Summary of CIP Cleaning Knowledge in Beverage Industry

The brewing industry relies on a combination of design, engineering, installation, control, monitoring, maintenance, and cleaning in place (CIP) expertise to maximize production. Beverage filling machine manufacturers are creating products that are specialized and make the CIP process extremely simple.

Design and engineering expertise is particularly valuable when upgrading CIP systems to make water and chemicals more efficient and to optimize the duration and frequency of cleaning cycles.

CIP refers to the various ways that the inside of bottles, pipes, tanks, etc. are cleaned in order to clean them. While CIP is not only a method for the brewing industry, it has functionality in many different type industries.

Filling machine suppliers are providing amazing quality products; everything inside a brewing system is a closed system; meaning, equipment, packaging, tanks, piping, etc. are closed off in order to keep them clean and sterile.

Frequent cleaning of such equipment is necessary to maintain the microbiological and chemical qualities required for the beer produced on that equipment.

As a result, brewing equipment must be cleaned and disinfected in a manner that keeps the equipment closed and safely isolates personnel from very hot chemical cleaning solutions.

In today's large breweries and water bottling plants, the cleaning process is comprehensive and sophisticated, so automation is often required to fully control cost, energy and time management, and consistency. Therefore, the concept of CIP in the modern brewing industry is more than just convenience. Often it is necessary.

CIP cleaning of containers is performed by a liquid sprayer mounted inside the container as part of the structure.

These are usually static spray balls or various types of rotating jets. These devices use hydraulic pressure to direct a spray of cleaning liquid to all parts of the interior surface of the container.

Next, the washing solution, often a hot alkaline detergent or acidic solution, is repeatedly circulated through the container in a manner similar to that of a dishwasher.

The disperser can be designed to gently flush the cleaning liquid over all internal surfaces, or it can be a high impact jet that uses mechanical and chemical energy to remove dirt.

Pipes, pumps, valves, filling machines, and other processing equipment that do not have internal cleaning equipment are CIP cleaned by circulating the cleaning liquid where it comes into contact with beer.

The central unit of the CIP cleaning process is the CIP station or CIP unit. It consists of a number of vessels for the solution plate heat exchanger to ensure the correct temperature of the solution, a pump to circulate the solution at the required pressure, and a flow rate through the route / equipment to be cleaned.

Such units can be automated if needed. Small breweries and breweries often perform the same tasks without a dedicated CIP station, so each brewery uses its own effective equipment using pumps, hoses, and other hand-held equipment. We have devised a new cleaning method.

The corollary of CIP is proper sterilization. It uses similar methods and often uses sterile chemicals to sterilize the inside surfaces of containers and process equipment.