Higher wort concentrations are considered an important lever for improving energy efficiency and sustainability in brewery brewhouses. The more concentrated the wort, the less water has to be heated, cooled or treated during production. This reduces energy and water consumption per unit of beer produced and can also make brewhouse systems more compact and cost-effective.
However, existing lautering systems reach technical and economic limits in high-gravity brewing. In the SUD-2030 research project, GEA is therefore taking an integrated approach that treats milling, mashing and lautering as one connected system rather than as separate process steps.
"The performance of a brewhouse does not depend on lautering alone. Milling, mashing and lautering all affect one another, and that is where we see the greatest potential," says Daniel Heller, Project Manager Research & Development at GEA. "Instead of improving each step on its own, we're developing them as one system. This should give breweries more options in how they use resources and design future brewhouses."
Lautering remains a key step in the brewhouse
Lautering has a major influence on the economics of a brewhouse. It affects production times, extract yield, wort quality and overall plant design.
SUD-2030 investigates how milling and mashing can create better conditions for the subsequent lautering process. The project is intended to generate new insights for future brewhouse designs and explore the potential for higher wort concentrations while maintaining stable process conditions. The development work ranges from laboratory studies and pilot-scale trials to a demonstrator operated under near-industrial conditions.
Bringing research and industrial practice together
The project combines expertise in process engineering, plant development and brewing technology at GEA's Kitzingen site, where the company has been developing technologies for the international brewing industry for many decades.
"We are very pleased to receive this support from the Free State of Bavaria," says Jens Neidhardt, Managing Director of GEA Liquid Technologies. "It gives us the opportunity to take this research step by step from the laboratory to pilot trials and then into near-industrial testing. This strengthens our innovation work in Kitzingen and the engineering skills that keep German industrial plant engineering competitive."
GEA is working with research partners in Bavaria, including the Technical University of Munich, to provide scientific support for the project. GEA intends to transfer the findings gradually into industrial applications and validate them under realistic operating conditions.
The Bavarian Transformation and Research Foundation is funding the project through its transformation fund for Bavarian companies undergoing structural change.