Replacing piston pumps with hose pumps eliminates potential ingress of dissolved oxygen

• Quality threatened at one of Europe’s most productive breweries 
• Dissolved oxygen levels of less than 10 parts per billion required
• Hose pump success leads to further installations

The challenge

Conventional piston pumps were threatening quality at an Anheuser-Busch InBev brewery. The site, which produces brands including Stella Artois and Boddingtons, is one of the most productive in Europe. However, piston pumps were providing the opportunity for dissolved oxygen (DO) to infiltrate the beer during the dosing of kieselguhr, a sedimentary mineral in slurry form that creates an important and necessary layer on the filter. Unfortunately the stainless steel non-return valves on the discharge side of the piston pumps began to stick due to the corrosive nature of kieselghur. As a result, the brewery would end up maintaining or replacing the pumps, which would inevitably expose the beer to atmosphere. Even the slightest traces of DO in beer can change its flavour, making it taste stale. The brewery required a new method that would allow it to maintain rigorous DO levels of less than 10 ppb (parts per billion) over the entire process.

The solution
A Bredel 25 hose pump was introduced to one of the brewery’s three filter mains. With the peristaltic process there is no way to introduce oxygen to the process.

The outcome
Such has been the success of the filter mains project at Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Magor brewery that the company has since acquired a further three Bredel hose pumps for use in a different operation on a similar application.

Source: Watson Marlow Fluid Technologies Group

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