The following is an excerpt from the article The 5th Ingredient: Learn How Oil-free Compressed Air Can Keep Your Beer Pure, by Robert Tucker, product marketing manager of industrial oil free compressors. The full version can be read on Craft Brewing Business.
Grain, hops, yeast and water. Four elementary components that, when combined with a little time and magic, are transformed into something revolutionary. As with any endeavor, you get out what you put in. The same holds true for brewing; ingredient quality has tremendous impact on the finished product. For example, consider the water from Asheville, N.C. The fresh mountain runoff offers a unique, clean flavor vastly superior to that found in typical municipal sources. Breweries large and small are flocking to the area in hopes of accessing the coveted water to elevate and refine their beer, because pure ingredients yield a pure product.
It’s easy to romanticize beer. With centuries of history, the drink connotes tradition and community. But while abstraction is well and good, it’s not always aligned with reality. The rustic, earthy image of beer production is a somewhat unfair depiction of the complex scientific processes taking place in modern brew houses.
Today’s brewing process is a technical art that relies on high-quality ingredients, exact recipes and infallible equipment. From precise bottling lines to premium packaging solutions, state of art machinery is essential for consistency. The sentimental view of brewing does get one thing right — beer should be pure. Many brewers add other ingredients to create flavors and variety, but outside contamination should be avoided at all costs. Exclusively using 100 percent oil-free air compressors is required for many applications throughout breweries.
Air compressors are pivotal machines in many food and beverage applications. Compressed air is used throughout process facilities for instrument air, control systems, transport and packaging. In breweries, compressed air is most often used for operating various functions in canning, bottling and kegging along with wort aeration. While oil-lubricated compressors have historically been used in breweries for control air and valve actuation, using that same air for aeration or purging can have detrimental effects on the beer.
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Read the full article online on Craft Brewing Business. To learn more about finding the ideal oil-free compressor for your brewing needs, contact an Atlas Copco expert today.
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