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CIP station for breweries

We offer the CIP equipment for a brewery design, supply, installation and commissioning services. Our experts with more than 15 years of experience at the leading company AB InBev will help you modernize your production in line with global industry trends. We bring together the best passionate plant-operating engineers with brewery owners.

CIP station for breweries

Problems with equipment cleaning

The quality of beer is its taste and safety, first of all, bacteriological.

Consumers do not see the production process and expect the manufacturer to comply with the rules, to keep his production line clean.

But any equipment cleaning is a forced outage. Therefore, the manufacturer is interested in reducing its time without compromising the quality of the product. The owner of the brewery wants to sell products without returns. It is also important for him to pay off the investments in CIP station modernization, and find the reliable supplier supporting the equipment after delivery. The interest of the brewer is to ensure the quality of the beer at no extra cost.


The production process participants have their own problems and expectations from the cleaning process.


Tasks of local brewers:
  • The plant-operating engineer
    The plant-operating engineer

    is interested in reducing downtime, and changing production plans due to cleaning as little as possible. He wants to avoid collisions in the maintenance schedule for different types of equipment, but not wait for accidents and breakdowns. At the same time, he wants to control the cleaning process without long period of personal presence.

  • The technical professional
    The technical professional

    is interested in the reliability of the line. He expects the absence of water hammer that leads to breakdowns during CIP cleaning. He also wants to understand the equipment that he serves. For these purposes, he needs an accurate instruction manual and compliance of declared technical features with actual ones. And CIP station energy consumption — the actual consumption of electrical power, thermal energy and water, is not of the least importance.

  • The quality specialist
    The quality specialist

    wants to see hotspots on the line. He needs the convenience of sampling for analysis, the absence of control insensitivity, the availability of records (logs) of the CIP cleaning process. He expects that human errors in the same preparation of cleaning solutions will be minimized.

The expectations of different brewing process participants when cleaning the equipment can be combined into one list:


● reduce downtime;

● achieve physical and bacteriological cleanliness of the line not to degrade the quality of beer;

● prevent accidents;

● maximum control over the cleaning process without personal participation;

● reduce manual operations to avoid the influence of human error;

● avoid resources overconsumption.


CIP (Cleaning in place) stations help to optimize the cleaning process in the brewery. These are automated or semi-automated systems for cleaning various types of food equipment without dismantling it.

Types of CIP stations

CIP system consists of three parts:


● CIP station;

● distribution lines;

● cleaning objects.

In fact, there are only two types of SIP-wash for a brewery: centralized and decentralized.


The first type is most effective in small breweries where the distance between the station and the cleaning objects is short. Centralized systems are also common in those plants where all CIP operations are performed from a single location. It houses one CIP station or a group of them, and from there detergents are delivered to various cleaning objects.


Decentralized CIP systems are more common in large establishments where distances from the central CIP station to cleaning objects can be very long. This type of equipment uses several distributed CIP stations located next to cleaning objects.


In food production, depending on the cleaning objects several CIP stations are often needed. The cleaning process is different for cold or hot surfaces. It is also desirable to separate CIP cleaning of equipment for raw products from pasteurized product lines to avoid the spread of surviving spores and bacteria.



Main stages of CIP cleaning:
  • 1
    Removal of food residues from the equipment

    Scraping, draining, displacement with water or compressed air are used.

  • 2
    Pre-wash

    to remove residual contamination and achieve physical cleanliness.

  • 3

    Washing with detergents

  • 4
    Rinsing with clean water

    to remove residual alkaline or acidic solutions.

  • 5
    Sip cleaning
    disinfection with chemicals or heating for bacteriological purity. This stage is not available in all types of CIP.

The CIP station contains all the necessary equipment for the preparation and storage of cleaning solutions, their distribution to the cleaning objects with the correct flow and temperature, and, finally, the control of the cleaning process.

Choosing a CIP washing station for a brewery

A CIP station design is determined by many factors, so you need to know the answers to the following questions:

  1. How many separate CIP station circuits (that is, equipment to be cleaned and distribution lines) will the station serve?
  2. What are the requirements for cleaning objects — for example, hot or cold surfaces?
  3. Will the rinse water and detergent solutions be reused?
  4. Should the rinse water be collected and then treated?
  5. What disinfection method will be used: chemical, steam or hot water?
  6. What level of automation and control should the system provide:

  • will there be recipes and automatic cleaning programs?
  • is there a connection with cleaning objects?
  • local control or integration into the automatic control system of technological process?

Our experts will model the equipment cleaning process taking into account the needs of your production, offer optimal solutions, select equipment models and organize its delivery.

Who are we?

We are Viravix Engineering Company, an expert community of plant-operating engineers in brewing. Our specialists have worked for AB InBev for more than 15 years, where they have raised through the ranks from an ordinary equipment operator to a regional expert, in whose area of ​​​​responsibility there were 12 breweries in different regions. We are known in the industry by name and are told about our work through word of mouth.

Already as a free-standing business we have implemented dozens of projects in Ukraine and European countries.

We used solutions from mobile CIP equipment for small vessels to multi-circuit CIP stations operating in fully automatic mode.


We use the safety, quality and energy standards of the best world practices of international manufacturers in the design of equipment. Our partner is the Elaks Company, whose specialists have been engaged in turnkey industrial automation for almost 30 years. They performed projects for Nestlé, Wimm-Bill-Dann and other major players in the food industry and the pharmaceutical market.

What will you get in cooperation with us?
At the stage of engineering solution approval:
  • individual approach in solving equipment design issues;
  • design and engineering of SIP systems based on the total cost of operation calculations;
  • making changes to the SIP system based on an accurate 3D model and specifications;
  • workshop with your specialists to study the issues of CIP station design, safety and ease of use;
  • modelling the equipment washing process based on a 3D model of the washing circuit.

These are not leaves without figs. We will confirm our qualifications and experience with the necessary documents, cases.

Possible solutions for optimizing CIP station

First, we will install monitoring systems and, based on data obtained, we will identify personnel errors at all stages of work, dead zones on the line.

These are generally the most common causes of all CIP cleaning losses in a brewery.

Based on the results of the observation, we will offer possible solutions. It can be:


  1. Consultations on the organization of the place of drainage and storage of cleaning solutions. Automatic sampling.
  2. Consultations on the causes of accidents and breakdowns. You will pay for them only if the problem requires in-depth involvement of an expert.
  3. Free spatter neutralization advice.
  4. Vibration analysis. Improvement of the CIP station software to receive notifications of an accident in case of water hammer.
  5. Audit of the causes of water hammer formation and selection of technical solutions.
  6. Restoration of electrical circuits.
  7. Installation of permanent monitoring systems for data collection — external and internal, recorders.
  8. Development of seasonal modes of equipment operation.
  9. Audit of objects and washing processes. Further recommendations, e.g. for diluting detergents.
  10. Technical support for equipment from selected suppliers.

What you need from the list, we will find out after studying the initial data on your production site.

Your additional benefits

You will receive a remote monitoring system that will free your specialists of the need for personal presence during CIP cleaning.

We can offer an additional plus — you will save money on the visit of our engineers to the site in case of incidents and accidents.

The specialist will be able to conduct troubleshooting according to the system data, analyze the possible causes of failures and give technical recommendations remotely. The average savings for remote maintenance is 340 euros per incident.


Opportunities of your choice:

  • availability of automated connections between the SIP station and the cleaning objects;
  • automation of the detergents dosing process to ensure the safety of the equipment without compromising the quality of cleaning;
  • development of different washing modes;
  • automatic analysis of resource consumption with 95% accuracy;
  • ree support from the supplier when optimizing washing processes;
  • organization of a safety shower.


We will make 3D models of equipment for you, and if necessary, we will perform a 3D scan of the premise. You will be able to see how to arrange a CIP station at your production in a best way. If necessary, we will arrange installation of additional equipment and software to control the consumption of water, energy, detergent concentrates.


Another plus of cooperation with us is that we offer only what can be supplied, and where there will be no difficulties with components.


Send a request to Viravix Engineering in any convenient way, and our specialists will contact you. Or call if you have any questions.