Breweries have many areas where humidity needs to be controlled in order to allow them to brew the beer without production capacity and quality being compromised. The brewery industry has even set standards for temperature and humidity levels for the storage of ingredients as well as the finished product to ensure product quality and integrity. The primary humidity control issues in a brewery are mold growth control, condensation prevention, pulldown time after washdowns, and frost prevention.
Mold Growth Control: Most ingredients and finished goods are stored in conditions <50°F, <50% RH with design criteria often as low as 45% RH.
Condensation Prevention: This goal ties into mold prevention. Although yeast propagation is an essential part of the fermenting process, mold growth is unacceptable. Because of the high yeast count in the air, any standing water that stays for a period of time will result in moldy slurry.
Wash down: The fermenting tanks need to be cleaned after each batch. This requires the brewery floor to be washed down on a daily basis.
Frost Prevention: The leaving air temperature off the coils used for sensible cooling is below the freezing point of water. Ammonia temperature can be as low as 15°F. To prevent frost, the dew point of the air entering these coils must be below the ammonia suction temperature.
Temperature control is critical in all cellar areas, but is absolutely vital in the finishing area (these tanks are un-insulated). To bottle the beer, the beer temperature must be below 36°F. Above this set point, the beer foams and makes it impossible to bottle.
Munters dehumidifiers allow breweries to address all of these problems with a cost effective solution.