m
TJ
EfA
TEG1NCIQGf
POLLUTL>i
ABATEMENT
U
BRAVING
F/CIL^Y
PIOOON
A3ENCY
-------
EfA
TECHNOQGf
1MNSER
POLLUTON
ABAT^ENT
IN A
F/OtfY
PREPARED BY
U.S.
ENVIOMBWL
POECHON
A3ENQ
vi u
U.
AGENCY
1445 ROSS MBm
-------
*?"? if, •* 4
••* v — •-. jfjr
I: 4i
•> »i'i£" ^*4f
i. , f
i 4. , --js
-------
The brewing industry in
the United States is
comprised of 185 facilities
producing malt beverages
including beer, ale, and
"malt liquor". Half of these
are large facilities with
individual water
consumption rates
exceeding 20 million gallons
each per year and a
combined water usage rate
of more than 140 billion
gallons per year. About 60
billion gallons of the water
used annually in these
major facilities are
discharged as wastewater.
The mean raw waste
loading levels for the large
brewing facilities are 3.05
Ib/bbl beer (1622 mg/1)
Biochemical Oxygen
Demand (BOD) and 1.24
Ib/bbl beer (772 mg/1)
suspended solids. These
concentrations of oxygen-
demanding organic
materials and suspended
solids in the wastewater, at
the quantities discharged,
are sufficiently high
to potentially cause
oxygen depletion and
sedimentation buildup in
streams unless adequate
treatment is provided.
Therefore, treatment must
be provided at either the
brewery facility or at a
municipal waste treatment
plant prior to discharge to a
stream.
The Adolph Coors
Company, now the fourth
largest brewer in the
United States, produces all
of its malt beverages in one
facility located at Golden,
Colorado. The Golden
facility is the largest single
brewery in the world,
presently producing in
excess of 10.5 million
barrels of beer per year.
Coors began its pollution
control efforts in 1951 with
the construction of a waste
treatment facility and the
initiation of a conservation
program to reduce in-plant
water usage and waste
discharges. This success is
due, in part, to the top
priority given to the waste
reduction and treatment
effort by Coors
management During the
past 22 years Coors has
been successful in reducing
the raw waste loading to
less than half of the
brewing industry mean raw
waste levels through
engineering design
improvements and
changes in operating
practice. The raw waste
from the plant is treated in
the Coors waste treatment
facility which provides both
primary and secondary
treatment. The effluent
containing about 30 mg/1
BOD and suspended solids
is discharged from the waste
treatment facility into Clear
Creek, a tributary of the
South Platte River, which
passes through the plant
site. Through these and
other efforts, Coors has
earned the U. S.
Environmental Protection
Agency's Region Eight
environmental achievement
award for its total
environmental program
which included aluminum
and glass recycling, waste
treatment, air and sound
pollution control and
environmental planning.
This report was written to
show the degree of effluent
reduction and savings in
waste treatment facility
capital and operating costs
that can be achieved
through a well planned
and well executed
environmental control
program.
Coors Copper Brewing Kettles
-------
Adolph Coors Company Brewery, Golden, Colorado.
The Coors plant at
Golden is both a brewing
and malting facility. The
barley malt used in brewing
is produced at the facility.
The process flow diagram
for the production of
beer at the plant is shown
in Figure 1.
Throughout the process
care is taken to minimize
water usage, prevent beer
or by-products from
entering the waste stream,
and recover as much of the
protein-rich by-product
material as possible for
marketing as animal feed
or feed supplements. The
recovery systems are
economically feasible in
addition to providing for a
significant reduction in the
waste load. In designing
new facilities or modifying
existing equipment
considerable attention is
given to conserving water
and reducing waste loads.
The production of beer
begins with the malting
operation where barley is
soaked in water in steeping
tanks and transferred to
germinating compartments
for approximately one week
to convert the starch in the
barley into malt sugar. The
germinated barley is
transferred to the malt
drying kiln where the heat
stops the barley's growth
and partly caramalizes the
malt to produce the desired
beer color and flavor. The
malt, or dried sprouted
barley, is then finely ground
for use in the brewing
operation. The malt sprouts
and screenings are added to
the dried waste solids and
subsequently ground,
pelletized, and marketed as
animal feed.
In the brewing operation
finely ground malt and
brewers rice are added to
water in the copper mash
kettle, or mash tun, where
the mixture is heated to
complete the conversion of
starch to malt sugar.
The mash is then filtered
through a plate and frame
filter and the extract is sent
to the brew kettle. The
spent grain filter cake drops
from the filter into a hopper
and is pumped away with
no additional sluicing water
required. Coors installed the
plate and frame filter rather
than the commonly used
Lauter tub because the
extract can be separated
from the spent grain in the
plate and frame filter with
minimal water usage. The
Lauter tub has the
-------
BAKLIY
STOKAGI-
UMTJ.R BARI EY
STEEPING
TANKS
GERMINA7ION
COMPARTMENTS
D«™G THE BREWING PROCESS
RICE MALT
STORAGE STORAGE
OCE MALT
" ""*— BKtlVUVU PhU(_t66 I-LUW
GRINDER GRINDER ,— — • RECOVERY OF SOLIDS & LIQUIDS PROPAGATION
RFrni/FRv OF .sni in.s
RICE 1
\ MASH IN /
RKE 1
V COOKER /
PELLETIZER jJL^
1
ANM4L
FEED
PRODUCTS
CATTLE ,
FEED *~~ —
-A-ij-wi- RECOVERY OR RECYCLE OF LIQUIDS
WATER WASTE WATER I
[ MALT )
\ MASH IN/ SPARGE
\^_,X WATER HOPS
1 MASH 1 MASH 1 BREW I HOP
V TUN J HLTER \ KETTLE / f JACK
SPFNT - r J I
GRAIN j ^RfCLAW^UCWT ^a
* SCREENINGS DEWATER RECLAIM v „ SQUEEZING to-
| PRESS TANK ' RECL/UM
j i r • HOPS
( r-"i |f - I"
I SOLIDS i LIQUOR
— GRINDER |A»f»«« DRVER L-»».u*u+ CENTRIFUGE
YEAST
HOLDING
,---"" .WORT WORT VE*ST
I COOLSHIP I COOLER FERMENTER >_»
|
^l.™^,,^,,^,,,--. J^B DC"
PRE^ CENTRIFUGE ^g,
1 ' DEAERATED
-•• SOLIDS . WATER
" ' YEAST t C0l
FILTER , ^aLAR5 BLENDING
SOLIDS 111'
LOO? j I. 4 !
P<
WK
COMMERCIAL Y£AST
DRYER '**"""
COORS
WASTE TREATMENT
PLANT
GOVT
M/AREHOUSE ¥f?f£
CELLAR HafK
TE
ER
PACKAGING
^ ' J
~r, - , - S*
BEER
D/STRIBUTORS
FIGURE I
-------
Plate and Frame Filter
disadvantage of requiring
a considerable amount of
water to sluice out the
spent grain.
The spent grain is then
dewatered in a screw press
and dried in a steam drier.
The spent grain liquor
from the screw press is
centrifuged to remove the
solids. These solids are
added to the spent grain
which is marketed as cattle
feed. The centrifuged
liquor is then returned as
make-up to the rice mash-in
operation.
In the brew kettle, the
malt extract is boiled
vigorously with hops to add
flavor and aroma. The hot
malt extract, called wort, is
then pumped to a large
circular coolship (clarifier)
where insoluble proteins
coagulate and are settled
out. This wet coagulate
called trube is then sent to a
centrifuge to separate the
solids from the wort. The
recovered liquid wort is
recycled into the process
and the trube solids are
added to the spent grain.
The wort flows from the
coolship to a cooler where
-------
Coors Bottle Filling Room
it is cooled to achieve
fermentation temperature.
Specially prepared yeast
cultures grown at the plant
are added to the cooled
wort in the fermentation
tanks. In the carefully
controlled primary
fermentation step, the
yeast converts the malt
sugar in the wort into
alcohol and COz gas.
The fermented beer is
then transferred to glass-
lined aging tanks for its
secondary fermentation and
aging period. Aging under
pressure permits beer to
build up its own natural
carbonation.
After aging, the beer is
chilled and pumped
through batteries of
filters for clarification. The
spent filter pads are
removed and processed
for reuse. The beer flows
from the filters to sterile
filling rooms for packaging.
-------
Waste Treatment Facility
Wastes generated from
the Coors combined
brewing and malting
operations amount to 3.3
million gallons per day at
a BOD level of 825 mg/1.
This is less than half the
waste load produced by the
average large brewery
without malting facilities.
Table 1 shows the low rate
of waste discharge achieved
at Coors by a continuing
program of water
conservation, in-plant waste
reduction and recovery of
waste materials as by-
products. The quantities of
wastewater from in-plant
sources contributing to the
overall raw waste load are
shown in Table 2. This table
shows the significant
reductions in raw waste
volume that Coors has
achieved relative to the
brewing industry mean raw
waste loads from in-plant
sources including cooling
water, cleaning, filtration,
fermentation brewing and
-------
OVERALL PLANT
RAW WASTE
CHARACTERISTICS
Parameter
Raw Waste Volume
Raw Waste BOD
Raw Waste Suspended Solids
Coors
Raw Waste Loads1
108.5 gal/bbl3 beer
0.75fc/bbl beer (825 mg/1)
0.26 Ib/bbl beer (280 mg/1)
Brewing
Industry Mean
Raw Waste Loads 2
257 gal/bbl beer
3.05 Ib/bbl beer (1622 mg/1)
1.24 Ib/bbl beer (772 mg/1)
1 Based on average at Coots /or month of June 1973.
2/ndustria/Wtete Survey o/tfieMa/t Liquor JndustryS/C No. 2082 prepared/or tfieEnuironmenta/ProtedionAaencv, August J971, by Associated
Water and Air Resources Engineers, Inc.
3 One barrel contains 31 go/tons.
Tab/e 1
RAW WASTE
CONTRIBUTIONS
FROM
IN-PLANt SOURCES
Source
of Raw Waste
CooBng Water
House Cleaning
Aging
Rteatfon
Fermentation
Brewing
Malting
Other
TOTAL
Coors
Raw Waste Loads1
(gal/bbl beer)
3.1
15.5
24.8
6.2
6.2
9.3
40.3
3.1
Brewery
Industry Mean
Raw Waste Loads2
(gal/bbl beer)
43.5
21.8
12.4
21.8
9.3
37.3
111.6
108.5
257.7
'Based on average at Coors for month of June 1973
2 Industrial Waste Sunxy of the Malt Liquor Industry SIC. No. 2082 prepared for the Environmental Protection Agency, August 1971, by Associated
Water and Air Resources Engineers, Inc.
Table 2
-------
Table 3
other sources. Table 3
compares the present Coors
raw waste quantities with
the discharge that would be
produced at the facility if
the raw waste discharge per
barrel of beer produced
were equal to the mean
levels for the brewery
industry.
-------
Double Effect Evaporator Used for Concentrating Waste Beer
and Spent Grain Liquor into Cattle Feed Syrup
-------
The Coors waste
treatment facility shown in
Figure 2, provides primary
treatment through
neutralization and solids
removal, and secondary
treatment through a high
rate activated sludge system
using a modification of the
Hatfield Process.
The raw waste first flows
through a bar screen and a
grit chamber to remove
coarse solids! The raw
waste is continuously
monitored and adjusted to
a pH of 7 by an automatic
control system. The effluent
then flows into a 550,000
gallon surge chamber which
is used to equalize the flow
in the waste treatment
plant. The batch processes
used in producing beer
make flow equalization and
pH control necessary in
order to provide for
optimum performance of
the treatment system. The
waste is pumped out of the
surge tank and into the
primary clarifier at a
constant rate.
Effluent from the primary
clarifier then enters the
activated sludge portion of
the plant and is mixed in
the aeration basins with
return sludge from the
secondary clarifier. Mixed
liquor contact time in the
aeration basins is about ten
hours. Twenty-four surface
aerators rated at 20
horsepower each are used
to maintain the dissolved
oxygen level at about
2mg/l.
Mixed liquor then flows
from the aeration basins to
the secondary clarifiers.
Clarified effluent is
chlorinated and returned to
Clear Creek.
SLUDGE
STORAGES
TANK
TO CLEAR CREEK
SLUDGE
LIQUID
MIXED LIQUOR
FIGURE 2 WASTE TREATMENT FACILITY
-------
COORS
RAW WASTE
AND EFFLUENT
PARAMETERS1
Flow
BOD
Suspended Solids
% Removal BOD
% Removal Suspended Solids
1 Based on average at Coons for month of June 1973.
Raw Waste
3.3 MGD
825mg/l
280mg/l
Treated
Effluent
34mg/l
29mg/l
96
90
Table 4
The quality of the treated
effluent and the percent
removal of BOD and
suspended solids is shown
on Table 4.
Sludge is pumped from
the bottom of the secondary
clarifiers to the aeration
basin at a rate of 30% of
the total flow. The sludge is
aerated for 19 hours with
surface aerators. A small
amount of digested
anaerobic sludge is added
to the aeration basin as a
means of controlling
filamentous organisms in
the predominantly
carbohydrate brewery
waste.
Waste sludge is produced
at the rate of about 13
tons/day. The waste
activated sludge is
concentrated in dissolved
air flotation cells to 4%
solids by weight. The
concentrated waste
activated sludge is mixed
with primary sludge and
dewatered on vacuum filters
after being coagulated with
lime and ferric chloride.
The filtered sludge
containing 16% solids is
presently disposed of on
land owned by Coors.
Because of high sludge
handling costs and the
difficulty in finding suitable
disposal sites, Coors has
decided to install a sludge
drying system. This system
will dry the sludge in a
multiple effect evaporator
using vegetable oil as a
carrier liquid. The carrier oil
will then be removed from
the sludge by centrifuging
and pressing and recycled
within the system. When the
sludge drying evaporator is
in operation organic polymers
will be used in place of ferric
chloride and lime for
coagulation of sludge, so
that the sludge can be used
as animal feed.
Preliminary feeding tests
show that the dried sludge
can be used successfully as
a high protein animal feed
supplement. The nutritional
value of the sludge is further
increased by its high vitamin
content. Colorado State
University scientists have
found that the brewery
waste is usable as a
replacement for soybean
meal and fish meal in
poultry feeds.
-------
Coors has realized sizable
savings in the capital and
operating costs for its waste
treatment facility by
significantly reducing the
raw wastes from the plant.
Tables 5 and 6 compare the
Coors waste treatment
facility with the treatment
facility that would be
required for a brewery of
equal size discharging at the
brewing industry mean rate.
These tables highlight the
capital and operating cost
savings being realized by
Coors through their
reduction of raw waste
loads to their treatment
plant.
It should also be noted
that part of the Coors waste
treatment facility was
designed for the high loads
and flows experienced
before all the in-plant
reductions were
accomplished. Thus there is
now excess capacity in the
flotation cells and clarifiers.
The BOD load on the waste
treatment facility was
formerly about 60,000
Ib/day compared to the
present load of about
22,700 Ib/day. In spite of
this excess installed capacity
Coors is realizing a
$1,575,000 savings in
capital costs and
$1,457,500 savings in
annual operation costs
relative to the costs they
would have incurred if they
were discharging raw wastes
at the brewing industry
mean levels.
'.;%<-,&
-'• .'£>:•;-
Vacuurn Filters
Tab/e 5
-------
'.*\fc'-I«,-?>•>," 'A-**- ' • 'IKl^NPiBI - ""'"ill
H*ft*^:Up^bfe;. -• • •- IBBra** ,;• ;§
isliw.^^-*^^.-:. -. «*»»»>.' '• .,t;. ?ls
*sii i v^-*'r ^ », '**""'" ^-* "'^t^ n * \ * \ * *'-^ * *^»^
*'®^» x* V* ** /^ n* s" *° ^ > ? C^ ' f ' *. "^r MJ ^M^^"
g./x\;.--.s ^^i^^w^i-vi/^j^r^x: ,
I
".i
^""^iW^4-
l^^v^JPP^
&& . **J » " » 4 fc^ * ^ ** ^ ,
^^J4^aci
••' .,/ :j
' ^r-^
i^ifiiSl
v^^"-',-- '• ";"''- >v
N, .^ 't:%\&
JKTS
.. < - 4*^-
s£?.:-*1<'
f,>7*w <; ^» <• , ''.
fe^'?"/!:'|ia^
J..« ^^^-m- .^
\& VJ
*JJ
-------
The techniques used by
Coors to significantly reduce
water usage and raw
wastes, and recover by-
products is directly
applicable to the other malt
liquor production facilities
as well as other food
processing industries. The
reductions in the cost of
waste treatment through
reduction in raw waste
loading can be realized
whether the waste is treated
in privately owned
treatment plants or in
municipal waste treatment
plants. Savings in the cost
of privately owned facilities
can be realized as lower
capital and operating costs,
while saving in the cost of
municipal waste treatment
can be realized by the
brewery as reduced user
charges and reduced
municipal waste treatment
plant capital costs.
For Further
Information
Write:
Technology Transfer
Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, D. C.
20460
-------
-------
TECHNOLQGY
TRANSFER
------- |