Make every drop count: Optiwia™ improves water efficiency at Nils Oscar Brewery

The challenge

At Alfa Laval, Filippa Kinderdal - Product & Portfolio Manager - emphasizes the critical importance of working with water. Filippa is passionate about helping customers reduce their water usage. For her, it's not just a goal — it’s a necessity. "We can no longer afford to send clean water down the drain," she explains. In brewing, where water makes up roughly 90% of beer, conserving water is essential.

And it’s not just about the water in the final product. Large volumes are also used for cleaning and chilling processes. Finding the best opportunities to save water — even in small steps — is crucial.

Our solution

To address this, Alfa Laval developed Optiwia™, a simple yet effective solution that reduces the water consumption of the separator. Rather than letting non-contaminated water go to waste, Optiwia™ recirculates it. Clean water from the separator is collected in an Optiwia™ tank, and then fed back into the system.

A key feature of Optiwia™ is the "black box", which collects valuable data on water usage and system performance. With Optiwia™, no uncontaminated fresh water goes to the drain, ensuring efficient recirculation throughout the process.

The impact is significant: breweries can save up to 70% of the total water consumption used by the separator.

Nils Oscar Brewery

This success story is exemplified by Nils Oscar Brewery in Sweden. Working closely with Alfa Laval, the brewery established a strong partnership that made the implementation of Optiwia™ easy and effective. "It’s very easy to work with them, and we are very happy to make this machine work," says brewmaster Olle Sundberg.

Thanks to the collaboration, Olle can now focus entirely on brewing. "I don't have to worry about what it’s doing. I just turn it on and focus on the beer," he adds.

By combining a hermetic separator design with Optiwia™, Nils Oscar Brewery now operates a top-class system, excelling in both energy and water efficiency.