GEA has installed a 4-vessel Craft-Star in Washington, US, for craft beer producer DC Brau Brewing Company.
The system is scheduled to begin commercial operation early next year.
The Craft-Star is designed for medium-sized specialty breweries with batch sizes of 40 hectoliters (35 US barrels) hot wort.
The system was previously equipped with two or three vessels (mash tun kettle, lauter tun and combined whirlpool/wort kettle – depending on the configuration) and has been retrofitted with a separate whirlpool by the GEA brewery experts in Kitzingen/Germany.
Now, up to seven brews a day are possible.
The basic configuration already allowed for five brews a day.
The Craft-Star is preassembled and tested in Kitzingen as a compact plug and play system with process piping, instrumentation and a semi-automatic control system.
Commissioning on site takes a few days.
Due to the large share of high-quality special malts in use at most craft beer breweries, the extract efficiency of the brewhouse, based on the lauter tun efficiency, is essential to business success with an extract yield of up to 98%.
“Since the market launch two years ago, the Craft Star has been popular big hit,” says Andreas Holleber, head of the GEA brewery business.
“We now get orders from all around the world.”
“Right now, we are also installing a brewhouse we designed as a complete plant together with other components for a South Korean customer.”
Other orders are taking GEA brewing experts to South Africa, Belgium and Hong Kong.
The US has a very creative, lively and professional specialty beer scene making them the key market for GEA craft beer plants.
Half of the plants designed and manufactured in Kitzingen already went to the US.
GEA installed the first Craft-Star in 2015, for The Bruery in Placentia, California, one of the top players of the craft beer scene in the United States.
