Polypropylene is a proven product for breweries. Just ask Barry Campbell above, vice president of advertising and media relations at Aquatherm. No wait. I did, at the Craft Brewers Conference and BrewExpo America. Aquatherm is a German-engineered product that has actually been around for about 40 years and has been used around the world in a huge amount of applications — plumbing, HVAC, industrial applications — and yes now craft brewing. In fact, close to 100 breweries across the United States and Canada are using Aquatherm polypropylene pipe for a variety of applications (carrying beer to glycol). I’ll give you three reasons why:
- Read the company’s newly published whitepaper, “Aquatherm and LEED v4,” which discusses how Aquatherm products are the only piping systems in North America that can contribute directly to LEED v4 points. That’s a nice environmental boost over traditional piping materials, eh?
- Traditional piping systems use foreign substances (glue, solder) or mechanical connections (gaskets, threads), and these connections eventually fail. Aquatherm polypropylene-random (PP-R) pipe systems use heat fusion — a fast, reliable process that creates seamless, leak-free connections.
- Aquatherm pipe systems are highly inert and don’t react with water or glycol, so they don’t corrode. And they can handle fluid temperatures ranging from -5° F to 200° F. To form a connection, the material is melted and joined together, then allowed to cool. This forms a chemically bonded joint as strong as the pipe itself. Aquatherm fusion outlets also ease system expansion because they’re added by drilling into the pipe and heat-fusing a fitting directly into the pipe wall.
