Half scale brewhouse

300l experimental brewhaus

In the technology department of RIBM in Prague there is a half scale brewhouse which is part of a full half scale production line satisfying the current highest technological requirements.

A brewhouse, realized by a company Kaspar Schullz, was co-financed by a Fund Prague Operational Programme “Competitiveness” within a project CZ.2.16/3.1.00/22136.

The highest volume of boiled wort is 300 L. The brewhouse consists of three vessels, a mash tun, lauter tun, and a whirlpool, which is isolated and together with an external boiler is used as a wort tun. Further, the whirlpool is equipped with two pieces of hops proportioning equipment. The brewhouse is equipped with its own electrical steam generator and a hot water tank. Also, with a fully adjustable mash boiling, ranging from 0,6 to 1,5 ̊C per minute.

Clarity is always tested while lautering. It cannot exceed 30 EBC units (at the firstwort). Otherwise lautering is automatically switched back to the process of returning necessary to clear the sweet wort. Further, it is possible to choose lautering based on a constant flow or lautering based on the pressure difference between over and under the lauter bottom.

There are three possibilities regarding the wort boiling. A common atmospheric wort boiling, pressure wort boiling with an optional overpressure, and the third, most interesting one, pressure wort boiling with changeable level of overpressure.

Schoko System

Another part of the brewhouse is a system to modify final wort, so called SchoKo system, patented by the delivering company. This device enables to in vacuum evaporate up to 5% of the total volume of finished wort to slightly modify its gravity. The most important feature of this device is substantial lowering of DMS level and its precursors, as well as other undesirable volatiles.

Together with its equipment, the brewhouse can be classified as the world-class technological device.

The brewhouse may be used, even in the half scale operation, to realize sampling batches under precisely specified conditions, to simulate various operational situations, to test new technological methods.