Efficient and Eco-Friendly Brewing with KATflow Ultrasonic Flowmeters

Facing a highly competitive market and strict environmental regulations, brewing companies of every size are always looking for new technologies which help improve their efficiency and reduce the volume of discharges.

Problem

The UK brewing industry uses an estimated 34 million cubic metres of water per year – enough water to supply everyone living in the city of Edinburgh for the same period of time. However, the cost of supplying water to a brewery is only the beginning.

Most breweries discharge over 70% of supplied water as trade effluent and, in many cases, trade effluent costs are higher than water supply costs. If you add pumping, water treatment and effluent treatment costs, the bill is even higher.

Although brewery waste is relatively simple and biodegradable, complicating factors are the waste water volumes, varying pH levels, and concentrations of enclosed substances. In order to get a good characterization of the waste water, flow rates and concentrations must be monitored simultaneously during all time.

Discharges into public waters are often subject to limitations in organic load, suspended solids, pH, temperature and chlorine. The high costs that are often required for waste water treatment offer brewers an additional incentive to eliminate unnecessary wastes and to optimize the reuse of effluents.

The above mentioned water and effluent costs can be controlled. A water management programme, for example, can produce significant savings. The consequent monitoring of flow processes helps reducing water and effluent costs during the brewing process, packaging / bottling, ancillary processes and in general areas.

Reducing the amount of water used not only reduces supply costs, but also the volume of trade effluent produced. However, reducing the strength of your brewery’s trade effluent is equally important.

Taking action to minimise the discharge of wastes with a high level of organic content e.g. residual wort and ullage, will dramatically reduce your trade effluent charges. Optimising the CIP cleaning procedures, identifying leaks and stopping overflows are other areas where significant savings can be achieved.

Installing flowmeters and carrying out a survey of water use will help you to decide your priorities for action.

Solution

The KATflow ultrasonic clamp-on flow meters help breweries to save costs at almost every production step, which involves liquids flowing through fully filled pipes.

Due to their ultrasonic measurement technique, they are cost effective in installation and operation. Additionally, as Katronic not only offers fixed installed but also portable meters, they can be used for many different purposes and applications regardless of the type of fluid, pipe material or diameter.

The Katronic ultrasonic clamp-on flow meters can be used to monitor almost any flow process in a brewery. This flexibility is achieved by the ultrasonic measurement technique. It enables the flow of liquids to be measured non-intrusively and non-invasively from the outside of pipes. This measurement technique has no effect on the flowing medium and provides reliable and precise results for a wide range of liquids over a broad range of flow velocities.

The ultrasonic flow meters of the KATflow series deliver very accurate and reliable measurement data. They are therefore trusted devices, which can also be employed to monitor and control production processes. Featuring various process in- and outputs as well as serial communication interfaces, the flow meters can be fully embedded into process automation systems.

There are several factors of success, which make the KATflow flow meters particularly suitable for the brewing industry:

• Hygiene:

Installing a clamp-on flow meters does not create intrusions which allow bacterial growth inside the pipe. This means that there is no risk of contaminating the product.

• Variability:

As the sensors are never in contact with the flowing medium, the portable flow meters can be used on many different applications regardless of the type of fluid. In addition to that, the instruments work on all common pipe materials and diameters from 10 mm to 3,000 mm.

• Low Response Time:

With a response time of only one second, the KATflow flowmeters can measure rapidly changing flow velocities.

• High Temperature Tolerance:

The KATflow ultrasonic flow meter sensors are designed to with-stand temperatures ranging from -30 °C to 130 °C and more. As a result, they can be used on any application involved in or related to the brewing process.

• Measuring Temperature Changes and Energy Consumption:

Whether you want to determine the cooling rates during the wort cooling process, or if you want to measure temperature related energy consumption to fine tune heating or cooling systems for higher system efficiencies: The KATflow 230 and 150 flowmeters enable the brewer to monitor the temperature changes of almost any flowing liquid.

• No Pressure Drop:

Externally mounted sensors mean that the Katronic flow meters have no effect on the flowing liquid and will not cause a pressure drop across the measurement location.

• Ideal for Monitoring CIP Processes:

Due to their contactless ultrasonic flow measurement technique, low response time, and the high temperature tolerance of the flow sensors, Katronic flow meters are ideal to monitor CIP flushes.

Conclusion

Whether they are portable instruments or designed for permanent installation, the Katronic KATflow ultrasonic clamp-on flow meters are cost effective devices for breweries to save resources, energy, and as a result costs.

Additionally, the flow meters help increase the brewery’s eco-friendliness and contribute to a more efficient production process – considering the high level of competition in the market, this benefit can not be regarded highly enough.

For these reasons and due to Katronic’s excellent and flexible customer service, leading companies of the brewing industry have decided to use KATflow flow meters.

To find out more about what Katronic can do for your brewery, please do not hesitate to contact our office. Our dedicated engineers are always happy to help.

Call us at +44 (0)1926 88 29 54 or send us an email to sales@katronic.co.uk.