Energy Academy
Sector: Food & Drink/Energy Management in Breweries
Sector13 lessons · 143 min

Energy Management in Breweries

The brewing process and where energy enters it, brewery-specific benchmarks, and the heat-recovery and refrigeration opportunities unique to a brewhouse, capped with a full brewery energy audit. Assumes the Food & Drink Foundations course.

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01The Brewing Process & Where Energy Goes

  1. 01The Brewing Process, Stage by StageFrom milled grain to packaged beer — mashing, lautering, boiling, fermentation and conditioning — and where each stage draws its energy.11 min
  2. 02Steam & Hot Water Demand in the BrewhouseMashing, sparging and the wort boil are the single biggest thermal load in the building — quantifying it and why the boil dominates.10 min
  3. 03Refrigeration & Cooling Demand: Wort to CellarWort chilling, fermentation temperature control and cold conditioning — the brewery's other dominant load, this time electrical.10 min
  4. 04Brewing Fundamentals CheckQuiz on the brewing process and its thermal and refrigeration loads.5 min

02Brewery Energy Use & Benchmarks

  1. 01Energy Intensity: kWh per HectolitreTypical thermal and electrical intensity benchmarks, why craft breweries run less efficiently than macro-breweries, and the water-energy link.10 min
  2. 02CIP, Pasteurisation & Packaging-Line EnergyClean-in-place cycles and pasteurisation are hidden hot-water heavyweights; the packaging line's own electrical and compressed-air demand.10 min
  3. 03Compressed Air & Site UtilitiesWhere compressed air is used in a brewery, and the ancillary loads (pumps, cold stores, lighting) that add up across the site.9 min
  4. 04Energy Benchmarks CheckQuiz on brewery energy intensity, CIP/packaging and site utilities.5 min

03Efficiency Opportunities in Practice

  1. 01Heat Recovery in the BrewhouseCapturing the wort boil's vapour and hot-wort heat, and why a brewery's steady, simultaneous steam-and-power demand often suits CHP unusually well.11 min
  2. 02Refrigeration & Glycol System OptimisationTuning fermentation and conditioning cooling — setpoints, glycol loop design and free cooling — for the cellar's round-the-clock load.10 min
  3. 03Hands-On: Two Quick DiagnosticsTwo short, real brewery call-outs — a missed heat-recovery opportunity and a glycol system fault — calculate, diagnose and prescribe the fix.12 min
  4. 04Efficiency in Practice CheckQuiz on brewhouse heat recovery, CHP suitability and refrigeration optimisation.5 min

04Capstone Project

  1. 01Capstone: Audit a BreweryA full, staged energy audit of a fictional brewery — scope it, walk the site, normalise and baseline its data, and rank the opportunities you find by payback.35 min