The team at Bespoke Brewing Solutions like to share things. We share tips about the best place to buy coffee. We share music recommendations! And most of all, we like to share our knowledge.
We hope you enjoyed our previous blogs in this series on setting up a new brewery, now we’d like to turn the spotlight on utilities.
Once you have locked in the equipment layout and the design for your new brewery you can start working on the different utilities which will be necessary to run your facility. This includes:
- Electrical
- Steam
- Liquor
- Glycol
- Gas (Compressed Air, Oxygen, CO2)
In this article we will be looking at what to consider for all your brewery electrical requirements.
Volts and Hertz
When we start a project, one of our first steps is to send an email to confirm your available electrical capacity:
- Single-Phase Electrical Voltage
- Three-Phase Electrical Voltage
- Hertz
This is absolutely critical. We order all of our equipment (motors, pumps, etc) and design our control panels, to work with the required voltage(s) and hertz. (Fun fact: these differ around the world!)
For instance, we have produced three-phased equipment to work on 208V and 480V at 60Hz for the US and 415V at 50Hz for the UK and Australia.
If there’s a miscommunication around this information, it can lead to costly mistakes such as unusable equipment (everyone’s worst nightmare!)
Bespoke Pro Tip: When researching potential brewery sites, make sure to ascertain whether there is three-phase electrical power running into the building. Pumps and motors work better running on three-phased electrical – especially as they increase in power.
Once this is determined, you should confirm the electrical current for each system. This is a critical gate check for location consideration.
Electrical Layout in your Brewery
In our electrical layout drawing (which we provide for all our projects) we list all the equipment which will be drawing power and the wattage required.
From there, the local electrician(s) can help confirm if you have enough juice (current) coming into the building to meet the demand.
If not, we need to look at other options. You may need to run more power to the location – this can be expensive. If you have equipment coming from other manufacturers, we are more than happy to incorporate them into our drawings.
We work closely with your electrician(s) to include as much detail as possible in the drawing to indicate placement, connection type and any special requirements.
We want to make sure they are comfortable with the equipment coming as – another fun fact – electrical wire coloring also differs around the world.
Brewery Electrical Design Drawings
We also provide design drawings for control and electrical cabinets for brewhouses, mobile pumps, CIP carts, etc. This includes the button configuration – with labeling for control cabinets and more importantly electrical wiring diagrams for the cabinets.
This prevents confusion on what will be controlled from and where – and the naming – as local nomenclatures also differ around the world for brewing equipment.
The electrical diagrams will help the local team to plan out not only their route for the power cables around the brewery, but also need to consider electrical wiring for the different components around the brewery (such as pumps, motors, solenoids, sensors, etc.).
Here is an example. The brewery’s electrical cabinet will need to be wired to all components of the brewhouse. If this includes the HLT and it is located on the other side of the brewery, then cables will need to be run for the pump, solenoid(s) and thermocouples.
A Bespoke Solution
As you can see, there is a lot to take into consideration with respect to the electrical requirements of your brewery.
This is because you need to think both power and controls, which all should be identified ahead of time.
Experience makes all the difference. At Bespoke Brewing Solutions, we are always learning – and we’d be lying if we said we have not had any issues! But we are continuously improving after each project.
We know the do’s and don’ts! Let us bring this experience into your project, to help it go smoothly.
Get in touch with us for more information.
