MALT MATTERS
Experience
the authentic
WEYERMANN®
floor-malted, terroir
and heirloom malts -
specialty malts for
classic beer styles.
ALL-NATURAL
LIQUID MALT COLOR
SINAMAR® and
certified organic
SINAMAR®
...gives your beer
special taste and color,
without burnt
flavor!
WEYERMANN®
SPECIALITY MALTS
BBII 6/2020 · 25
Pre-charging, rinsing,
transferring – nitrogen
protects against spoilage
Moreover, N2 and CO2 are needed at
Blockbräu for the filling of kegs and
bottles. These are steamed before
use as well as rinsed and pre-charged
with the gas mixture. The new nitrogen
generator now generates a sufficient
quantity of nitrogen to support
the simultaneous production of beer
and the filling of bottles and kegs.
Even at busy times before and after
weekends, when tanks are emptied,
transferred, pre-charged and purged,
the generator operates at no more
than 80 percent, providing further
spare capacity for a future doubling
of the bottle filling area.
Blockbräu is part of Block Group,
a provider in the area of system gastronomy,
hotel trade and food production,
for which freshness, quality
and regionality play an important role.
For example, the filled beer is delivered
to various companies of the
Block Group and elsewhere. A good
100 fresh kegs go to the 5-star Grand
Elysée Hotel Hamburg every year,
80,000 0.3-l bottles with the brand
name Just Beer are dispatched to
the Better Burger restaurant chain
Jim Block. In addition, various events
are supplied with kegs.
“Generating nitrogen right in the
brewery with a nitrogen generator
is the ideal solution for us. The costs
per cubic meter are well below those
of the delivered carbon dioxide and
so the purchase price of the extremely
low-maintenance generator
was amortized after just 1.5 years.
Moreover, the nitrogen generator
provides the required quantity of
N2 for the brewing process as well
as the bottle and keg filling at all
times, and we still have sufficient
space to increase production. Thanks
to the gas mixture that we use, the
beer tastes good and stays fresh
for a long time. That was ultimately
a big plus point during the corona-
virus slump. We are very happy with
the Inmatec solution,” says Thomas
Hundt, brewmaster at the Blockbräu
in Hamburg. M
tanks on the ground floor, each
with a volume of 2,000 liters, the
beer is finally pumped to the taps
on all levels of the inn-cum-brewery
at 4 degrees Celsius, to the
delight of the guests.
Nitrogen produced on site
The gas mixture is prepared by a
gas mixer in the brewery’s machine
room. Another two tanks here,
each with a volume of 280 kilograms,
serve as the source of the
CO2. The CO2 is supplied by tanker
trucks as required. The nitrogen, on
the other hand, is conveniently produced
directly on site and therefore
gentle on the environment. Since
the opening of the Blockbräu in
2012, a nitrogen generator by Inmatec
has supplied the brewery
with the requisite nitrogen. In 2017,
a new, larger generator was installed
owing to the increased production,
especially in the area of
bottle filling. The PN 1250 OnTouch
extracts nitrogen from the surrounding
air with the aid of pressure
swing adsorption technology.
To this end, the air is passed into
a valve block under pressure,
where it is distributed in alternation
to two adsorption tanks. These
towers filled with a carbon molecular
sieve switch in alternation between
filter mode and regeneration
mode. In this way, oxygen and carbon
dioxide molecules from the
ambient air are adsorbed in the
sieve in one vessel, while the sieve
in the second vessel regenerates
under compressed air relief. The
nitrogen obtained in this way is
passed to a product tank with a
volume of 150 liters. Another 500-
liter buffer vessel offers additional
storage space for any production
peaks. Together, the vessels store
at a pressure of 11 bar a usable
volume of approx. 7 m3 of nitrogen.
In this way, up to 7.9 m3 of nitrogen
with a particularly high N2 purity
of 99.8 percent can be produced
every hour, which, due to the brewery’s
strict hygiene rules, is above
the required food-compliant level
of 99.5 percent. The nitrogen,
together with the stored carbon
dioxide, is pushed through a more
than 60-meter-long beer line extending
over several floors to its
various points of use. The 50/50
mixture ratio of the gas is ideal for
this use, as it provides the ideal
saturation and conveying pressure
for the cool beer without causing
it to carbonate, even at 2 bar.
Markus
Berninger
Marketing
Consultant & Sales
Support, Inmatec
GaseTechnologie
GmbH & Co. KG
www.inmatec.de
Brennerstrasse 17-19
96052 Bamberg - Germany
phone +49 (0) 951 93 220-0
email: info@weyermann.de
www.weyermannmalt.com
/www.inmatec.de
/www.weyermannmalt.com
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