What should an electrical thermography survey cover in a brewery or distillery?

The panels that keep the process moving: brewhouse and still-house control panels, pump and agitator starters, glycol and refrigeration plant, compressed air, and the packaging lines, plus the switchboards that feed them. Survey on a brewing or production day with packaging running, record load against each image, and keep the plant’s own process heat out of the electrical findings.

What should be in scope

Incoming supply and main switchboard, and the distribution boards serving each area.
Brewhouse or still-house panels: mill, mash and lauter drives, pumps, agitators and the control panels that run them.
Cooling: glycol chillers, refrigeration plant and cold room panels (see refrigeration plant and cold store panels).
Compressed air and CO₂ plant supplies (see compressed air plant).
Packaging: bottling, canning and kegging line panels, conveyors, labellers and palletisers.
Motor control centres and drives across the site (see MCC and VSD panels on a running line).

Timing: brew day, not cleaning day

A poor connection shows by the heat it gives off when current flows through it. On a cleaning or maintenance day half the plant is idle and shows nothing on camera. Agree a day when the brewhouse or stills are running and the packaging line is on a run. CIP circuits can be caught mid-clean. If brewing and packaging happen on different days, the survey can be split across both (see what load a survey needs).

Keeping process heat out of the findings

Breweries and distilleries are full of heat that has nothing to do with the electrics: kettles, stills, steam lines, hot liquor tanks and wort coolers. Polished stainless steel reflects that heat, so a panel front or busbar can show a reading that isn’t its own. The thermographer images electrical connections with covers off where it is safe, checks suspect readings from a second angle, and judges each one against a matching reference such as the same terminal on the other phases. Only electrical findings go in the report.

Hazardous areas in distilleries

Where spirit is handled, parts of a distillery are classified as hazardous areas. The survey follows the site’s hazardous area rules: equipment inside a zone is only surveyed where the site’s procedures allow it, and many of the control panels that matter sit outside the zone anyway. Agree the route with the site before the day.

What the site gets

A report that locates every finding by board, panel, circuit and phase, with the measured temperature, the difference in °C from its reference and the load at the time. Ti Thermal Imaging issues the report the same day. Ti inspects and reports; the site’s engineers or electrical contractor decide on and carry out any work (see after a survey finds a hot connection).

Why load matters

On a London data centre build, commissioning thermography by our team found 16 busbar sections reading above 80 °C under test load, the highest 103.5 °C at a tap-off unit. They showed because the system was carrying load when it was imaged. A brewery is the same: image it while it is working.

Frequently asked questions

Do we have to stop production?

No. Thermography is non-contact and is carried out with the plant running. Panels are opened by an authorised person, one at a time, where it is safe (see who opens the panels).

How often should a brewery or distillery be surveyed?

Many sites survey once a year, timed ahead of their planned shutdown. Sites running around the clock often add a second survey (see how often a food site should survey).

When should the survey happen in relation to our shutdown?

A few weeks before it, so findings can go on the shutdown work list (see survey before or during a planned shutdown).