Where are filters used within the brewery industry?

The role of cartridge filtration for the brewer is to aid the brewer achieve those goals by removing contaminates or prevention of them entering the processes. The areas where it finds greatest use are:

• Preventing contamination entering the process via ingredients (incoming water, gases used in process compressed air, CO₂, or steam)
• Stopping contamination from manufacturing operations (diathermanous earth filtration)
• Removing spoilage organisms from the product (cold filtration/pasteurisation) to ensure that the packaged product has the required shelf life.

However, the impact of the beer filterability batch to batch on the cost of filtration is well documented. Cartridge filtration solutions need to be designed to handle a range of filterability levels without radically altering the cost of filtration.

Incoming water & gas filtration

Within a brewery water, air, CO2 and steam are the primary liquids and gases used to support the manufacturing process. Ensuring the quality of these leads to and efficient and effective manufacturing process, but further prevents possible contaminates entering the brewing process via these sources. The use of both depth and membranes filters acts a guarantee of their quality, so that the brewer has peace of mind to focus his attention elsewhere in the brewing process.

Final Filtration

Once produced and prior to final packaging the beer is microbial stabilised or final filtered using PES membrane filters to ensure that spoilage organisms that can impact the flavour of the beer and the consumers experience after packaging are removed.

The use of asymmetric PES membrane filters enables long filter life that can be further extended in combination with polypropylene or glass fibre prefiltration products. The choice of prefiltration product depends on CIP and SIP procedures used by the brewer. All cartridges are housed in hygienic cartridge housings. This type of installation has become common in breweries of all scales and has become a viable alternative to pasteurisation, primarily because there is no impact on flavour and taste of the beer.

Guard or trap filtration

After fermentation and maturation of the brewing liquor it is important to remove solids and yeast, otherwise the clarity of the beer will be impacted. The standard solution to these trap applications is to use 5 or 10 micron polypropylene pleated depth filters. These are chosen primarily due to their resistance to CIP/SIP procedures compared to other materials, while at the same time guarantying the filtration quality and offering good service life.