Benchmarking energy and water use at individual steps of the brewing processes

Project team: Catharine O´Shaughnessy
Member subscription funded project
Running: January 2014 – December 2014
Project Number: 4302

Campden BRI has previously been involved in benchmarking energy and water use in breweries. Participation was restricted to breweries producing more than 0.5 million hectolitres and producing predominantly lager. The study in 2012 showed that best practice for energy use was 141 MJ / Hl of beer and for water use was 3.3 Hl / Hl beer. This data enables brewers to compare the performance of their own brewery with that of the 250 other breweries taking part. However, there is a disadvantage to the current studies since they compare total energy and water use and do not take account of the individual process steps involved; hence breweries producing keg beer only may be compared with those producing bottled and canned beer. Hence it is difficult for brewers to identify the individual process steps where energy or water use is higher than the average and where actions need to be taken to reduce consumption and lower costs. This project will investigate energy and water consumption at individual process steps. Initially the study will focus on two resource intensive processes: Wort boiling and cleaning and disinfection of fermenter vessels after use. The studies will enable brewers to identify if their processes are efficient in comparison with brewers of similar scale and technology base. Are there opportunities for improvement? At time of writing we are collecting questionnaires from brewers that will provide the answers.