Meet our team at the Craft Brewers Conference® and BrewExpo America at booth 3619.
Meet Chris Clausen, Craft Beverage Industry Manager for Trucent at our booth, May 2–5 to chat about how a new approach to solids and carbonation can quickly pay for itself.
What is a Brewing Centrifuge? Do You Have the Right One for your Brewery?
Every craft brewer knows that a centrifuge will help them squeeze more beer out of every work day by freeing up equipment and reducing their brewing timeline. But many don’t realize that while any old centrifuge will do the job, not all centrifuges do it equally well.
Chris Clausen, Craft Beverage Industry Manager for Trucent, can’t count the number of times he’s visited a brewery to help them sort out their centrifuge, and pointed out “Hey, did you know that this machine was originally processing animal fat? It’s really not designed well for what you’re doing.” Yes, their industrial centrifuge is running—but it’s doing less for them than a brewing centrifuge would, at no real savings.
For example, any centrifuge will help you increase the yield on beers with lots of solid additives. “With recipes that are heavily dry-hopped,” Chris explains, “or have a lot of fermenter solid additives, like fruit, a centrifuge will give you better returns” by minimizing losses bound up in your sediments.
But this comes at a cost. Standard industrial centrifuges aren’t protecting your beer from oxygen and don’t protect aromas, flavors, and carbonation during processing. You’ll squeeze more beer out of the batch, but you risk degrading the quality.
The CentraSep DB Series centrifuges are engineered for craft breweries. They have the lowest dissolved oxygen pickup on the market (usually zero parts per billion, always less than 10 ppb). This protects flavors and aromas from oxidation.
CentraSep DB Series centrifuges can also ship equipped with an integrated pinpoint inline carbonation system. That can increase production further, Chris notes, by significantly reducing your timeline, “because now you’re not sitting in a bright tank for two days. You could feasibly crash your fermenter, and once it’s down to temperature centrifuge, carbonate, and package all in the same day. That same process, without these technologies, could take a week to a month. It really frees up time and equipment.”
Brewing Centrifuges are Low-Risk, High-Reward Investments
The return-on-investment in a purpose-designed brewing centrifuge can be remarkably quick. Just off the top of his head Chris can think of a fast-growing regional craft brewer who purchased their first beer centrifuge when they were at 20,000 barrels per year. They needed to rely on contract brewing in order to cover their distribution contracts, but weren’t yet ready to expand their facility.
It’s been three years since they installed their CentraSep DB. They’re now at 50,000 barrels per year, have entirely stopped It’s been three years since they installed their CentraSep DB. They’re now at 50,000 barrels per year, have entirely stopped contract brewing, and haven’t needed to add any tankage. The payoff period for their centrifuge? Less than three months. Contact us for your brewing centrifuge consultation.