Hi, from France. Installing a micro-brewery..

Magwych · Feb 19, 2020

I am installing a micro-brewery in our barn in France; as you can guess that, means that I am a brewer, not an electrician

I did 'fess up to being a DIYer when signing on.

The brewhouse runs on 3-phase, both for the 12kw heating elements and for the pumps. All use a delta configuration i.e. 3 phases, no neutral. It came from the UK, one brewer was upsizing his equipment, so we bought the old for our new brewery.

I am organising the distribution panel and wiring for the barn, once installed our local electrician will give it a check over and then arrange for inspection and a certification check.

I am trying to reduce both costs and especially waiting time by taking on as much as I can. In France it is particularly hard and time consuming just to get a quote, and there is a huge range in the price of materials.

marconi · Feb 20, 2020

One of the first things to check is that you have an adequate power supply to run all your equipment and it is a three phase plus neutral one. And even if it seems you do what is the impact on your neighbours if they share the same supply - would there be restrictions?

Magwych · Feb 21, 2020

marconi said:
One of the first things to check is that you have an adequate power supply to run all your equipment and it is a three phase plus neutral one. And even if it seems you do what is the impact on your neighbours if they share the same supply - would there be restrictions?

I have ENEDIS installing a new and separate 36kVA supply to the building, direct from the power pylon outside. I am hoping that when they came and conducted the site survey that they considred all of that

I know that there is plenty of scope foe Capitain Le Cock-Up there, but what else can I do? They should know what demands exist on their netwokr and what they have provisioned for ...

We are also likely to go for heure pleines/heures creuse tarif and do the bulk of our high energy usage (liquor heating ad wort building) during the night time. The biggest consumption will come from the refrigeration circuit though. 1000l of fermenting beer releases something like 5.4M joules over 3 days. We need to dissipate that, then bring the temperature down to 5C and keep it there for a week or two.

marconi · Feb 22, 2020

1000l ....5.4MJ ....every 3 days.

In electrical terms that is not a lot since one kWh is 1000 x 60 x 60 = 3.6MJ

so 5.4/3.6 = 1.5kWh over 3 days

Is 5.4 MJ correct?

Magwych · Feb 22, 2020

marconi said:
1000l ....5.4MJ ....every 3 days.

In electrical terms that is not a lot since one kWh is 1000 x 60 x 60 = 3.6MJ

so 5.4/3.6 = 1.5kWh over 3 days

Is 5.4 MJ correct?

Yes, that is about right. That is the energy the yeast will generate whilst digesting the sugars anaerobically. To keep the temperature constant a refrigeration jacket needs to take the energy away. The cooler needs to run continuously for those 72 hours. At the same time, I will be droping the temperature of another 1000litres, from 21C to 5C, then trying to keep it at that temperature for 10-15 days. It may add up to smaller lumps of energy on an hourly basis but long term it soon adds up.