It Always Starts with a Clean Brewery

Drew Wiles of Solace Brewing has a pretty simple philosophy on brewing great beer, and he’s not shy about sharing it.

“A clean brewery makes clean beer. Clean beer tastes good,” he said. “Beer that tastes good sells well, and beer that sells well keeps the business going, and gets us all paid so we can take care of our families.”

Wiles along with Jon Humerick founded Solace Brewing in 2017, but they were sold on the importance of cleaning well beforehand. They both worked together at the now defunct Beltway Brewing in Sterling, Virginia.

Wiles started the lab and quality control program in 2014, while Humerick served as Director of Operations, but both wanted to eventually start their own brewery. After gaining experience for a couple years at Beltway, touring other breweries, attending Master Brewers Association of America classes and seminars, and generally asking a lot of questions of anyone who might answer them, they were ready. They seized the opportunity in 2017 along with co-founder Mike Arms, a local CPA who followed his passion for beer and homebrewing to start Solace.

Today the company brews 15,000 barrels a year and provides beer for three locations – the Sterling facility, and outposts at the Washington, DC Navy Yard, and in Falls Church, Virginia.  

Although they brew a variety of types, they are known for their IPAs.

At the heart of Solace is a 20-barrel steam jacketed hot kettle, which is complemented by 19 fermenting vessels (FV), and 4 bright tanks (BT). They also operate a canning line with a depalletizer, filler, seamer, labeler, date coder, and auto PakTech machine.

Wiles and team brew 15-20 times throughout the week. The FVs and BTs are cleaned after each batch is emptied; they CIP with Madison Chemical’s DART 403 B.O. then acid with CIP-300X, followed by a no-rinse sanitizer called OXYWAVE. This quat-free solution is a potent peracetic acid package that attacks and eliminates biofilms and destroys microorganisms.

A pair of three-head keg washers clean, sanitize, and purge kegs when they come back from distribution and before they are refilled with fresh beer.

The brewhouse is cleaned every weekend. Wiles credits a two-stage cleaning process using Madison Chemical cleaning chemicals as the reason that it still looks so good after seven years. “We clean every Saturday. After 15-20 brews per week, we get that thing looking pretty much as good as new with those two chemicals,” recalls Wiles.

The chemicals in question are MadBrew® STONE-ACID (formerly called LD5 Acid) and MadBrew® CAUSTIC-LF + MadBrew® OX-2 (formerly called ENVIRO-CLEAN BOIL OUT).

How it Works

In stage one, MadBrew® STONE-ACID is introduced to the tank to dissolve the crystalline structure of inorganic deposits produced during the wort boiling procedure through a thermodynamic reaction. This is followed by a rinse step before the introduction of MadBrew® CAUSTIC-LF + MadBrew® OX-2, a specialty formulated alkaline designed specifically for hot side brewery cleaning applications. The combination of MadBrew® STONE-ACID and MadBrew CAUSTIC-LF + MadBrew® OX-2 effectively removes inorganic deposits, scale, baked on wort/extract, and lipids from hops. Heat exchanger efficiency is also improved as similar deposits are removed.

To help the Solace team determine appropriate chemical concentrations, MadBrew® STONE-ACID has a color indicator built in. At around a pH of 4.6 the solution will change from its original purple to yellow. This provides a visual reference that the solution is beginning to lose its ability to dissolve the inorganic deposits. After about 20 minutes of cleaning, brewers can turn off the pump to look inside the kettle. If the solution has changed to yellow but visual deposits remain, the concentration was insufficient, and should be increased. If, however, it remains purple and all inorganic deposits are removed, the concentration can be lowered, as too much chemical was used initially. Final concentrations, which are determined by trial and error, are unique to each brewery.

Cleaning times are comparable to single-step processes, but results are achieved without scrubbing, keeping employees from entering confined spaces, which Wiles appreciates. Safety is paramount with Solace.

“We don’t want people to have to get inside and scrub, so we’re making sure our spray balls and our equipment is set up correctly,” Wiles said.

Wiles and his team are firm believers of the keys of cleaning — concentration, time, temperature, what chemical is used, and contact severity.

“If you’re accomplishing those, then you won’t need to have anyone manually scrubbing inside the kettle,” he said.

The same chemical combination that keeps the hot kettle clean, also keeps the brewhouse heat exchanger clear of scale and buildup, so that it functions efficiently.

Having the proper chemicals is a great start, but knowing how to use them effectively and efficiently is also important. Wiles and his team rely on Madison Chemical for both.

The two-stage kettle cleaning process has helped to keep their steam jacketed kettle looking like new. To ensure that everyone knows the cleaning process for this, and all equipment used on site Wiles has developed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). Each one developed to ensure that the proper chemicals are used, in the proper concentrations, at the proper temperature, for a sufficient time, and with enough coverage from the Clean-In-Place (CIP) balls to ensure adequate coverage.

READ MORE: Experience First, Efficiency Second: Developing Your Taproom SOPs

“We have pretty rigid SOPs that we follow — whether you are rinsing a tank, breaking down a tank, cleaning or sanitizing a tank — you name it, and we have a procedure for it,” Wiles said.

Each of the 12 full-time brewers at Solace cleans in some capacity. While some brewers have been practicing their craft for 10 years or more, others have been working in a production brewing environment for just 10 months. So having SOPs for every step of the process certainly helps. Certain brewers are trained on certain SOPs. Some know how to brew, how to CIP the brewhouse, CIP the FVs, CIP the BTs, CIP the canning line, clean the floors … whatever is needed. This allows them to accomplish their Saturday cleaning quickly and efficiently.

“A lot of being a brewer is knowing when and how to clean things, even the floor,” Wiles said.

That is vital, because every member of the Solace team also knows that success starts with a clean brewery.