Small Electric Breweries Continued
I just have to write a bit more on electric kettles. I am so narrow minded about gas that I ignored the simplest solution to the future of inexpensive breweries going forward. I think in many cases electric is a great way to go.
I had always thought that the best way to use an electric system was to get something like a Sussman Electric Boiler and provide steam to your system, which is much more complicated than a gas fired system. I simply discounted electric elements in a kettle, even though I saw so many of them in theUK.
Most equipment manufactures offer an electric option. As I said last week all you need are tri-clamp openings towards the bottom of the kettle. An insulated kettle will do a better job at holding the heat in, but I’ve also used uninsulated kettles and they work fine (just don’t lean agains it during a brew!). The three big advantages I see are:
There is no gas plumbing to deal with, nor a balanced gas flu and roof penetration.
With a changing climate, the more we can convert to electric, the better off for the planet, especially if….
You add solar panels to your operation to offset your electrical usage.
Let me elaborate on that final point. The price of solar is coming down rapidly, where it is already cheaper than coal fired electric generating, and it’s closing in on natural gas powered plants as well.
If you read some of my other articles, most likely you are only going to be brewing once or twice a week. That means you could have six days to bank more than enough electricity for your brew, and your panels would also offset some of your other things as well. This is because your electric meter can move in both directions. If you are producing more power from your panels than you are using, the meter runs backwards and your utility keeps track of this credit. You pul from this “bank of Kilowatts” when you are generating less and using the grid more, like at night.
So how you set up your brewery for efficiency really makes a difference. Especially if you go to Heat Pumps to cool and heat your brewery, and use a Coolbot for your cold rooms. In addition, change your light bulbs to dimmable LED’s, and you should be pretty good to go. In fact there are so many ideas on ways to become more efficient, and I would love it if some of you posted what you have done in the comment section below. Here’s an example. When we did our first Colorado Boy, we had a unit installed in the space above the walk-in cooler that took the waste heat from the glycol chiller and walk-in compressor and in the winter, recirculated it through the building to offset our heat source. That saved on gas heat, as well as our solar hot water tubes on the roof heating the water in two tanks in our brewery. This supplied hot water and if the water wasn’t hot enough, it could be kicked up to temperature with an on demand hot water heater.
Not to go off on a tangeant but when I talk about solar electric panels the usual argument I hear against them is how long it takes to pay off the investment. I think this is the wrong approach. Instead of calculating how much money it saves you per month and multiplying that against how much the system cost you (after all the huge tax breaks your business will get), instead look at the monthly savings and divide it by the cost of your system after tax breaks.
For example I have solar panels at my house. I don’t look at how many years until my savings on electric bills pay off the system. I look at the return on investment. After taxes my system was about $18,000. I could put that in a C.D. and it would earn currently about 4.5%. But what I save on my electric bill, even after having to pay the utility $22 per month just to be hooked up to them,( using the utility as my battery) my return on investment is a cool 6.5%. Utility rates will undoubtedly go up as America electrifies, but since I am offsetting kilowatts instead of dollars, those rate increases won’t affect me.
Same goes for your brewery. The electric brewery can be very efficient. Remember we are talking 7 BBL’s or less. Not packaging breweries. Going forward I am definitely going to make an electric system part of our brewing equipment discussions With our Immersion School students.
