allowing for correct line velocity for CIP transfer rate. 1.5 times wort or beer process flow needed to clean all interconnecting process piping, which can mean sizing wort and beer transfer pumps to accommodate higher CIP flows.
The engineering team at Sprinkman drew from their extensive sanitary processing system experience to design a line of CIP Systems for any sized brewery. All can be configured with a choice of one of three automation packages to meet your cleaning needs and objectives. Contact Sprinkman to discuss your CIP needs and be on the way towards making batch after batch of excellent beer!