Michael Dillenburger (1); (1) Dillenburger & Hertel GmbH, Freising, Germany
Brewery Safety
Poster
In 2013, Dillenburger & Hertel was asked by one of its customers
for a possible solution to proceed with the highly compacted nature hop
vacu packs. The customer complained about the need to disintegrate the
hops taken from vacu packs using saws, hammers and/or picks in order to
achieve a particle size that allows wetting and solution of hops into
wort—otherwise the yield is very poor, and thus, the losses are
incredibly high. Another main issue involving disintegration via saws
and picks is work safety: as the risk of injuries is very likely, the
authorities sometimes require other solutions. Thus, we started working
on the construction of such a machine together with a Bavarian machine
designer who also works for the brewing industry. It was determined that
the machine should enable maximum work safety but still allow
uncomplicated, easy handling. The machine now has a chamber the hop is
placed into. After the chamber cover is closed, the process can be
started by pressing a button. While disintegrating 5 kg of hops from
vacu packs took about 30-40 min with the conventional procedure, the
machine can handle a 5 kg vacu pack within about 8 min. Thus, an
enormous time gain is enabled. But, even more important is the gain in
work safety: all rotating parts of the machine are inaccessible, and the
chamber itself is secured so that the motor stops when the chamber
cover should be removed. It is assumed that the problems the customer in
Germany had also occur with other users of hop vacu packs and that they
are probably even more severe, given that the work safety regulations
in the United States are even more rigorous. In addition, the hop load
for many craft breweries is many times higher compared to German
breweries. The higher the load of hops is, the more evident the gain in
time will be. Thus, the machine often pays back very easily via the
saved labor expenses. In regard to injury, the entire business case is a
no brainer. Thus, we would like to inform people about the new
apparatus. The presentation’s intent is to make brewers in general and
craft brewers in particular aware of an alternative solution in terms of
processing hop vacu packs with higher labor and product quality safety.
Michael Dillenburger was born in 1977 in Trier, Germany. After
attaining to German Abitur (A-level certificate) and his military
service in 1997, he took up his studies in brewing and beverage
technology at Technische Universität München in Weihenstephan. In 2004
he completed his studies with a diploma thesis on the phase equilibria
of wort-relevant aroma components with Dr. Hertel, receiving the
Dipl.-Ing. degree. From 2005 to 2007 Michael worked for Emil Scheibel
Schwarzwald-Brennerei in Kappelrodeck, Germany. As a production manager
he was responsible for the manufacture of the finest fruit spirits,
their distillation, maturation and provision to filling in drinking
strength, as well as the manufacture of liqueurs, their recipes, mixing
and creation. After quitting the branch, he has been working as a CEO
assistant for a patent and law firm near Munich In January 2008 Michael
became head of the sales department of Hertel GmbH, Salzburg, Austria.
That company was founded by Dr. Hertel, Michael’s tutor during his
diploma thesis. The company’s scope was marketing the patent-granted
Rectification Wort Boiling System. In April 2013 he took responsibility
for the company together with Katja Hertel after Dr. Hertel passed away.
For continuation of Dr. Hertel’s ideas, Dillenburger & Hertel
founded a company of the same name.
