Tackling environmental challenges in the brewing industry

As a continually growing market, worth in excess of £9bn within the UK alone, and the 5th largest drunk beverage across the world; the brewing industry faces many challenges. More, and more, micro-breweries and local breweries are seeking sustainable solutions to their water and environmental management. PIF spoke to Baumer UK to discuss their range of sensor and instrumentation solutions, and how they can help breweries and brewers to tackle environmental challenges.

Brewing and the environment

Water consumption and wastewater disposal remain the largest environmental hurdles that directly impact breweries and the brewing process as a whole. This is not only because the process of brewing beer is extremely energy-intensive, but it also relies on substantial volumes of water within the brewing process.

The legal responsibilities of British Brewers

Baumer UK explains that whilst the environmental impact of breweries and the brewing process as a whole remains an important topic for discussion, there are also a number of legal requirements on brewers within the UK.

Cleaning in Place (CIP) sensors for full food safety

Baumer’s range of Clean in Place (CIP) sensors deliver full food safety, with maximum overall equipment effectiveness and can ensure precise cleaning process control and safety, with highly efficient resources and material utilisation to reduce CIP operation costs and wastage by ensuring efficiency throughout the equipment lifespan..

Their expertise and experience enable them to provide a convenient Clean in Place solution for your brewing application, with easy to configure sensors. Baumer Clean in Place (CIP) sensors are suitable for a range of applications, including:

● Concentrated dosing of chemicals with concentration measurement,
● Cleanliness measurement of rinsing water,
● Phase separation of detergents and water,
● Tank temperature monitoring,
● Level point detection,
● Dry run protection,
● Continuous level measurement,
● Regulation of flow velocity for the heating cycle,
● Pump pressure measurement,
● Flow measurement in the CIP supply,
● 10 Temperature control for the CIP supply,
● Flow and temperature control of the CIP return pipe.

Reduce your environmental impact, and energy consumption, with sensor and instrumentation solutions from Baumer UK. Improve quality control for reduced wastage, implement Clean in Place processes for more efficient water and wastewater management, and monitor water consumption for efficient water usage with a range of solutions.

proTect+ sensors for harsh brewing environments

Baumer UK’s proTect+ range of sensors remains reliable and impermeable to water and other fluids throughout their entire service life. This range of sensors are subjected to both water temperature and air temperature shock tests to simulate the ageing process, and therefore assess the life cycle of a proTect+ sensor within an industrial application. Fully submersible in water, the proTect+ sensor range is particularly well suited to harsh industrial environments, such as breweries, in which the sensors will be exposed to repeated cleaning cycles and aggressive chemicals.

Baumer UK recommends the proTect+ sensor range for hygiene, food and beverage applications for more efficient use of water, whilst ensuring water quality.

Packaging requirements in the brewing industry

British brewers are required to comply with packaging regulations for any product that they manufacture or use within their manufacturing process. Baumer’s range of sensor solutions for the entire production and packaging process is designed to meet the specific requirements of the industry; with a primary focus on ensuring hygiene, food and beverage safety. Their range of sensor solutions for the packaging process, includes:

● Buffer station, and buffer table monitoring
● Infeed system monitoring
● Food safety and disinfection processes
● Process monitoring in machinery tanks
● Capper monitoring for bottling processes
● Outfeed station monitoring for filling processes
● Quality control in production to ensure consistency in production
● Drive technology synchronisation
● Format adjustment

Quality control in the brewing industry

Baumer UK can deliver a range of smart sensor solutions for the efficient inspection and quality control of food and beverage products. By installing smart sensor quality control solutions, and spotting errors within quality control, this can assist manufacturers in the reduction of wastage and cost-reduction by ensuring consistency of product quality. For large scale packaging processes, the Baumer UK range of PosCon HM and PosCon 3D sensors are a low-cost, high-quality alternative to human quality control; by identifying fault products on account of their variance in form, and discard these with ease for efficient check and sort applications.