Automated CIP System Improves Cleaning Efficiency, Chemical Handling for Four Corners Brewing

Clean-in-place 2.0

Orrell contacted Central States Industrial (CSI) to engineer, design, and build a CIP system that could not only handle the expansion in process equipment that Four Corners had taken on, but that could also provide a safer, more sustainable cleaning process.

A key benefit of the CIP 2.0 system is the handling of the cleaning chemicals. The new system doses itself, reducing chemical handling by operators by 95%.Central States IndustrialThe completed system from CSI consisted of two skids: A three-tank CIP with dual supply headers and a standalone hot water set. The CIP has a hot and cold customization that allows operators to bypass the tank—which provides the option to perform a hot or cold rinse for anything in their process. The hot water set was engineered by CSI to meet the requirements of Four Corners’ steam availability system in the plant. Providing hot water to the CIP system and other areas of the facility, the hot water set is much more efficient and replaces an existing—and leaking—hot liquor tank. The new system also allows the brewery to clean two pieces of equipment at once, translating to significant increases in uptime and faster tank turnover.

The new system will save considerable cost and time, Orrell notes. With two CIP supplies and two unique returns, operators no longer have to wait around for 30 minutes at the end of their shift to run a CIP cycle. Running three cleaning cycles a day, Four Corners’ operators are saving an hour and a half of downtime every day, adding up to 7.5 hours a week.

But even more important to Orrell than the time savings is the efficiency in chemical usage and the improved safety to the operators. “We’re recovering more chemicals, and we’re using less energy to heat this stuff because we’re not doing a one and done. It’s recirculated and put back into an insulated tank,” he says. “But the biggest benefit to me was that we minimize our employees’ exposure to handling bulk undiluted chemicals.”

Previously, Orrell explains, employees were having to work with a lot of hoses in multiple locations. Four Corners has been able to incorporate more hard piping into the system, which helps not only from a sanitary standpoint, but also a safety standpoint, he says.

“The new system doses the chemicals itself, so operators don’t have to touch anything,” Orrell says. “By eliminating operator exposure when dosing chemicals, we’ve essentially reduced their chemical handling by 95%.”

Four Corners has also reduced overall chemical usage for CIP by 40% during standard production cycles. CSI provided custom programming for the system to meet the brewery’s sanitization process needs. Operators are able to handle the cleaning from one central location, selecting a pre-programmed recipe that better streamlines and homogenizes the process. Rather than operators making guesses about how long they might need to run the system for a full clean, the new system automatically programs the correct titration, correct temperature, correct runtime, etc. “In a lot of ways, it just really simplifies the whole process,” Orrell says.

The brewery has realized significant improvements in repeatability and traceability for its cleaning processes, allowing for refinement and standardization. With better control of what is sent to the wastewater system, thanks to the controlled titration of chemicals, Four Corners is also seeing a reduction in its wastewater bills with the city.

This new equipment allows Four Corners to effectively and reliably clean its separator—an essential requirement for the facility. In addition, the increased capacity of the three-tank system enables Four Corners to reuse some of the cleaning solution by storing it in the third tank, reducing chemical consumption. This will save the brewery thousands of dollars each year and help the environment, health, and safety (EHS) protocols of the plant.

Available features and lessons learned

Despite the upgrade in space, Four Corners’ new facility still had strict dimensional requirements due to the placement of the system. The limit that the brewery demanded also affected how much memory the system could have—something that Orrell now regrets. “[An integrated server] would give you a lot more flexibility on how you can program and set it up,” he says.

Another CIP feature that was available and Orrell regrets not getting was a dedicated return pump. “It would have been nice to have something that was integrated into the machine,” he says. “That would allow us to clean other areas that we’re currently not using the CIP skid to clean. And it would be a redundant failsafe for some of the return pumps on some of the machines."

CSI offers complete CIP 2.0 skids that are fabricated in-house. The skids can be built with a variety of configuration options including tank size, the number of tanks, heating type, valve type, chemical dosing, and dual supply.

CIP 2.0 has a uniform graphical interface for all its systems, which helps to increase familiarity with the controls and lower training costs. The operation and appearance of the controls remain the same for multiple CIP 2.0 skids, either within a plant or in different plants.