Is Hb Good For The Environment?

[Renegade]

Ever wondered what the extent of an ecological footprint we leave on the planet when making beer at home ? I have, that's why I'm opening up this discussion !

Clearly there are some pretty big advantages to the environment. Looking at bottling, there's no waste going into landfill, or if going back to the recycling plant, no excess energy wasted on melting down the glass and creating a new glass product.

There's no transport pollution, shipping bottles from the manufacturer, to the brewery, then onto a distribution centre for delivery to each outlet.

There's no wasted paper on cardboard cartons or four/six pack holders.

On the other hand, there is still the shipping of grain, kit cans or extract malts from the grower to the maltster then onto the distribution channels. I would take a guess that overall transportation pollution from shipping the ingredients would still be less than shipping heavy bottles all over the country.

However, how much water per litre of beer does a brewery use in the process of manufacturing beer ? Personally I might use 75-100 litres, so that works out to be over four litres of water per one litre of beer output.

Does this wastage correspond with commercial breweries ? Taking the liberty of assumption again, I would say that HB'ers use heaps more water. And probably more cleaning agents on a per-litre basis too. All down the drain.



Thoughts, anyone ?

 

[Offline]

Yes,

don't put it down the drain

 

[apd]

Does this wastage correspond with commercial breweries ? Taking the liberty of assumption again, I would say that HB'ers use heaps more water. And probably more cleaning agents on a per-litre basis too. All down the drain.

Renegade,

It's probably safe to say that home brewers do use more water that a commercial brewery but in my case, it's not all necessarily down the drown. Most of the water I use gets let out onto my garden and my chiller re-circulates back to my rainwater tank. I'd say most people are making this sort of effort to reduce their water usage.

Andrew

 

[captaincleanoff]

you guys think that water with starsan would be ok to go on the garden? Have often wondered this.

 

[Pennywise]

you guys think that water with starsan would be ok to go on the garden? Have often wondered this.

Can't say for the garden but it's not good on laminated bench tops. Man did I get my ass kicked for that one

 

[brettprevans]

maybe not over your veggie garden but lawn/garden its fine. after all you can ingest the stuff in small quanities as its a no rinse. so it should be fine.


there is a thread somewhere on AHB regarding waste and envrionmental impact. i think it stemmed from a newspaper article on how much water is used/wasted on making various products and the article had beer as an example. there was a long discussion that followede. nfi where the thread is though.

 

[Offline]

you guys think that water with starsan would be ok to go on the garden? Have often wondered this.

i don't know i have never used it

IIRC worlds best practice for a brewery is around 2.5 litres of water per litre of beer.
But there are more knowledgeable people here that would know the figures from first hand experience.

 

[captaincleanoff]

yeh? Ive got laminated bench tops that often get covered with starsan spray when doing yeast stuff.. haven't noticed anything..

What happened? Did it just discolour it?

 

[Interloper]

Think about the huge reduction in your carbon emissions though. Less travelling in a car to buy beer, which is delivered and distributed in fossil fuel burning trucks.

Even a trip to the LHBS would get you enough ingredients to brew a lot more beer than you could fit in your car in just one trip to the local bottle-o.

Each carton of commerical beer would have a huge footprint (raw ingredients of beer, packaging, cardboard, ink, printing - the printing industry is notorious for it's use of water/paper especially - transport, storage, refrigeration).

Be mindful of water use, but even still home brewing would definitately be a plus for the environment. 1 bottle of homebrew would almost certainly have a miniscule carbon footprint compared to a bottle of my beloved Hoegaarden Grand Cru flown all the way from Belgium!


Oh man that makes me feel bad - almost bad enough to not drink one tonight...almost!

 

[Pollux]

I throw the water I use to wash my fermenters with out onto the lawn, the grass loves yeast trub....


I may use more water than a commercial brewery for each litre of beer produced, but I try to get as much as possible on the gardens or grass.

 

[A3k]

I wouldn't be supprised if we'd use more energy on a per litre basis to actually make the beer. Commercial breweries can have their heat exchangers cool sweet wort down and heating up water for their next brew simultaneously to save energy/money.

 

[Pennywise]

yeh? Ive got laminated bench tops that often get covered with starsan spray when doing yeast stuff.. haven't noticed anything..

What happened? Did it just discolour it?

Not just discolour it, but took the shiney coat right off the top. Now I have several white patches on the bench. The minister noticed it a few weeks ago, I'm still getting an ear full about it.

 

[Ol'Wobbly]

Interesting topic.

There can be no doubt that, leaving water aside for a moment, HB's consume far less resources than commercial brewers - for all the reasons mentioned in the other posts. Taking water, I estimate that I use about 100-120 litres of water per 30 litre brew, mainly on rinsing. But seeing that about half of that rinse water finishes up on the lawn (even on a damp Adelaide winter's day), is it really wasted?

The more I think about it the more I'm convinced that HB's have much less of an impact on the environment than pub and bottle-o drinkers. :icon_cheers:

2c

 

[Pennywise]

I throw the water I use to wash my fermenters with out onto the lawn, the grass loves yeast trub....

I threw some trub on my veggie patch, it killed all the worms in there. Grass prolly doesn't matter but I'd prefer to keep the worms in my veggie patch, killed em' in about 15 mins

 

[newguy]

Star san is mildly acidic so dumping it on the lawn probably isn't good. I dumped approx 160l of sour porter on an anthill in my backyard 3 years ago. It killed the ants and the lawn and it rendered the soil sterile. Nothing grows there now. I get an earful every time the wife is in the backyard (which is daily).

I'll be first smartarse to mention my HB induced methane emissions (I'm surprised no one else has yet).

 

[Renegade]

"Down the Drain" wasnt the best choice of words. But admittedly 'some' stuff goes dowm my drain - mostly first-rinse of the yeast trub. And i will always try to gear it so if I have a fermenter soaking, i will use the same water to soak another fermenter instead of emptying it out. So I guess that decreases water usage a lot more than I considered. But I find i rinse the hell out of my bottles when we've drank them, as Im a bit paranoid about

All up, about 1 litre (per 1 L of beer) actually goes down the drain, but i would say another 2 litres (per 1 L of beer) at least will go on the lawn and maybe 500ml (per 1 L of beer) of 'clean runnings' end up in the pot plants, which need to be watered anyway.

Although I reckon the stated best practice figure of 2.5/1 is achievable. In fact I'm going to start aiming for it. For starters, I am going to refrain from soaking my fermenters, and scrub them by hand, spray them with S02 every 15 minutes to maintain surface contact etc. And as for no-rinse, I actuaklly am very efficient already, less to do with water savings but more about sparing the no-rinse.

But yea, the offset against carbon emissions is huge, HB would be way ahead in terms of being environmentally sound compared to buying beers over the counter.

Edit - when I say 'lawn' I dont mean grass, but a patch of leaf mulch under a tree. I take no responsibility if someone throws cleaning agents on their lawn and it kills the buffalo. :icon_cheers:

 

[bum]

I wouldn't be supprised if we'd use more energy on a per litre basis to actually make the beer. Commercial breweries can have their heat exchangers cool sweet wort down and heating up water for their next brew simultaneously to save energy/money.

And, even with a fridgemate, those of use who use a fermenting fridge are probably causing more CO2 production per litre as well.

 

[shonky]

Best practice by commercial brewers may be 2.5lt per lt of beer but most breweries use between 6 and 10lt per lt.

I remember visiting Cascade brewery a few years ago and the guide saying that after implementing various water saving initiatives they had reduced their water usage to 10lt per lt! Being the country's oldest operating brewery though, I suppose it would have been harder for them than others.

I believe most of the usage in smaller breweries is in pasteurisation, I have heard you can cut your water usage by about a third is you don't pasteurise.

As far as power goes I would guess that a commercial brewery would use much less power per lt. The bigger the volume the greater the thermal mass. Most breweries (even small ones, say 600lt batch size) will save their cooling water and it will still be hot enough the next day to mash in with.

As far as carbon footprint goes you are better off drinking VB :icon_vomit: - 40% cane sugar or corn starch so doesn't have to go through the energy intensive malting process, virtually no hops (they probably use a dash of iso hops for bitterness), high gravity brewing (making about 7% alc and then diluting so less energy there), I am sure the list would go on....

Cheers

 

[petesbrew]

And, even with a fridgemate, those of use who use a fermenting fridge are probably causing more CO2 production per litre as well.

I only have a bar fridge, however it's a tad old, and some old ones can chew up as much power as a full sized fridge.
As for fermenting, it's brew-with-the-seasons setup for me. no heat pads, no chillers, no pumps and all that.

 

[flattop]

ok i lose about 7 litres in the boil plus say 3 litres in washing and cleaning, the rinsing of the bottles at a rough guess i would use about 35-40 litres from grain to drain (via me).
No fresh water is wasted, everything goes on the garden, starsan goes down the drain but it's small quantities.
90 minutes of electricity for the mash and another for boil.
Co2 from the yeast.

Using grain is probably better for the environment overall and it's recyclable. Also i think there is something to be said for small scale pollution everywhere over large concentrated pollution in one spot. The earth may be able to deal with small amounts widespread rather than all in one place.