Separator helps get the beer flowing

Louise Davis

Brewfist had some clear processing goals when it looked to expand its brew house near Milan, Italy. These included ensuring that oxygen pickup between the end of the fermentation process and bottle filling was no greater than 30ppb, reducing process time, and ensuring consistent quality without making the beer too ‘yeasty’.

SPX FLOW’s Seital Separation Technology brand offers leading technology to produce high quality separation and clarification in compact solutions. To assist Brewfist in meeting its production goals, a Seital clarifier with a hermetic mechanical seal designed to minimise the risk of oxidation was utilised. Hydraulic seal machines had previously been tested but did not meet Brewfist’s requirements to limit oxygen pickup.

The Seital technology went beyond original requirements and expectations, producing oxygen pickup of less than 10ppb. This exceptional performance resulted in high levels of consistency in terms of product clarity and lower yeast content.

SPX FLOW Seital clarifiers use vertical disk stack centrifuge technology.  Alongside high quality product output, the efficiency with which these units operates meant that production time for fermentation at Brewfist could be reduced from 16 to 11 days and maturation time from 6 weeks to 3-4 weeks. This significant improvement in productivity meant that annual capacity could be increased to meet growing market demands without investment in additional tanks.

Seital centrifuges are further designed with highly efficient gear or belt drive transmissions, continuous vibration monitoring and automatic solids discharge to offer excellent reliability with long maintenance intervals. Precise control and adjustment of the machine is provided through an intuitive operator interface to ensure the process is providing exactly the right product characteristics. 

Pietro di Pilato, one of the owners of the Brewfist company, commented, “We are very satisfied with the Seital clarifier. It is very user-friendly and I like the taste of the beer after it has gone through the centrifuge. The machine has worked for 750 hours without requiring maintenance which provides low service and maintenance costs.”

Seital separation and clarification equipment is well proven in the food and beverage industry. Units are designed to maintain excellent hygienic conditions and offer gentle processing to ensure favourable product characteristics are preserved and consistent, reliable production is achieved. 

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