Jobstory - Surface maintenance Breweries
The Initial Situation
Cleaning the entire brewery equipment at regular intervals is one of the many requirements that breweries have to adhere to in order to comply with the Reinheitsgebot – the German purity law. This of course includes all stainless steel parts. The cleaning products that are used must be non-toxic, environmentally friendly and readily available. At the same time they should be effective and should achieve that the surface is optically and hygienically of high quality. Not to mention that a damage of the ceramics, tiles and joints due to the cleaning material must be avoided at all costs. What to use? Abrasive cleaning agents are unsuitable because they scratch the surfaces and acidic cleaning agents inevitably cause corrosion.
The Pelox Special Cleaner PLUS 3000 and the Pelox Passivation Solution RP have been tried and tested in breweries. Here are some actual examples to illustrate this:
Cleaning of Filter Casings
A brewery in Bremen appointed Pelox/eot with the task of cleaning stainless steel filter casings. Over 1.000 filter casings (material 1.4301) were dismantled and depending on the condition of the surface were treated with Special-Cleaner PLUS 3000 or with the Passivation Solution RP. After the reassembling they went through a final treatment where once again the PLUS 3000 was used. The quality of the surface after the cleaning process exceeded all expectations of the client.
Washing programme “hot” threatens handover date
One of the largest producers of brewery plants in the world received the contract to build a reference brewery in Kasachstan. Shortly before the handover the last installation impurities were to be removed with the cleaning agent FR-D. An application time of 3 hours at room temperature has proven to be effective. During the treatment the “hot” washing programme of the lauter tun was switched on by mistake. The results were disastrous: the entire stainless steel cover had clearly visible, heavy discolouration. Bottom line: the deadline for the handover was threatened.
A Pelox application engineer examined the damages on site. After a few attempts (considering ambient temperature and surface structure) the Special-Cleaner PLUS 3000 achieved a very good result.
The Special-Cleaner was then applied extensively with special sponges and was worked into the surface with the grain. 80 percent of the quite significant damage could already be removed with the first application cycle. During a second cycle the surfaces were treated manually with AR. Finally the covers of the lauter tuns were thoroughly rinsed with running water.
At first glance the expenses might seem high: 4kg PLUS 3000, 5 kg AR, 20 sponges, 10 polishing pads and a total of 100 working hours. But the effort was worth it and had, as the pictures show, a brilliant result. And the handover deadline – it was of course met!
