Quality and consistency are two of the mainstays of Bent Water Brewing. We are committed to ensuring the freshest, highest quality products go from our house to yours. Over the years, we’ve dedicated a lot of time and investment into making good on that commitment, with state-of-the-art equipment and innovative processes that ultimately lead to the fantastic beer you’re holding in your hand – or will be soon. And while a lot of what we do in the brewhouse is unique, especially for a brewery of our size, not many people outside of Bent Water get the opportunity to learn about the standard operating procedures or equipment we use that sets us apart.
So starting today, we’re going to pull back the curtain and give you more insight into what happens behind the scenes at Bent Water. Look for our monthly Quality Spotlight, which will give you an idea of the high standards we set, and how all of our time and investments ultimately help deliver the beer that you enjoy.
Bent Water Brewing recently finished installing a brand new piece of equipment that our brewers and production team are super excited about: a centrifuge. To kick off the Quality Spotlight series, we sat down with Matt Allen, our Quality Control Manager, to discuss this incredible piece of machinery.
1. First off, Matt – in layman’s terms, what does a centrifuge do?
A centrifuge is used to pull out any solids in our product, such as hops and yeast. It does this by speeding up the natural settling process for beer. For our clear beers – lagers, west coast IPAs, etc.- this is great because we can reduce conditioning time and still be able to pull out all yeast and hop particles to create a very bright and clear beer. For hazy beers, you can run the centrifuge at a higher speed, allowing large sugars, proteins, and hop-derived polyphenols to stay in suspension and not impact the appearance of haziness in the beers. The use of the centrifuge to extract solids will help control off-flavors and eliminate sediment from the bottom of cans.
2. Where is the centrifuge utilized in the brewing process?
The centrifuge is used after fermentation near the very end of the brewing process while transferring our beers to our Brite Beer Tanks (BBTs). The fully finished product will run through the centrifuge and from there it can be carbonated and packaged. This is really advantageous because a natural settling and filtering out process can take multiple days, whereas beers that run through a centrifuge only need a day or two before all solids are removed and they can go into the cans. The additional upside here is that tank turns – moving the liquid from one vessel to another – are much shorter.
3. Why is it a big deal for Bent Water to have a centrifuge?
For one thing, there aren’t a lot of small to midsize craft breweries that invest in a centrifuge: they’re expensive and require a lot of technical expertise. The main reason it’s such a big deal is that the centrifuge fundamentally will help increase consistency. We want every beer that goes out the door to look and taste like every preceding batch. The centrifuge will allow us to have a more consistent-looking beer going into the package. Also, after fermentation, hops, and yeast drop to the bottom of the fermenter. When transferring a beer to its BBT, this “trub” is left in the tank and we only transfer the beer that is above it – the sludge eventually gets dumped down the drain. We will now be able to run this “trub” through the centrifuge and extract more beer which will increase our overall yield. This means we’ll be creating more drinkable beer and less waste.
4. What does a centrifuge mean for customers?
I mentioned that one of the best things about the centrifuge is that it will help increase product consistency. What that means is the beers we put into those bright dynamic cans will have enhanced stability and longer shelf life. But the centrifuge will have a very definite impact on the drinking experience for the customer, as well. A centrifuge allows for the extraction of a lot of hop oils that would normally be lost during a traditional settling process. Extraction of more oils from the hops we use will generate a higher aroma and more robust flavors, which you’ll particularly notice in hop-centric beers like Sluice Juice and Super Sluice.