Here is a table with some typical brewery wastewater BOD values, as well as COD, TSS, and pH. Sorry for the weird format, there is a lot of data here.
| pH | COD, mg/L | *BOD, mg/L | TSS, mg/L | Generalizations | ||||
| Low | High | Low | High | Low | High | |||
| Wort | 5.5 | 250,000 | 400,000 | 150,000 | 240,000 | Darker ales at the high end, lighter lagers at the low end | ||
| Beer | 4.5 | 125,000 | 300,000 | 75,000 | 180,000 | Darker ales at the high end, lighter lagers at the low end | ||
| Trub | See sidestream below | |||||||
| Yeast | 4.5 | 120,000 | 200,000 | 72,000 | 120,000 | 60,000 | 100,000 | Autolysed yeast is about the same |
| Propylene glycol | 7 | 600,000 | 360,000 | Varies with concentration, but you get the point, very, very high! | ||||
| Label glue | 50,000 | 30,000 | ||||||
| Defoamer | 700,000 | 420,000 | Sometimes used in fermenter blow off buckets | |||||
| Brewery wastewater without sidestreaming | 4.5 | 4,000 | 17,000 | 2,400 | 10,200 | 1,500 | 8,000 | |
| Brewery wastewater with sidestreaming | 4.5 | 1,800 | 9,000 | 1,080 | 5,400 | 400 | 1,000 | CIP, packaging, rinsing, general wash down water |
| Side stream wastewater | 4.5 | 5,000 | 40,000 | 3,000 | 24,000 | 200 | 7,000 | This is spent yeast, trub, waste beer, etc. |
| Domestic wastewater | 7 | 210 | 1,100 | 100 | 500 | 20 | 300 | Most municipal treatment plants are designed for wastewater like this |
Understand this can vary quite a bit from brewery to brewery, but this will give you an idea of what we’re dealing with here.