waste water treatment

[kww]

I am trying to do some business planning on starting a small (15bbl) brewery on my island, and have come across one spot where I just can't find good answers: wastewater treatment.

The situation is pretty simple to describe: I have no sewers. All solid waste needs to be trucked off site, and all liquid waste needs to be stored and treated until it is perfectly safe to return to the water table. I have seen centrifuges used to extract solids and simplify solid waste handling (and, by extension, create purer liquid waste), but I haven't seen a good breakdown on exactly what winds up in the waste water (both during brewing and cleaning) and exactly how to treat it. I can find the space to do it via an artificial lake to let waterplants and animals take care of as much of it as possible if that is a viable option.

This island is extremely environmentally conscious, so this isn't an issue I can afford to ignore. Even a hint that something leaving the brewery could cause the slightest damage to the reef could destroy the business.

[nwcw2001]

You can try this!

http://www.livingdesignsgroup.com/green-engineering-and-living-m/

If you look through the sight you will see the Living Machines that have been installed. I work at Islandwood. Our living machine is rated for 3000 gallons per day. If we were able to turn on the DE filter and the UV filters we would have water fed back into the buildings. The state wont let us do that yet because we aren't up to speed with the amount of water needed to go through the system to ensure it is running optimally.

Someday when I get my brewpub up and running I want one of these to recover water.

HTH

John

[Valleybrew]

You should check out what Sierra Nevada Brewing is doing up in Chico. They are very sate of the art on thier effluent treatment.

[brewninja]

Check out New Belgian Brewery in Fort Collins, Co. They have a really cool waste water treatment plant, and are very environmentally conscious in general.

[liammckenna]

You're on the right track. Constructed/artificial wetland is the way to go. For brewery waste, some of the issues will be: suspended solids (spent grains etc - too much will clog your wetland) and buffering (spikes of high or low pH from tank cleaning need to be dealt with - simple answer is holding, mix tank)

Wikipedia has a reasonable introduction. Lots of info. on google search.

Pax.

Liam

[boatrace]

Check out the NorthFork Brewery, Beershrine and Chappel in Deming, Washington US. Located in the county lands they have no sewer line either. They make great beer and pizza. Eric is the brewers name.

cheers