Skip to main content

Alaskan Brewing Co. Makes Beer Powered Beer


Following the Well-Met maxim of 'Social.Responsibility', the Alaskan Brewing Company is making green beer, and I don't mean in color like the shite people swill for St. Patrick's Day. In a shrewd move with economic and ecological ramifications, they are now operating with an alternate fuel source: beer. More specifically, they are using the wet grain known as “spent grain,” left over from the brewing process, as the sole fuel source for their new steam boiler. Alaskan is the first craft brewery in the world to use this brewing by-product in this way, reducing the company’s fuel oil consumption in brewhouse operations by 60-70 percent.


“We have the unique honor of brewing craft beer in this stunning and remote place,” explains Alaskan Brewing Co-founder Geoff Larson. “But in order to grow as a small business here in Alaska and continue having a positive effect on our community, we have to take special efforts to look beyond the traditional to more innovative ways of brewing. Reducing our energy use makes good business sense, and good sense for this beautiful place where we live and play.”

The brewery began the spent grain energy process in 1995 with the installation of a grain dryer. The equipment dried the wet, protein-rich spent grain in preparation for shipment to the lower 48 for use as cattle feed, due to the absence of farms or ranches in Southeast Alaska. Alaskan designed the grain dryer to use up to 50 percent of the grain as a supplemental fuel source to heat the dryer itself. This reduced the oil required in the drying process, and provided experience in burning spent grain that would later prove useful in designing the steam boiler.

In 2008, Alaskan became the first craft brewery in the nation to install an energy saving piece of brewing equipment called a mash filter press. The mash filter press, in addition to providing greater energy, water, and materials efficiencies, produces a lower-moisture-content spent grain than does the more traditional lautering process. This form of spent grain better lends itself to drying and for use as fuel for the brewery’s grain dryer and, ultimately, the new spent grain steam boiler system.

Over the latter months of 2012, Alaskan completed the final stage of the process with the installation and commissioning of the $1.8 million, custom-constructed spent grain steam boiler. This brewing byproduct is a unique and challenging fuel, so brewery engineers put their years of experience with drying grain to work with existing combustion technology to develop and fine-tune this first-of-its-kind process.

Alaskan expects that the new boiler will eliminate the brewery’s use of fuel oil in the grain drying process and displace more than half of the fuel needed to create process steam in the brewhouse. This translates to an estimated reduction in fuel oil use in brewhouse operations by more than half. With moderate growth assumptions, Alaskan expects to save nearly 1.5 million gallons of oil over the next ten years.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do We Even Understand What A Billionaire Is?

In today's world, we marvel at billionaires, yet very few actually understand what it means. I know its a ridiculous number we cannot fathom, but the more I looked into it, the more it shocked me how much these people really are worth.  Among the general populace, making 'six-figures' or $100,000 is a benchmark of success and wealth. Millionaires are truly wealthy. But what is often misunderstood is how exponentially large adding another, let alone 3, or 6 a number becomes.  The wealthiest aren't just billionaires either, they are hundred billionaires. Elon Musk is worth 265 billion. That is 265 with 9 zeroes after it. 265,000,000,000. It would take someone making six-figures 2,650,000 years to amass that wealth with no expenses. 2.65 MILLION years. To reach Jeff Bezos' wealth would only take them 1.77 million years. Even someone who makes a million dollars a year (which is wealthier than a millionaire which is just a net worth not annual salary delineation) would ...
Post a Comment
Read more

DEI Creates Opportunities, Doesn't Lower Requirements

Companies have been being attacked recently for DEI initiatives, such as boycotting, to force them to undo those efforts. These attacks are typically dog whistle coding to cover up discrimination against minorities including women and people of color. The narrative is typically that hiring standards are lowered to include a wider range of employees and that it is a form of reverse discrimination - disadvantaging one group (people that are one or more of white, male, and cisgender). But not only is this not the case, in fact, DEI initiatives are proven to strengthen companies' performance across many metrics - even financially. Someone recently brought up lowering standard for airline pilots as proof that DEI is a radical far left practice that supposedly in this case makes pilots less qualified and flying more dangerous in order to fulfill DEI quotas. A similar case has been made recently regarding the Secret Service and issues with at least one high-profile recent event that is - ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Five O'Clock Steakhouse's The Milwaukee Man Dinner Benefits Milwaukee Rescue Mission

On Friday, September 11 2015 at 6pm, Milwaukee's iconic Five O'Clock Steakhouse will host the first annual Milwaukee Man Dinner - Beef, Bourbon & Brandy Benefit. A portion of the night's proceeds will directly benefit the  Milwaukee Rescue Mission "Safe Harbor" Program ,providing refuge and hope for local men seeking to transform their lives through emergency assistance,  shelter, counseling, education & job resources.
Post a Comment
Read more