If your nearest farmer or community garden is already inundated in spent grain, innovation is the watchword, and
Alaskan Brewing Co. found just the right solution. By developing “a first-of-its-kind biomass steam boiler,” fueled entirely by their spent grain. Ashley Johnston of ABC estimates that “The new boiler will completely 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 for the brewing process.”
In turn, this boiler will lead to “more than a 60 percent reduction in fuel oil use in the first year, and, with moderate growth assumptions, this translates to a fuel savings of nearly 1,500,000 gallons of oil over the next 10 years,” Johnston states. “As the brewery grows, so does our fuel source, leading to even more savings.”
With this technology, ABC is taking sustainability to a new level, using their raw material waste to power their day-to-day brewing operations, thus creating a perpetual loop that conserves energy, saves money and is readily available. Of course, not all craft breweries can afford to invest in such technology, but necessity is the mother of invention, and ABC’s solution is a model reminder of what can be done in the realm of alternative fuels.
Copy / pasta from:
https://www.craftbeer.com/craft-beer-muses/sustainable-uses-of-spent-grain
