Keeping Sanitary Brewery Hose Off the Floor

Beer brewing hose assemblies represent a significant investment for many large commercial breweries. With many different components at play in the brewing process it can be easy to find these beer transfer hoses left on the floor of the brewery. This can lead to accidental contamination during the cleaning process if unintended fluid interacts with the sanitary fittings at the end of the beer transfer hose.

Risers can be a great cost-effective solution to avoid specialty brew hose and sanitary fittings touching the floor. These can easily be applied to existing brew hoses. Needs will vary based on exact hose type and brewery layout, but generally use 1 riser per fitted end + an additional supporting riser each 10 feet to lift the hose off the floor. Once the tube has been fully elevated liquid can flow easily underneath the hose. This prevents consolidation of liquid being blocked from appropriate drainage. Perhaps more importantly the risers also prevent sanitary fittings from unintentional interaction with other material attempting to drain.

Hypothetical Case Study with Brewery Hose Risers: A large commercial brewery spent thousands of dollars on FDA compliant beer transfer hose assemblies with 3A sanitary standards for their brew transfer system. While they have a proven solution for hanging and cleaning their brew hose, the full assembly is left on the floor during most of the day. While cleaning the brewery the chemical solution accidently encounters the beverage hose assembly. This leads to the runoff water with residual cleaning chemicals interacting with the sanitary fitting and entering the hose tube. The hose is cleaned rigorously and attempted to be reused, but overtime this exposer shortens the life of the brewer’s hose. Solution: By adding risers to beer hose assemblies that had been on the floor all fluid flows underneath the full hose assembly without risk of interacting with each other. These risers also reduce the risk of an expensive sanitary fitting being damaged by being dropped on the floor.

Elevating a hose off the floor is often a separate goal from storing a large hose assembly and allowing it to drip dry. Often the goal of hanging these hoses can be achieved with some careful planning and calculations based on your hose’s size and length. Read our article about finding Sanitary Solutions for Storing Your Brewery Hose