Why The Push For Dust Collection in Breweries & Distilleries?

When something mildly combustible—like grain—is milled, the surface area of the material is increased exponentially, making it explosive at a certain point. The risk is greater for distillers than brewers because they use hammer mills rather than roller mills, but there have been incidents in breweries as well. Naturally this has caused some legislators to overreact both in cities and nationally, as reflected in the updated National Fire Prevention Act (NFPA 68). But it’s not all bad, because dust collection provides a number of benefits to health, operational efficiency, and pest prevention.

Dust Collector Options

Though we offer every type of system, baghouses are usually the preferred method for brewing and distilling because of their lower cost and maintenance requirements. Generally bags are preferred to cartridges because they can go without changing for longer periods of time, but in the smaller models (see below) the cartridges allow us to use a unit small enough that it can bypass some municipal requirements. But regardless, all the filters are self-cleaning and can go for years without filter change so you can truly set it and forget it. Among the dust collectors appropriate for breweries, the options are:

• Bucket-style discharge
• Pulse jet timer for filter cleaning
• Differential pressure magnehelic gauge kit
• Painted carbon steel or stainless steel
• Hinged door with T-handle (toolless) entry
• High or low-entry inlet
• Explosion mitigation panels
• Explosion isolation gates
• Round or square housing
• Top or bottom-hinges for cleaning
• Bags or cartridges

Dust Collection Implementation

There are two primary methods for dust collection in breweries:

Whole-Room Negative Pressure

Suitable for breweries with contained mill rooms. This method involves installing vents in the ceiling to draw air off the entire room, maintaining a controlled and safe atmosphere. This method is slightly cheaper and more effective, but the difference isn’t so great that it should have a great impact on choice of space.

Dust Ports on Equipment

For breweries preferring not to alter the room’s air, or whose grain equipment is scattered through the space, our equipment is designed with dust ports that connect to an external dust collector. We can then run ducting to each port, pulling vacuum on each piece of equipment.

Hybrid

If you have a room big enough for most of your grain equipment but not all, it’s easy to draw most of the air from the mill room and run small ducting to the equipment outside of it. And whether all your equipment is outside or inside of a mill room, drawing air from both the equipment and the room will improve your experience.