• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • About Craft Brewing Business

Craft Brewing Business

Professional Insight, Unfiltered

  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • COVID-19

Five facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing

October 13, 2015Jessica Kane

Stainless Steel Beer Brewing

When you think about two human innovations as diverse as beer brewing and steel, like most, you probably imagine vats full of fermenting malt with hardly a thought that a metal used primarily in modern day automobile and construction industries plays any role in the brewing process at all. However, these two seemingly disconnected technologies merged into an industry process that ultimately changed every household.

Beer brewing comes to us as a 7,000-year-old tradition originating in Mesopotamia. The process is mentioned in ancient Egyptian literature and the end product, beer, is even mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Steel, a carbon alloy of iron, is a nearly 4,000-year-old process, first excavated in weapon artifacts from a site dated at 1800 BC in Antolia which is located in Asia Minor.

Separated by thousands of years, it would be thousands of years more before the two would merge into the modern brewing process. And then the two came to be so seamlessly intertwined that they’ve never really been given a second thought.

Here are five things you probably never knew about steel and beer brewing.

1. Steel replaced the oldest brewing storage tanks, wooden casks.

Steel tanks require less space than wooden casks. They’re easier to clean and cost less to maintain because high-pressure scrubbing and sterilization techniques can be used. Steel tanks can also be built to much larger sizes than wooden casks.

2. Stainless steel used in beer brewing halts battery corrosion.

To understand galvanized battery corrosion: when two metals, or one metal and a contaminant such as dirt, are in close proximity in an electrolyte solution, such as beer, an electrical current will flow through the solution creating a chemical battery with the metals as leads. The metal, which is more active, will ionize as a result. The ions combine with oxygen to create a galvanized corrosion. Stainless steel has less conductivity than other metals used in brewing. Additionally, the resistant coating of stainless steel resists oxidation, putting an end to galvanic corrosion in the brewing process.

3. The majority of brewing equipment is stainless steel.

The brew kettle is copper, but nearly every other item used in modern brewing from piping to storage is made of stainless steel. One of the more interesting steel uses in brewing is the “beer cooler,” which is a device ordinarily constructed from steel tubes, containing an inner set of smaller steel tubes. Usually ammonia or brine is made to flow through the outer tubes, while the beer is streamed through the inner tubes. The result is a cooling process created when the ammonia or brine absorbs heat from the warm beer, thereby cooling the beer to a preset temperature.

4. Stainless steel is used in brewing processes because it does not produce any off-flavors.

Beer is corrosive to storage tanks and transport lines because beer is acidic and contains living micro-organisms which cause corrosion and fouling.

The corrosive resistance of stainless steel keeps out the unusual flavors caused by the corrosive electro-chemical byproducts of the brewing process.

5. The 1935 innovation resulting in the steel beer can played a key role in the creation of the home-based beer consumption market.

Following the end of the Prohibition era, the invention of the steel beer can caused an industry change as breweries expanded their focus from bars into the growing home consumption market.

Just a few things to keep in mind as brewing and steel interact down their own unique paths in your daily life.

jessica kaneJessica Kane is a professional blogger who writes for Federal Steel Supply Inc., a  supplier of carbon, alloy and stainless steel in pipe, tube, fittings and flanges.

First look: The BrewMonitor system automates, live-streams fermentation monitoring to any device
beer serving tanks
Case study: Serving beer right from the tank at Together We’re Bitter Co-operative Brewing
Brewery purchasing trends
Regional brewing equipment purchasing trends: Brewhouses, fermenters, kegs
Cylindroconical fermenter from JVNW
Brewing Vessels Reviewed: Cylindroconical fermenters remain a craft beer staple

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. BeerLawCenter says

    October 16, 2015 at 9:03 am

    THEN we talk surface prep and weld quality! >> 5 facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing http://t.co/WDnDuHXvS8 @CraftBrewingBiz

    Log in to Reply
  2. mrbrewreview says

    October 15, 2015 at 9:30 pm

    Five facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing http://t.co/93lHLcAtSC via @craftbrewingbiz

    Log in to Reply
  3. CrowdBrewed says

    October 15, 2015 at 3:00 pm

    Five facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing https://t.co/NC1CRUibA7 #steel #brewing #beer #industry http://t.co/VbGtXc1dfg

    Log in to Reply
  4. BevvShop says

    October 15, 2015 at 11:30 am

    Five facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing https://t.co/yl6BgcGEqh #steel #brewing #beer #industry http://t.co/W56L9b8TRU

    Log in to Reply
  5. DateBeer says

    October 15, 2015 at 11:15 am

    Five facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing https://t.co/BNhZrs5NLo #steel #brewing #beer #industry http://t.co/fxd2ZNX337

    Log in to Reply
  6. ladiesdrinkbeer says

    October 14, 2015 at 10:39 pm

    RT @LVRGLLC: #CraftBeer #CraftBrewing #Beer #BeerBiz Five facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing http://t.co/vWam1fRb1W

    Log in to Reply
  7. birraslover says

    October 14, 2015 at 4:54 pm

    Five facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing http://t.co/youOHYnI3F

    Log in to Reply
  8. InsuranceGuyKR says

    October 14, 2015 at 2:54 pm

    Five facts you never knew about steel and #craftbeer #brewing… http://t.co/gSBf3iQoYs

    Log in to Reply
  9. Krones AG says

    October 14, 2015 at 7:36 am

    Krones AG liked this on Facebook.

    Log in to Reply
  10. crsimp01 says

    October 13, 2015 at 9:57 pm

    Five facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing http://t.co/IlEycVvdfG via @craftbrewingbiz

    Log in to Reply
  11. Jerry Elliott says

    October 13, 2015 at 5:21 pm

    Jerry Elliott liked this on Facebook.

    Log in to Reply
  12. AlbertaBeers says

    October 13, 2015 at 2:48 pm

    Five facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing: http://t.co/i9fKADN6Yu #craftbeer

    Log in to Reply
  13. JMIheartBeer says

    October 13, 2015 at 2:20 pm

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: Five facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing: http://t.co/WgW1X8uX1z

    Log in to Reply
  14. LVRGLLC says

    October 13, 2015 at 2:17 pm

    #CraftBeer #CraftBrewing #Beer #BeerBiz Five facts you never knew about steel and beer brewing http://t.co/vWam1fRb1W

    Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Latest News

  • Watch: This awareness video on human trafficking from beer wholesaler Markstein Sales will move you to action
  • Distribution updates: Massachusetts brewers celebrate franchise reform, Yuengling goes to Texas with Molson Coors and more from Bell’s, Stone and beyond
  • San Francisco’s Fort Point Beer moves from self-distribution to partner with Matagrano Inc.
  • Craft Brewers Conference rescheduled for Sept., moves from San Diego to Denver, may go online as a backup

Sign up for our newsletter

unsubscribe from list

Most Popular Today

Recent Features

  • Watch: This awareness video on human trafficking from beer wholesaler Markstein Sales will move you to action
    January 14, 2021
  • Distribution updates: Massachusetts brewers celebrate franchise reform, Yuengling goes to Texas with Molson Coors and more from Bell’s, Stone and beyond
    January 14, 2021
  • COVID19 coronavirus mask moneyWhy you need to maximize engagement during a pandemic
    January 13, 2021
  • How the Employee Retention Credit can help breweries that paid employees during the pandemic
    January 12, 2021
  • The role of market research in go-to-market planning for craft breweries
    January 12, 2021
  • Tennessee beer tax rolls through legislatureSummary of new wrinkles to the Craft Beverage Modernization tax provisions via the TTB
    January 11, 2021

Footer

  • Email Newsletter Sign Up
  • About Craft Brewing Business
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise on Craft Brewing Business
  • Media Kit Download
  • Privacy and Terms

© 2021 · CBB Media LLC

Continue ...

sponsored by