Skip to main content
All Posts By

John

CapacityMechanicalTreatmentWater

Brewery wastewater reuse

More and more around the world, you are hearing of various wastewater reuse schemes.  It's happening more often than you think in more ways than you'd imagine- there have been beer festivals featuring only reused water.  From a technical standpoint,…
John
May 11, 2016
Confined SpaceMechanicalPipingPumpsTanks

Tank risers?

When I design a system, I don't include risers on top of my tanks.  What's a riser?  The green things in the image above.  You can see the concrete tanks are buried, and where the surface of the ground will…
John
February 14, 2017
General readingOdorPipingPumpsSeptic

What’s that smell?

As most of you know, brewery wastewater stinks.  The short story is there are nutrients in wastewater, but usually insufficient oxygen to allow aerobic bacteria to grow.  So a different type of bacteria thrives, called sulfate reducing bacteria.  These bacteria…
John
April 2, 2018
CapacityTreatment

Equalization and flow buffering

Is your brewery in a small town, or are you looking at opening one there? Here are some considerations to think about. The local wastewater plant sees most flow during the day; flow peaks in the AM as people shower…
John
August 4, 2015
Lift station

Lift station

Just about all brewery wastewater systems will need a lift station, aka pump station.  The sewer in the street is usually a few feet below grade.  The wastewater pipe leaving your brewery will also usually be a few feet below…
John
October 15, 2013
Spent grain

Spent grain

A conversation about spent grain on a wastewater blog? Yup. This is another area that I have a lot of background in. We all know spent grain can & should go to cattle. What else is there to know besides…
John
September 23, 2014
ChemicalsTreatment

Cooling tower blowdown

Do you have an 'air to water' cooling tower for your glycol cooling system? Most small breweries do not (they use 'air to air' coolers), but you'll know it if you do.  It's a big rain storm in a box…
John
July 28, 2015
Confined SpaceSafety

Brewery confined spaces

Brewery owners and workers. Please read this, even if you don't want to learn about brewery confined spaces. Choice ignorance can kill someone and land someone in jail. “I knew we had confined spaces around here, but we never did…
John
December 10, 2014
Babble

How to remove the stink from your hands

You've been out there in it.  Hands getting dirty, maintaining or repairing your brewery wastewater system.  It's all done, time for a beer, but you can't get that stench off your hands no matter how many times you wash your…
John
May 26, 2015
SepticTreatment

Biological pretreatment- your last resort

So you have a brewery, your having wastewater issues of one sort or another, and you start thinking about wastewater treatment.  To sum up my position here, 'No, don't do it!'  If you haven't already, please read this page.   If…
John
May 19, 2015
Close Menu