Basic Hose Maintenance Hacks Every Brewery Must Follow!

The brewing scenes are quite vibrant and thrilling always. Your long-built passion to establish a brewery should proceed ahead, taking care at every step of brewery installation and maintenance. There could be a series of challenges your way, but a little bit of research and help is sure to get you moving. Thanks to some of the well-established brewers’ associations and forums, where you get to discuss with fellow mates about many hacks, tips, and provisions.

Now, the most important aspect of breweries is the organization and maintenance, ensuring minimum spoilage and good beer batches in place. While there could be an end number of maintenance ideas, cleaning and sanitation are the fundamental baselines. Besides, following GMP plans, it’s essential to grab onto some basic hack techniques that can make you master brewery hose maintenance. Let’s discover such top 5 hose hacks below!

Series of brewery tanks

1. Keep a list of cleansing and sanitizing tools at handy

Cleanliness is the key element to prevent beer spoilage when you have a lot of fermenting bacteria and brew liquids moving in and out of the huge tanks and hoses. Brewery cleaning basically requires a lot of material-specific cleansing chemicals and sanitizers. Hence, first and foremost, prepare a list of those chemicals. This becomes very handy to keep a track of new purchases as well as available items; preventing the end-minute hurries. Even while storing these chemicals, remember to label and keep them away from those ingredients needed for beer brewing. Organizing and handling are 2 inevitable practices to get the best beer batches outta your brewery.

To check the kind of particular chemical required for an equipment material such as rubber & stainless steel, Chemical Compatibility Charts are useful resources. They provide elaborate explanations of how to use the chemicals. Also, following the practical guidelines under GMP would be beneficial to prep up a checklist of cleaning and sanitizing chemicals. 

2. Follow natural cleaning protocols

Back in the early days of brewing, natural rubber was the popularly available hose material. Yet, the strong unpleasant odor of rubber was irritating and spoiling the quality of beers. The recommended time and temperature must be followed simultaneously to cleanse the equipment effectively. Be it manual cleaning or CIP (Cleaning-In-Place) systems, experiment and figure out the most effective method that’s feasible for you.

Individuals checking equipment

Playing a significant role, initially, the brewery equipment must be cleaned for dirt and leftovers. Later on, sanitizing agents are applied to clear out the bacterial and fungal growths inside hoses, creases, and other fittings.

3. Store brewery hoses safe and secure

Have you ever planned on simply filling brew hoses with chemicals and storing them in circular coils? That might as well push you into some serious trouble! More than often, brewery hoses are always kept tossed around the tanks. But, the memory power of these plastics is way more extensive than our brains, at times. So, even if you don’t retain those specific patterns such as the bents, coils, or winds of the hoses, they might boomerang back which is likely to cause cracks or creases. Now, that could turn into a definite mess!

Instead, you could adopt methods to support the entire hose lengths while storing. Creating arc-shaped or sloping hose racks and draping the hoses around them while they drain out completely, is a great deal for brewery hose storage. When hoses are not in use, capping their ends is a generally good idea. Though this prevents entry of other materials into the hoses, this method might backfire if the hoses aren’t fully dry. So, take note of that too!

Brewery hoses kept in a horizontal rack

4. Record the lifespans of hoses & replace them 

Wondering when would plastics expire? We have simple, yet highly beneficial plastic polymers as the hose materials. Though they could assure a remarkable period of usage, they could still be susceptible to timely tear & wear. As this could drastically turn down the quality of beer batches, it’s better to strategize effectively before any mishap! The best way is to label them with expiry dates as soon as you buy and install them in the brewery. You can use small electric engraving machines to etch the date of installation and expiration at the crimped ends or hose bands.

There could be specific periods for brewery hoses and other fittings. Either find them; if not, decide on a time gap of 3-5 years for them. Turn those labels to your purchase reminders! This helps you get an account of when you need to head out to stock in new sets of equipments. Don’t forget that plastics may seem to stand till eternity, but your beers might get spoilt long before; keep an eye out for managing your brewery accessories.

5. Avoid obsessive cleaning procedures!

Did you feel cleaning the equipment for a really long time would save your day? Absolutely not! As they say, too much of a good thing is still worse, excessive exposure to chemicals can be harmful. It could lower the longevity of hoses significantly. It might not affect the stainless tanks, but your rubber hoses would still be at the phase of risk. These plastic components are resistant to chemical reactions, but not up to such a long extent of the cleansing procedures.

The maximum time advisable for the exposure of hoses & hose liners to any kind of chemicals is 15-20 minutes. For anytime beyond, their service life goes down a lot if you go all the while cleaning & cleaning!

Outside a brewery in America

All the above cleaning and sanitizing hacks are small, yet relevant. While brewery hoses help you improve the brewing techniques, it must be made important to maintain all brewing equipment. With a little care and order, you can easily build an efficient, clean, and well-managed brewery. This applies well and more to all ardent homebrewers as well as the commercial-scale breweries. Happy brewing and cleaning!


Find quality-assured brewery equipment from Brewery Hose Supply and cut down your maintenance expenses!


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