Brewing, Distilling and Winery HVAC Duct Guide — Lion, CUB, Lark, Penfolds, Sanitary Stainless and ATEX

Why brewing, distilling and winery HVAC is different

Most general-purpose HVAC engineers walking into their first brewery, distillery or winery project underestimate the same five things: the latent humidity load, the carbon dioxide hazard, the ethanol vapour classification, the grain dust explosion class, and the sanitary surface obligation. None of these are unsolvable problems — but they collectively reshape the duct material schedule, the equipment selection, the routing constraints and the commissioning protocol enough that copy-pasting a comfort-cooling specification from an office fit-out simply does not produce a compliant outcome.

This guide is the same engineering brief SBKJ uses with brewery, distillery and winery clients across Australia and the export markets we serve. We have shipped duct production machinery into beverage projects ranging from craft breweries doing 1,000 hectolitres a year to multi-million-litre wine packaging halls and large grain-whisky distilleries. The constants across all three verticals are the standards stack, the material decision tree, the contamination zoning and the explicit hazard analyses. The variables are the temperature gradients, the humidity loads, and which classified hazard dominates: dust on the brewery side, ethanol vapour on the distillery side, or microbial and humidity loads on the winery side.

The structure of this guide follows that logic. We first cover what makes beverage HVAC unique. We then walk through brewery, distillery and winery process flow zone by zone. We map the Australian operator landscape — Lion, Carlton & United Breweries (CUB), Asahi Australia, Coopers, Stone & Wood, Little Creatures, BentSpoke, Lark Distillery, Sullivans Cove, Starward, Archie Rose, Manly Spirits, Husk, Treasury Wine Estates, Pernod Ricard Winemakers, Yalumba, Tahbilk, Brown Brothers, Wynns, Henschke, and the regional clusters in Margaret River, the Yarra Valley, the Hunter Valley, Coonawarra, the Barossa, McLaren Vale, the Mornington Peninsula and Tasmania — because the regulatory and engineering choices look different at each scale and in each region. We then drill into the zone-by-zone HVAC scope: brewhouse, fermentation, cold conditioning, packaging, still room, cask warehouse, barrel hall, cellar door retail and ancillary plant. Finally we cover materials, sanitation, dust explosion, sustainability, craft-scale practicality, and the SBKJ machinery options for fabricating the duct.

1. The five things that make beverage HVAC different

Latent humidity load. A brewhouse boil kettle producing wort at 100 degrees C, mash tuns at 65 degrees C and whirlpool vessels at 90 degrees C drive enormous latent loads into the air over the brewdeck. A 50 hectolitre boil at 8 percent evaporation drives roughly 400 kg of water vapour into the brewhouse air per brew. Generic comfort ductwork sized on sensible load alone will be undersized for moisture removal by a factor of two or three, and the resulting condensation will damage motors, drop water onto open vessels, corrode galvanised duct and breed Listeria-friendly biofilms in the seams. The fix is to size on latent load with explicit vapour hood capture above the kettle and the mash tun, route the moist exhaust to outside without crossing cooler ducts, and pick materials that survive condensation indefinitely.

Carbon dioxide hazard. Active fermentation produces about 4 grams of CO2 per gram of ethanol. A single 100 hectolitre fermenter holding wort at 12 degrees Plato over a five-day primary fermentation produces roughly 700 to 900 kg of CO2. CO2 is colourless, almost odourless and 1.5 times denser than air, so it pools at slab level. The Australian Workplace Exposure Standards align with the international threshold of 5,000 ppm as an 8-hour TWA and 30,000 ppm as a 15-minute STEL. Lethal doses begin around 70,000 to 100,000 ppm in minutes. Every fermentation cellar exhaust system has to pull from low level, alarm at 5,000 ppm, and force lockout at 15,000 ppm. Forgetting this kills people. Our engineering team has seen the post-incident reports.

Ethanol vapour classification. Distillation produces ethanol vapour streams that are flammable. The Lower Explosive Limit (LEL) of ethanol vapour in air is 3.3 percent by volume; the Workplace Exposure Standard is 1,000 ppm 8-hour TWA. Spirit safes, still vapour vents, cask filling stations and bulk ethanol storage all require hazardous area classification under AS/NZS 60079.10.1 and a documented dossier, with HVAC equipment within classified zones carrying matching ATEX or IECEx Ex marking. The classification is not optional; the insurer will not write the policy without it and Safe Work Australia inspectors will issue improvement notices on sight.

Grain dust explosion class. Barley malt, rye, wheat and corn dust are combustible particulates with Kst values typically in the 50 to 200 bar.m/s range — placing them in NFPA 484 dust hazard class St-1. Mill rooms, grain silos, transfer augers and dust collectors are all explosion-prone. The mitigations are a documented Dust Hazard Analysis under NFPA 484, conductive bonded and earthed ductwork, isolated explosion vents on collectors, spark detection upstream and rotary airlock valves to interrupt explosion propagation. The brewery scale matters less than people think — even a 10 hl craft brewery handling 200 kg of malt per brew has enough dust loading to warrant the analysis.

Sanitary surface obligation. A brewery, distillery and winery are food premises under the FSANZ Food Standards Code Chapter 3. AS 4674 explicitly addresses ventilation construction in food premises: smooth, crevice-free, cleanable surfaces, with no internal ledges or insulation that traps moisture. BRC, IFS and SQF — the export-oriented food safety schemes — all reference the same construction principle. In practice this means 304L stainless or 316L stainless ductwork in food-contact and food-zone spaces, with continuous welded seams, internally ground to a finish of Ra 0.8 micrometre or better, and gasketing that is FDA-listed and free of leachable plasticisers. Galvanised duct is permitted in non-food zones (offices, dry stores) but not above open product.

2. Brewery process flow — zone by zone

A modern brewery — whether a 10 hl craft setup or a multi-million-hectolitre regional plant — follows a consistent process flow. Each step has its own HVAC implications. We will walk through them in order.

Malt receiving and handling

Malt arrives in 25 kg bags, half-tonne bulk bags or pneumatic tanker for the larger plants. Receiving generates dust at every transfer point: pneumatic conveying outlets, bag dump stations, silo loading. The HVAC scope is dust collection — typically a centralised baghouse or cartridge filter system sized for the worst-case loading at the silo top, with explosion-vented ductwork bonded to earth. Pickup hoods over bag dump stations are the highest-leverage point: capturing dust at source uses a fraction of the airflow of room-scale dilution. Material is conductive carbon steel or stainless duct (never plain galvanised inside the dust loop) bonded with copper braid across every joint, with resistance to earth verified under AS/NZS 60079.14 to less than 1 megohm.

Milling

The malt mill — whether two-roll, four-roll or six-roll — generates the highest dust loading in the brewery. A 30 hl brewhouse milling roughly 600 kg of malt per brew at 5 percent crush losses produces 30 kg of fine dust per brew, and finer dust is more explosive than coarse. Mill rooms need an isolated dust collection circuit with explosion venting, spark detection and rotary airlock isolation between the collector and the mill. NFPA 484 and the equivalent Australian framework AS/NZS 60079.10.2 both treat the mill room as a Zone 22 dust atmosphere unless mitigations reduce it to non-classified.

Mash tun and lauter tun

Mashing dissolves malt sugars at 65 to 70 degrees C in the mash tun. Lautering separates the sweet wort from the spent grain in the lauter tun. Both are open or semi-open vessels under a vapour hood, and both produce humid hot air at 60 to 70 degrees C. The HVAC scope is vapour hood capture — a properly sized hood over each vessel pulling 1.5 to 2 m/s face velocity, ducted in 304L stainless to a roof discharge stack, with insulation on the vertical drop to avoid condensate raining back into the vessel. Many craft brewhouses have a single combined hood over the whole brewdeck rather than per-vessel hoods; either approach works but per-vessel capture uses less total airflow.

Boil kettle and whirlpool

The boil kettle produces the hottest, wettest air in the brewery — 100 degrees C boiling wort with 6 to 10 percent evaporation per hour. A 100 hl boil at 8 percent evaporation drives 800 kg of water vapour and approximately 220 kW of latent load into the air per hour. The vapour hood over a kettle has to handle this entire load. Modern brewhouses recover this heat: a glycol or water vapour condenser captures the steam, recovers the heat into a hot-liquor tank or wort pre-heater, and reduces the load on the discharge stack. The whirlpool, sitting at 85 to 95 degrees C with no boil agitation, produces a smaller but still significant vapour stream. Both vessels' hoods are 304L stainless with full welded internal seams, no ledges, sloped to drain back into the vessel through a hygienic floor drain.

Wort cooling and oxygenation

Wort is cooled from boil temperature to fermentation pitching temperature (typically 8 to 22 degrees C depending on yeast strain) through a plate heat exchanger using cooling water on the primary side and glycol on the secondary side. The HVAC scope here is mostly indirect: glycol piping enclosures need leak detection, the cooling room itself is air-conditioned to 18 to 22 degrees C, and ventilation must avoid drawing brewhouse vapour into the wort line where it would condense and contaminate.

Fermentation

Fermentation is the most HVAC-critical zone in the brewery. The fermentation cellar holds cylindroconical fermenters at controlled temperatures: lager fermentation runs 10 to 14 degrees C with diacetyl rest at 18 to 22 degrees C, ale fermentation runs 18 to 22 degrees C with conditioning down to 0 to 4 degrees C, and Belgian or wild ale strains may run higher. The cellar must hold setpoint within plus or minus 1 degree C across all vessels concurrently, with active CO2 evacuation to keep workplace concentrations below 5,000 ppm.

HVAC choices here are typically VRF (variable refrigerant flow) for medium plants, DX rooftop or chilled water AHU for larger plants, with low-level CO2 extraction grilles set 200 to 400 mm above slab. CO2 monitors with audible and visual alarms are mandatory. Forced lockout above 15,000 ppm with door interlocks is best practice — and required by some site insurance policies. We have walked into too many small cellar doors where the fermentation vessels are visible and the CO2 monitor was tested in 2019.

Conditioning and cold storage

After primary fermentation, beer is conditioned at 0 to 2 degrees C in conditioning tanks for one to eight weeks depending on style (lagering for traditional pilsner, dry hopping for IPAs, krausening for German wheat beers). The cold conditioning room is the second HVAC-critical zone in the brewery. Vapour barriers must be continuous on the warm side of the wall and ceiling, ductwork joints must achieve Class C leakage performance under AS/NZS 4254, and any duct penetration through the cold envelope must be sealed and insulated to avoid condensation, dripping and ice growth on the duct skin. We cover this in detail in our cold storage and cold chain HVAC duct guide.

Filtration and bright beer

Beer destined for filtered styles passes through diatomaceous earth (DE) filtration, plate-and-frame filtration, or crossflow membrane filtration. The DE filter room generates a respiratory dust hazard from kieselguhr (crystalline silica) that requires local exhaust ventilation per AS 1668.2 with HEPA-grade discharge filtration. Crossflow filtration is wet-process and lower-risk, but the ambient room still needs sanitary ventilation.

Packaging — bottle, can, keg

The packaging hall is the most active and noisy zone in the brewery. High-speed bottling, canning and kegging lines need high-volume displacement ventilation, sanitary surface finishes, washdown-rated equipment to IP65, and air diffuser positioning that does not disturb open-product zones (filler bowl, capper) or blow contamination toward sterile bottle entry. Conveyor lubricant overspray, bottle-warmer steam, can-rinser droplets and pasteuriser tunnel exhaust all add humidity and chemical loads. Modern Australian packaging halls running at 60,000+ bottles per hour rely on dedicated AHUs with H13 HEPA on the filler enclosure supply and washdown-rated 304L stainless duct on the local exhaust.

3. Distillery process flow — zone by zone

A whisky, gin, rum, brandy or vodka distillery shares the front-end with a brewery — milling, mashing, fermentation — and diverges sharply at distillation. Cask storage, bulk ethanol and bottling round out the process. The HVAC implications shift from CO2 toward ethanol vapour classification.

Grain receiving, malting and milling

Grain whisky distilleries (Scotch grain, Irish, Australian) typically buy malted barley externally; some malt-whisky distilleries (a small number of craft Australian players including some Tasmanian operations) malt on site. Malting is a wet process — barley is steeped, germinated and kilned — with significant humidity and moderate dust at the kilning stage. Milling parallels brewing exactly: the same dust hazard analysis under NFPA 484, the same conductive bonded ductwork, the same explosion venting on the collector.

Mashing and fermentation

Distillery mashing is generally less complex than brewery mashing — single-temperature infusion is common — and the wash (the unhopped fermented liquid that goes into the still) is fermented in stainless or wooden washbacks. Fermentation HVAC mirrors brewery fermentation: temperature control, CO2 evacuation, sanitary ductwork. CO2 yields are similar per litre of pure alcohol produced.

Distillation — pot still or column still

This is the defining HVAC zone in any distillery. In a pot still operation (Scotch malt whisky, Irish single pot, Australian craft single malt at Lark, Sullivans Cove, Starward, Bakery Hill, Hellyers Road), the still room contains copper pots heated by direct steam coil or external steam jacket, with a swan neck rising to a condenser. In a column still operation (grain whisky, vodka, rum, neutral spirit, gin neutral base), tall continuous columns produce ethanol vapour at high concentration. Both produce ethanol vapour streams that are flammable.

The vapour vent on top of the spirit safe, the condenser cooling water exit, the foreshots receiver, the feints receiver and the spirit receiver are all classified hazardous locations under AS/NZS 60079.10.1. Typical zoning:

• Zone 0 — inside vessels and pipework where ethanol vapour is continuously present (the vapour space inside a still is Zone 0 internally).
• Zone 1 — immediately around the spirit safe sample tap, the receiver vents and the spirit hydrometer position; flammable atmosphere is likely in normal operation.
• Zone 2 — the broader still room around equipment; flammable atmosphere is unlikely in normal operation but possible if a small leak occurs.

HVAC inside the classified zone has to carry matching ATEX or IECEx marking. Motors are Ex e or Ex d, instruments are Ex i (intrinsically safe), dampers use intrinsically safe actuators, and ductwork is conductive carbon steel or stainless bonded and earthed. Final classification must come from a documented hazardous area dossier with input from a competent person — generic radii are a starting point, not a substitute.

Cask filling and warehouse

New-make spirit at roughly 60 to 70 percent ABV is reduced with water and filled into casks — ex-bourbon for most Scotch and Australian malt whisky, sherry for some, port and madeira for others, and an increasingly creative range of fortified-wine and beer-cask finishes for Australian craft distillers. The cask filling station is a Zone 1 location; the surrounding cask filling room is typically Zone 2.

The warehouse itself is the HVAC oddity in the entire beverage industry. Most traditional dunnage and racked warehouses (Lark in Tasmania, Sullivans Cove in Cambridge Tasmania, Starward in Port Melbourne, Bakery Hill in Victoria, Hellyers Road in Burnie, Limeburners and Tiger Snake at Great Southern, Archie Rose in Sydney, Manly Spirits, Husk in Tumbulgum) are deliberately unconditioned with controlled passive ventilation only. The reason is process: the angels' share evaporation, the slow oxygen ingress through cask wood and the day-night temperature swing all interact with the cask wood chemistry to produce the ester, vanillin and lactone development that defines mature whisky. Climate control would suppress the process.

HVAC scope on a traditional dunnage warehouse is therefore limited to monitoring instrumentation, fire detection, modest mechanical ventilation to manage ethanol vapour build-up, and explosion relief venting. Modern climate-controlled warehouses do exist — some North American producers and a small number of Australian operations have moved this way — but they are a deliberate stylistic choice with a different flavour profile, not the default.

Bottling and packaging

Distillery bottling halls parallel brewery packaging halls except the product is high-ABV liquid and the room itself becomes a hazardous area in proximity to the bottle filler. AS 1940 (storage and handling of flammable and combustible liquids) applies to bulk ethanol storage feeding the filler, and the room ventilation is sized to keep ambient ethanol vapour concentrations below 25 percent of LEL under worst-case spill scenarios.

4. Winery process flow — zone by zone

Winemaking diverges from brewing and distilling in fundamental ways. There is no boil; the temperature ceilings are lower; the grape sugars are already present rather than enzymatically extracted; and the maturation in oak is the centrepiece of the process for premium wines. The HVAC implications shift from grain dust toward humidity, temperature stability and microbial control.

Harvest and crushing

Vintage in Australian wine country runs broadly January through April depending on region — Hunter Valley earliest, then Margaret River and McLaren Vale, then the Yarra Valley, Coonawarra and the Barossa, with Tasmania and the Adelaide Hills latest. During vintage the crush pad is the highest-throughput zone in the winery: hoppers, destemmers, crushers, must pumps and primary fermentation tanks all running 24/7. HVAC scope is general ventilation, fly and pest exclusion, and odour management toward the boundary if neighbours are sensitive (cellar door visitors, residential receptors).

White wine fermentation

White must is pressed before fermentation and the juice ferments in stainless steel tanks at 12 to 18 degrees C — cold for delicate aromatic varieties like Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc, warmer for Chardonnay and Semillon. Tank cooling is via internal coil or jacket fed from a glycol chiller; ambient room HVAC keeps the white tank hall at 16 to 20 degrees C with active CO2 evacuation. Cold soak rooms used for some white winemaking styles operate at 4 to 8 degrees C with full cold-storage construction.

Red wine fermentation

Red must ferments on skins (the cap) at 22 to 30 degrees C in open or closed tanks, with regular pump-overs or punch-downs to extract colour and tannin. Open fermenters generate large CO2 emissions over the cap into the cellar atmosphere. Australian red wine makers — Penfolds, Wolf Blass, Lindemans, Rosemount, Wynns, Henschke, Yalumba, Tahbilk, Brown Brothers, the McLaren Vale and Barossa premium operations — typically use a mix of open concrete or stainless tanks for top-end wines and closed tanks for volume. HVAC handles ambient cooling, CO2 evacuation, and removal of vintage-period thermal load from heat-of-fermentation.

Pressing and racking

Pressing extracts the wine from the lees (yeast and grape solids). Bladder presses are universal; the press hall HVAC is similar to fermentation in scope but with shorter occupancy patterns (concentrated during vintage, quiet for the rest of the year).

Malolactic fermentation

Most Australian red wines and many Chardonnays go through malolactic fermentation (MLF), where Oenococcus oeni converts sharp malic acid to softer lactic acid. MLF runs warm — 18 to 22 degrees C — and the rooms used for MLF are deliberately heated above ambient cellar temperature. Some wineries co-locate MLF with primary red fermentation; others run it in a dedicated warm room.

Barrel hall and oak ageing

The barrel hall is the most HVAC-defining zone in a premium winery. French oak (Allier, Vosges, Tronçais) and American oak barrels hold wine for 6 to 36 months. The target environment is 12 to 16 degrees C and 65 to 75 percent relative humidity. Below 65 percent RH the wine evaporates faster than the alcohol — concentrating alcohol and stripping fruit. Above 75 percent RH the cooperage and the cellar timber accumulate mould.

HVAC scope is cooling and dehumidification in summer, humidification in winter, and very slow air movement to avoid drying barrel surfaces. The barrel hall itself often uses subterranean construction (Coonawarra, Henschke's Hill of Grace cellars, parts of Yalumba and Tahbilk) which provides natural temperature stability; modern above-ground barrel halls (large parts of Treasury Wine Estates, Pernod Ricard Winemakers, the larger Margaret River and Yarra Valley operations) use full mechanical conditioning. Either way the duct material is typically galvanised in this non-food-zone application — barrels are sealed, the air does not contact open product — but with construction tolerances tightened for low-leakage operation.

Blending and bottling

Blending is bench-scale and laboratory-style; the lab itself needs comfort HVAC at the level of an analytical laboratory. Bottling is a packaging hall analogous to a brewery packaging hall — high airflow, sanitary surfaces, washdown-rated, displacement ventilation.

Cellar door retail

Almost every Australian winery has a cellar door — the retail and tasting front-end that drives margin and brand. Cellar door HVAC is comfort cooling with humidity control, scoped like a hospitality fit-out rather than a process facility. Margaret River, the Yarra Valley, the Mornington Peninsula and the Hunter Valley cellar doors run hospitality at scale; HVAC scope here is occupant comfort and odour management (separating tasting room from cellar smells from kitchen smells).

5. The Australian brewing landscape — Lion, CUB, Asahi, Coopers, craft

The Australian brewing market is structurally a duopoly with a thriving craft tail. Knowing the operators matters because the HVAC scope, the standards stack and the auditing intensity scale with the operator profile.

Lion operates Tooheys (Lidcombe NSW), XXXX (Milton Brisbane), James Boag (Launceston Tasmania), Little Creatures (Fremantle WA and Geelong Vic), White Rabbit (Geelong Vic) and a portfolio of smaller brands. Lion's HVAC standard is industrial-grade — full BRC and SQF compliance, third-party audits, formal hazardous area dossiers across all distilling-related operations.

Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) — now operating under Asahi after the 2020 acquisition — runs VB, Carlton Draught, Crown Lager, Pure Blonde, Great Northern and the Yatala (Queensland), Abbotsford (Melbourne) and other major sites. The same standards stack applies; CUB has historically been an early adopter of CO2 capture from fermentation for re-use in carbonation.

Asahi Australia beyond CUB owns the broader beverages business including Schweppes, Pepsi (under licence), Cottees, Cool Ridge water, Solo and the rest. The non-alcoholic packaging halls share most of the HVAC scope with brewery packaging halls — same sanitary stainless, same washdown-rated equipment, same displacement ventilation — but without the fermentation cellar CO2 hazard.

Coopers Brewery in Regency Park Adelaide remains the last major family-owned Australian brewer, and the only large-scale producer still using bottle-conditioned ales. Their HVAC scope includes full cold conditioning for lagering plus ambient warm-storage for bottle fermentation in retail packs.

Craft brewers across Australia — Stone & Wood (Byron Bay NSW), Little Creatures and White Rabbit (under Lion), 4 Pines (Manly NSW), BentSpoke (Canberra), Burleigh Brewing (Burleigh Heads QLD), Bridge Road Brewers (Beechworth Vic), Mountain Goat (Richmond Vic, Asahi-owned), Holgate (Woodend Vic), Hawkers (Reservoir Vic), Mornington Peninsula Brewery, Akasha (Five Dock NSW), Modus Operandi (Mona Vale NSW), Wayward Brewing (Camperdown NSW), and dozens more — span 1,000 to 100,000 hectolitres a year. The HVAC scope shrinks accordingly. A 5,000 hl brewery often combines fermentation cellar and cold conditioning into a single low-temp zone, runs CIP exhaust through a single chemical-resistant stack, and uses VRF for the cellar with a dedicated chiller for tank cooling.

6. The Australian distilling landscape — Lark, Sullivans Cove, Starward, Archie Rose, Manly Spirits, Husk

Australian craft distilling has gone from a curiosity in the early 2000s to a global force, and the HVAC scope at the larger players is now industrial-grade. Lark Distillery in Tasmania — the original Australian whisky distillery — operates multiple sites including the original Hobart distillery and the larger Pontville production facility. Sullivans Cove in Cambridge Tasmania holds World's Best Single Malt awards. Starward in Port Melbourne runs a substantial production scale built around Australian wine cask finishes. Archie Rose in Rosebery Sydney pioneered Australian craft gin and now also runs whisky maturation. Manly Spirits on Sydney's Northern Beaches focuses on coastal-botanical gin and aquavit. Husk Distillery in Tumbulgum NSW produces Ink Gin and Husk rum. Bakery Hill and Hellyers Road are long-established Victorian and Tasmanian malt operations. Limeburners in Albany WA and Kangaroo Island Spirits are notable regional operations. Ned Whisky (Australian Whisky Holdings) operates at the larger industrial end. Castle Glen, Mount Uncle, Black Gate, Belgrove, Adams, Killara, Spring Bay, Old Kempton, Iron House, Shene Estate, Nant and many others fill out the Tasmanian whisky scene specifically.

HVAC scope across this group spans roughly:

• Tasting room and cellar door — comfort HVAC, hospitality scope.
• Mash and fermentation — sanitary stainless, CO2 evacuation, identical to brewery scope.
• Still room — ATEX or IECEx classified zone, Ex motors and dampers, conductive bonded duct, ethanol vapour management.
• Cask filling room — Zone 1/2 around filling station, AS 1940 compliance for bulk ethanol piping.
• Cask warehouse — minimal HVAC, controlled passive ventilation, fire detection, ethanol vapour monitoring.
• Bottling hall — sanitary stainless, washdown-rated, displacement ventilation analogous to brewery packaging.

7. The Australian wine landscape — Treasury, Pernod Ricard, Yalumba, Penfolds, Tahbilk, Brown Brothers, Wynns, Henschke

Australian wine is structurally distinct from beer and spirits in that it is geographically dispersed across roughly 65 designated regions and the producer mix runs from family operations of a few thousand cases per year to global megabrands. The HVAC scope reflects that span.

Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) owns Penfolds (the icon), Wolf Blass (Barossa), Lindemans (Hunter origin, multi-region now), Rosemount (Hunter and Coonawarra), Wynns Coonawarra Estate, Seppelt (Great Western), Saltram (Barossa), Pepperjack, Devil's Lair, Heemskerk, Coldstream Hills (Yarra Valley) and many others. Pernod Ricard Winemakers owns Jacob's Creek (Barossa), Wyndham Estate (Hunter Valley), Stoneleigh, Brancott Estate (NZ but managed from AU), Orlando, Poet's Corner. Accolade Wines owns Hardys, Banrock Station, Houghton, Petaluma, Bay of Fires, Croser. These three operate at industrial scale with full BRC, IFS or SQF compliance and HVAC scopes equivalent to large food-and-beverage plants.

Family-owned and mid-tier operations include Yalumba (the oldest family-owned winery in Australia, Barossa), Tahbilk (Nagambie Lakes Vic, sixth-generation family), Brown Brothers (Milawa Vic, fourth-generation), Henschke (Eden Valley, including Hill of Grace), Wynns (Coonawarra, now under TWE), De Bortoli (Riverina and Yarra Valley), Tyrrell's Wines (Hunter Valley), McGuigan, Peter Lehmann, Grant Burge, Jim Barry, Kilikanoon, Rockford, Torbreck, St Hugo, Yangarra, Tim Adams, Wirra Wirra, d'Arenberg, Hardys, Mount Mary, Yarra Yering, Yeringberg, Domaine Chandon Australia, De Bortoli, Oakridge, Giant Steps, Heemskerk, Pipers Brook, Frogmore Creek, Stefano Lubiana, Bay of Fires, Stoney Vineyard, Domaine A.

The Australian wine regions to know — each with its own climate-driven HVAC implication — include:

• Margaret River (WA) — Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc-Semillon. Maritime, mild winters and warm dry summers. Summer dehumidification, mild winter humidification.
• Yarra Valley (Vic) — Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, sparkling. Cool to cool-moderate. Moderate dehumidification load.
• Hunter Valley (NSW) — Semillon, Shiraz, Chardonnay. Subtropical-influenced, humid summers. High dehumidification load all year.
• Coonawarra (SA) — Cabernet Sauvignon on terra rossa over limestone. Cool maritime. Moderate humidification in summer, mild dehumidification in winter wet periods.
• Barossa Valley and Eden Valley (SA) — Shiraz, Riesling. Warm continental Barossa, cooler Eden. Significant summer dehumidification.
• McLaren Vale (SA) — Shiraz, Grenache, Cabernet. Maritime-influenced warm. Summer dehumidification.
• Mornington Peninsula (Vic) — Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris. Cool maritime. Mild loads year-round.
• Adelaide Hills (SA) — Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, sparkling. Cool elevation. Moderate loads.
• Tasmania (Tamar Valley, Coal River, East Coast, Pipers River, Huon) — Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, sparkling. Cool to cold maritime. Lower dehumidification, more winter humidification.
• Clare Valley (SA) — Riesling, Cabernet, Shiraz. Continental warm. Summer dehumidification.
• Heathcote, Bendigo, Beechworth, King Valley, Rutherglen (Vic) — Shiraz, Italian varieties, fortifieds. Continental.
• Riverina, Riverland, Murray-Darling — irrigated bulk-wine regions, hot continental. Significant cooling load on white wine fermentation halls; barrel use is limited.

8. Standards stack — what governs beverage HVAC in Australia

The standards stack for a brewery, distillery or winery in Australia is multi-layered and any project specification has to walk through all of them.

• FSANZ Food Standards Code Chapter 3 — food premises requirements. The legal floor for any food business in Australia and New Zealand.
• AS 4674 — Design, construction and fit-out of food premises. Explicitly addresses ventilation construction — surfaces must be cleanable, smooth and free of crevices. This is the primary Australian reference for sanitary ductwork.
• AS 1668.2 — Mechanical ventilation in buildings. Sets minimum outdoor air, exhaust requirements by occupancy class, and commissioning protocols.
• AS/NZS 4254 — Ductwork construction. Pressure classes, leakage classes, sealing and joining methods. The reference for fabrication tolerances.
• NFPA 91 — Standard for exhaust systems for air conveying of vapours, gases, mists and particulate solids. Used internationally as the design reference for industrial exhaust including brewery and distillery applications.
• NFPA 33 and NFPA 34 — Standards for spray application using flammable or combustible materials. Cited for any spirit-spray or finishing operation in distillery bottling.
• NFPA 484 — Standard for combustible metals and combustible particulate solids. The reference for grain dust hazard analysis.
• AS 1940 — Storage and handling of flammable and combustible liquids. Critical for bulk ethanol storage at distilleries and bottling halls.
• AS/NZS 60079.10.1 — Hazardous area classification for explosive gas atmospheres. The gas/vapour version, used for ethanol vapour zoning around stills.
• AS/NZS 60079.10.2 — Hazardous area classification for explosive dust atmospheres. The dust version, used for grain dust zoning around mills.
• AS/NZS 60079.14 — Electrical installations in hazardous areas. The downstream wiring standard for HVAC equipment in classified zones.
• AS/NZS 4360 / ISO 31000 — Risk management principles. Underpins the Dust Hazard Analysis methodology.
• EPA Victoria, NSW EPA, EPA SA, EPA WA, EPA Tasmania, EPA QLD — state-level air, odour and noise permits depending on site location and scale.
• BRC, IFS, SQF — Global Food Safety Initiative recognised schemes. Audit-driven, all reference cleanable HVAC.
• USDA HACCP, FDA Food Code — relevant for export to North America.
• Codex Alimentarius General Principles of Food Hygiene — the international hygiene framework underpinning all of the above.

The audit pattern across export-oriented producers is typically: BRC at the global level, FSANZ Chapter 3 at the legal floor, AS 4674 at the construction detail level, AS 1668.2 for ventilation rates, AS/NZS 4254 for ductwork specification, and the NFPA stack imported into the project specification where the local Australian standard is silent (NFPA 91 for industrial exhaust, NFPA 484 for grain dust). Most consultants we work with default to this stack.

9. Brewhouse HVAC — vapour, CIP, malt dust, glycol

The brewhouse is where multiple HVAC scopes converge. We see the same fabrication and specification mistakes repeated across project sizes.

Vapour management. The kettle vapour stack must capture 100 percent of boil vapour with no flash-back into the brewhouse. Sized at face velocity 1.5 to 2 m/s into the hood, ducted in 304L stainless with full welded internal seams, no internal ledges, vertical with a sloped horizontal section back to a hygienic floor drain to capture condensate. The discharge stack height is set under the local EPA odour permit — in Victoria, that means an EPA Victoria works approval if the brewery is above the licensable threshold. Heat recovery via vapour condenser is now standard at 50,000 hl plus and increasingly common in craft.

CIP exhaust. Clean-in-place cycles use caustic (typically 2 to 4 percent NaOH at 70 to 85 degrees C) and acid (typically 1 to 2 percent nitric or phosphoric at 50 to 60 degrees C) circulated through tanks and lines. The exhaust during return-to-tank phases carries caustic and acid mists. Material: polypropylene-lined ducting or 316L stainless. Fan wheel coatings: chemical-resistant epoxy or PFA. Discharge stack: per state EPA permit. We have seen one project use ordinary galvanised CIP exhaust ducting which corroded through in 14 months — the saving on sticker price was less than the replacement.

Malt dust collection. Per NFPA 484. Conductive bonded ductwork, isolated explosion vent on the dust collector, spark detection and extinguishing system upstream of the filter, rotary airlock between the dust collector and the conveyor. The brewery scale matters less than people think — even a 10 hl craft setup processing 200 kg of malt per brew has enough loading to warrant the analysis. Auditors check this.

Glycol piping considerations. Brewery cooling is typically secondary glycol fed from primary ammonia or HFC compressors. Glycol piping enclosures should be ventilated and leak-detection equipped — propylene glycol is food-safe but ethylene glycol is not, and ammonia secondary refrigeration carries its own toxicity hazard requiring AS/NZS 60079 zoning if used.

10. Fermentation cellar HVAC — temperature, CO2, asphyxiation

Fermentation cellar HVAC is where the highest-stakes safety design happens. The asphyxiation hazard from CO2 displacement is real and lethal. Best-practice scope:

• Setpoint stability. Plus or minus 1 degree C across all fermenters concurrently. Lager 10 to 14 degrees C primary, 18 to 22 degrees C diacetyl rest. Ale 18 to 22 degrees C primary, 0 to 4 degrees C conditioning.
• Cooling source. VRF for medium plants, DX rooftop or chilled-water AHU for larger plants. Tank cooling jackets fed from glycol chiller separately.
• CO2 evacuation. Low-level extraction grilles 200 to 400 mm above slab. Air change rate 6 to 12 ACH typical, more during racking.
• CO2 monitoring. Fixed monitor in cellar at breathing height (1.5 m above slab) plus second monitor low (300 mm above slab). Audible and visual alarm at 5,000 ppm, forced lockout at 15,000 ppm.
• Emergency power. Cellar exhaust must remain operational on emergency power. Power loss with active fermentation is a category-A asphyxiation risk.
• Door interlocks. Best practice on insurance-driven sites: door interlock that prevents entry if CO2 monitor is in fault state.
• Confined space entry. Inside fermenters during cleaning and inspection requires confined space entry permit and atmospheric monitoring under WHS regulations.

Material is typically 304L stainless for cellar exhaust, sealed to Class B leakage performance under AS/NZS 4254. The combination of high humidity (saturated air during active fermentation), low temperature (down to 0 degrees C in cold conditioning) and CO2 acidity makes galvanised duct a poor choice in the cellar even if it would be permitted in a non-food zone elsewhere on site.

11. Cold conditioning and cold storage HVAC

Lagering tanks, cold conditioning rooms and bright beer tanks all run at 0 to 2 degrees C. The HVAC scope is full cold-storage construction — vapour barriers continuous on the warm side, low-leakage Class C ductwork joints, insulation continuous through penetrations, and condensation management at the duct skin. We cover the full cold-storage scope in our cold storage and cold chain HVAC duct guide.

The single most common failure mode in brewery cold rooms is condensation dripping onto open conveyors or product surfaces from poorly insulated duct penetrations. The fix is straightforward — continuous insulation through the penetration, drip pans, sealed vapour barrier — but every retrofit we have seen has been more expensive than getting it right at first install.

12. Packaging hall HVAC — bottle, can, keg, sanitary, washdown

Packaging halls combine high airflow, sanitary surfaces and washdown environments. Scope:

• Displacement ventilation. Low supply at 18 to 22 degrees C, high return. Avoid mixing ventilation that disturbs open product zones.
• Filler enclosure HEPA. H13 HEPA on the filler local supply for craft to mid-volume; large-format breweries (Lion, CUB, Coopers) use H13 or H14 HEPA depending on the product — bright beer with longer shelf-life requires more aggressive filtration.
• Washdown rating. All packaging hall mechanical equipment to IP65 or IP66. Duct surfaces must survive daily caustic foam wash.
• Sloped duct. All horizontal ductwork in washdown zones sloped 1:100 minimum to a hygienic floor drain.
• Material. 304L stainless minimum. 316L where chloride exposure is significant (caustic-citric CIP, coastal sites).
• Air diffuser positioning. Diffusers must not blow air across the open neck of an unfilled bottle or can. Diffuser velocity at the product zone below 0.25 m/s.
• Pasteuriser tunnel exhaust. Tunnel pasteurisers (where used) drive significant humidity into the hall. Local exhaust hood over the tunnel inlet and outlet.

13. Distillery still room HVAC — ATEX, ethanol, fire suppression

The still room is the most demanding HVAC zone in any beverage facility. The classified hazardous zone around the spirit safe and still vapour vents requires HVAC equipment with matching ATEX or IECEx Ex marking. Scope:

• Hazardous area dossier. Mandatory under AS/NZS 60079.10.1. Must be authored by a competent person and reviewed against the actual installed equipment, not theoretical.
• Ex-rated equipment. Motors Ex e or Ex d, instrumentation Ex i (intrinsically safe), damper actuators intrinsically safe, all electrical wiring to AS/NZS 60079.14.
• Bonded conductive ductwork. Resistance to earth verified less than 1 megohm at every joint. Copper braid bonding straps across flanged joints.
• Anti-static lining. Where required by the dossier — depends on the installed ethanol vapour concentration profile.
• Ventilation rate. Sized to keep ambient ethanol vapour below 25 percent of LEL under worst-case spill scenarios. Typical air change rate 12 to 30 ACH for the still hall.
• Ethanol vapour monitoring. Fixed monitor at high level (ethanol vapour rises slightly relative to air on a hot stream). Alarm at 1,000 ppm 8-hour TWA exposure level, lockout at 25 percent of LEL.
• Fire suppression. Foam or gaseous suppression integrated with HVAC shutdown. Fire alarm interlock to stop ventilation that would feed a still room fire with oxygen.

14. Whisky cask warehouse HVAC — angels' share and minimal HVAC

The cask warehouse is the HVAC oddity of the entire beverage industry. Most traditional dunnage warehouses (the large mature whisky warehouses at Lark, Sullivans Cove, Starward, Bakery Hill, Hellyers Road, plus the Scotch and Irish equivalents) are deliberately unconditioned. The maturation chemistry — angels' share evaporation, slow oxygen ingress through cask wood, day-night temperature swings interacting with cask staves — depends on warehouse breathability, not climate control.

HVAC scope is therefore limited to:

• Passive ventilation. Roof vents and louvred wall openings sized to provide enough air change to manage ethanol vapour build-up but not so much that the maturation environment is disturbed.
• Ethanol vapour monitoring. Fixed monitors at high points where ethanol vapour can pool.
• Fire detection. Aspirating smoke detection or beam detection across the warehouse volume.
• Explosion relief venting. Where the building geometry creates a potential overpressure scenario in a fire event.
• No mechanical conditioning in the maturation hall itself.

Climate-controlled warehouses do exist — a small number of North American producers and one or two Australian operations have moved this way — but they produce a different flavour profile from traditional warehousing. The choice is stylistic, not engineering.

15. Winery HVAC — barrel hall, MLF rooms, cold soak, cellar door

Winery HVAC scope is dispersed across multiple distinct rooms each with its own setpoint and tolerance.

• White tank fermentation hall — 16 to 20 degrees C ambient, internal tank cooling separately, CO2 evacuation, sanitary stainless duct.
• Red fermentation hall — 22 to 30 degrees C process, ambient room kept at 18 to 22 degrees C for worker comfort, CO2 evacuation, vapour management above open fermenters.
• Cold soak room — 4 to 8 degrees C, full cold-storage construction.
• Malolactic fermentation room — 18 to 22 degrees C, often a small dedicated warm room rather than full hall conditioning.
• Barrel hall — 12 to 16 degrees C, 65 to 75 percent RH, slow air movement, dehumidification in summer, humidification in winter.
• Bottling and packaging hall — sanitary stainless, washdown-rated, displacement ventilation analogous to brewery packaging.
• Cellar door retail — comfort cooling and humidification, hospitality scope.
• Lab — analytical lab HVAC, fume hood scope where needed.

The barrel hall is the most distinctive scope. Below 65 percent RH the wine evaporates faster than the alcohol, concentrating the alcohol and stripping fruit; above 75 percent RH cooperage and cellar timber accumulate mould. Maintaining the band requires explicit humidification capacity and dehumidification capacity, often with reheat to manage humidity independently of temperature. Subterranean barrel halls (Coonawarra, parts of Yalumba and Tahbilk, Henschke's Hill of Grace cellars) get most of the temperature stability from earth coupling and need only limited mechanical conditioning. Above-ground halls need full mechanical conditioning.

16. Materials — 304L, 316L, galvanised, polypropylene, FRP

The per-zone material schedule for a brewery, distillery or winery looks like this:

• 304L stainless (1.4307) — sanitary food-zone HVAC. Brewhouse vapour hoods, fermentation cellar exhaust, packaging hall, cellar duct in winery white tank halls. The default for any duct above or near open product. Continuous welded seams, internal grinding to Ra 0.8 micrometre or better. Fully covered in our galvanized versus stainless steel duct guide.
• 316L stainless (1.4404) — chloride-exposed environments. Coastal sites (Margaret River, Mornington Peninsula, Tasmania, Sydney Northern Beaches), CIP chemical exhaust where caustic-citric or caustic-nitric cycles dominate, brine cleaning. Cost premium roughly 1.4 to 1.6 times 304L on material alone.
• Galvanised G90 (Z275) — non-food-zone HVAC. Offices, dry stores, barrel halls (where the cooperage seals the wine from the air), warehouse passive ventilation, bulk silo dust collection (with conductive bonding). Cost benchmark — galvanised is roughly 4 to 6 times cheaper than 304L on material alone, so the cost calculus drives careful zone-by-zone material specification.
• Polypropylene-lined steel — caustic and acid CIP exhaust. The polypropylene survives the chemistry; the steel provides the structural strength.
• FRP (fibreglass reinforced plastic) — high-humidity non-food applications. Some winery sites use FRP for cellar exhaust and chemical store ventilation.
• PVC and CPVC — small-bore chemical and laboratory exhaust. Not suitable for primary HVAC duct but appears in lab and CIP plant rooms.

The key engineering decision is where to draw the boundary between food-zone and non-food-zone. AS 4674 and the export schemes BRC/IFS/SQF tend to draw it broadly: any room where open product is exposed to the air at any point in the process, plus the rooms feeding it via shared HVAC systems. For a brewery this typically means brewhouse, fermentation cellar, cold conditioning, filtration, packaging — essentially everything from mash tun to filler. For a winery: white tank hall, red fermentation hall, cold soak, MLF, bottling. The barrel hall is the boundary — barrels seal the wine, so the air is technically not in food contact, but many premium producers default to stainless anyway for cleanliness.

17. Sanitation requirements — BRC, IFS, SQF, FSANZ, Codex

The audit-driven food safety schemes — BRC, IFS, SQF — are the practical specification driver for export-oriented producers. All three reference cleanable HVAC with smooth crevice-free seams, continuous welded joints in food zones, and documented cleaning protocols.

The audit checklist that we see used most often by certifying bodies looks roughly like:

• HVAC ducts in food zones constructed of food-contact-suitable material with documented mill certificates.
• Continuous welded internal seams with no exposed insulation, ledges or pockets that would harbour Listeria or biofilm.
• Internal surface finish to a documented Ra value (typically 0.8 micrometre or better).
• Cleanable access points at intervals not exceeding 6 metres along food-zone duct runs.
• Documented cleaning protocol with frequency, chemistry, and verification (ATP swab, visual, riboflavin coverage).
• Sloped duct runs in washdown zones with hygienic drains.
• Filter changes documented with filter integrity test records.
• Pressure differential between food zones and non-food zones documented and monitored.

The FSANZ Food Standards Code Chapter 3 and AS 4674 form the legal floor; BRC, IFS and SQF tighten the specification above the floor for export and supply-chain reasons. A producer supplying to UK supermarkets through BRC, to German supermarkets through IFS, or to North American retail through SQF is meeting the same engineering specification at the duct level — the difference is in audit frequency and documentation depth.

18. Grain dust explosion hazard — NFPA 484, ATEX dust zoning

Barley malt, wheat, rye and corn dust are combustible particulates. Kst typically 50 to 200 bar.m/s places malt dust in NFPA 484 dust hazard class St-1. The mitigations:

• Dust Hazard Analysis (DHA) per NFPA 484. Documents the dust properties (Kst, MIE, MIT), the locations and quantities of dust accumulation, and the mitigations.
• ATEX dust zone classification per AS/NZS 60079.10.2. Zone 20, 21 or 22 around silos, mills, transfer points and dust collectors.
• Conductive bonded ductwork. Resistance to earth verified less than 1 megohm at every joint. Static charge buildup ignites dust clouds; bonding dissipates it.
• Isolated explosion venting. Vent panels on dust collectors, mills and explosion-prone vessels relieving pressure to a safe location outside.
• Spark detection and extinguishing upstream of the dust collector. Common system is IR detection plus water mist or inert gas suppression.
• Rotary airlock isolation. Between the dust collector and the conveying line, to prevent explosion propagation.
• Housekeeping discipline. Dust accumulation on horizontal surfaces above 3 mm thickness is itself an explosion hazard. Documented housekeeping protocol with frequency.

The brewery scale matters less than people think. A 10 hl craft brewery handling 200 kg of malt per brew, three brews a week, has cumulative dust loading sufficient for a serious incident if a single ignition source aligns. Auditors check this and Safe Work Australia and state WHS inspectors enforce it.

19. Sustainability — heat recovery, CO2 capture, water

Sustainability scope in beverage HVAC has two big-ticket interventions:

Boil heat recovery. The boil kettle drives 200 to 400 kW of latent load into the air per hour for a 50 to 100 hl brewhouse. Vapour condensers recover 60 to 80 percent of that heat into the hot-liquor tank or wort pre-heater. Payback on a vapour condenser is typically 2 to 4 years for a 50,000 hl plant. Lion, CUB and Coopers all run vapour condensers; an increasing share of mid-tier craft breweries (10,000 hl plus) are now installing them too.

Fermentation CO2 capture. A 100 hectolitre fermenter produces 700 to 900 kg of CO2 per primary fermentation. Captured, scrubbed, dried and recompressed, this CO2 substitutes for purchased food-grade CO2 used in carbonation, packaging counter-pressure and seltzer production. The capture skid is non-trivial capex but pays back in 3 to 5 years on units above 50,000 hl per year. CUB has historically been a leader here; Coopers and the larger craft producers are following.

Water conservation is parallel — CIP optimisation, wort cooling water re-use, packaging hall lubricant water-free systems — but mostly outside the HVAC scope. Cold conditioning and cellar refrigeration plant efficiency upgrades (variable-speed compressors, ammonia-CO2 cascade) sit at the boundary between HVAC and refrigeration scope. Heat recovery from the cellar refrigeration plant into the hot-water system is a high-return retrofit on most existing breweries.

20. Boutique craft brewery HVAC — practical scope at small scale

Most Australian craft breweries — Stone & Wood, BentSpoke, 4 Pines, Burleigh Brewing, Mountain Goat, Bridge Road, Holgate, Hawkers, Mornington Peninsula, Akasha, Modus Operandi, Wayward, plus dozens of regional players from Cairns to Margaret River — operate at 1,000 to 30,000 hectolitres a year. The HVAC scope shrinks accordingly. We see the following patterns repeatedly:

• Combined cellar. Fermentation cellar, conditioning and bright beer in a single low-temp zone with multiple tank groups operated at different setpoints via tank jackets.
• Single-stack CIP exhaust. Caustic, acid and rinse all routed through a single 316L stainless or polypropylene-lined stack.
• Cellar door attached. Most craft breweries are cellar-door retail-attached. The cellar door is a separate hospitality HVAC scope but shares the building envelope and the same monitoring framework.
• Simpler dust collection. Single-mill setup with a cartridge filter, isolated explosion vent, conductive duct. The dust hazard analysis is less complex than at a major brewery but still required.
• VRF for the cellar. Variable refrigerant flow systems suit the modular tank layout and provide setpoint flexibility.
• Smaller heat recovery. Vapour condensers are still cost-effective above 5,000 hl per year. Below that, simpler measures (insulating the kettle, jacketing the mash tun) deliver more relative value.

The mistake we see most often at craft scale is under-specification of CO2 evacuation. The cellar size shrinks but the CO2 production per fermenter is the same — and the proportionally small cellar volume means CO2 concentration rises faster, not slower. A 50 hl fermenter in a 200 cubic metre cellar pushes the room above 5,000 ppm in roughly 30 minutes of unmonitored operation. The CO2 monitor and the low-level extraction grilles are non-negotiable at any scale.

21. SBKJ machinery for brewing, distilling and winery HVAC fabrication

Fabricating the duct schedule for a brewery, distillery or winery touches three SBKJ product lines.

SBAL-V auto duct line — 304L stainless variant. The same SBAL-V line that fabricates galvanised duct for general HVAC is available in a 304L stainless variant with hardened tooling, dedicated stainless coil decoiler, and adjusted forming pressures for the work-hardening characteristics of stainless. Output is rectangular duct from 200 mm to 1,500 mm width, lengths up to 1,500 mm or 2,000 mm depending on configuration, with TDF flange forming integrated. For a brewery, distillery or winery building 304L duct in volume — fermentation cellar, packaging hall, brewhouse — a stainless SBAL-V is the standard fabrication tool. Full auto duct line catalogue.

SBAL-V auto duct line — galvanised variant. For non-food-zone duct (offices, dry stores, barrel halls outside food contact), the standard SBAL-V galvanised line is used. The cost differential between galvanised and stainless duct fabrication is significant and is the reason careful zone-by-zone material specification matters.

SBTF spiral tubeformer. Round spiral duct is used extensively for return air, general supply runs, and the long horizontal runs typical of warehouse-scale facilities. SBTF spiral tubeformer produces 80 mm to 1,500 mm diameter duct from galvanised or 304L stainless coil. Full spiral tubeformer catalogue.

TDF flange former. The TDF (Transverse Duct Flange) joint is the default for low-leakage rectangular duct. For cold conditioning and high-pressure brewhouse exhaust requiring AS/NZS 4254 Class B or C seal performance, TDF flanging with proper gasketing achieves the required leakage class. We cover joining and sealing in detail in our HVAC duct sealants and gaskets guide.

22. Lead time, support and Australian commissioning

For an Australian brewery, distillery or winery project specifying SBKJ machinery for in-house duct fabrication, the typical timeline is:

• Quotation and engineering — 1 to 3 weeks. SBKJ engineers size the line to the buyer's coil specification, output target and footprint constraint.
• Build-to-order — 12 to 16 weeks for stainless variant, 10 to 14 weeks for galvanised.
• Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) — 1 week. Mandatory on every SBKJ auto duct line shipment, run with the buyer's nominated coil.
• Main carriage to Australia — 2 to 4 weeks to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Fremantle or Hobart. CIF or FOB Melbourne supported.
• Customs and inland trucking — 1 to 2 weeks. SBKJ supplies all export documentation including HS code declaration (8462.49 or 8479.89), CE certificate, ISO 9001 certificate, FAT signed report and ISPM-15 fumigation certificate for crating.
• Installation, commissioning and training — 2 to 6 weeks on site. SBKJ engineers from the Box Hill North VIC office handle Australian commissioning and operator training in English.

Total project handover is typically 5 to 7 months from purchase order. After-sales support is 72-hour response via email or video call from Box Hill North VIC, with parts continuity guaranteed for at least 10 years from delivery. Full Australia operations and support.

How SBKJ supports brewing, distilling and winery projects

We have supplied duct production machinery into beverage facilities ranging from craft breweries doing 1,000 hectolitres a year to wine packaging halls and large grain-whisky distilleries. The pattern we see is that the engineering scope is well understood — there is a standards stack, a hazard analysis methodology and a material decision tree — but the integration is where projects succeed or fail. The four highest-leverage decisions on any beverage HVAC project:

1. Get the zone material schedule right at the start. Drawing the boundary between 304L food-zone and galvanised non-food-zone is the largest single capital decision in the duct scope. Get it right at design stage, not after the cooperation auditor flags it on inspection.
2. Document the hazardous area dossier and dust hazard analysis early. These two studies dictate equipment selection across HVAC, electrical and process. Late changes to ATEX zoning or NFPA 484 dust zoning ripple through every package on the project.
3. Size CO2 evacuation for the worst-case batch concurrency. Average fermentation activity is not the design case. Ten fermenters all in active primary fermentation on the same Tuesday is the design case.
4. Specify FAT on every machine and every duct package. Compromised FAT correlates strongly with post-installation disputes. The cost of a thorough FAT is one week. The cost of skipping it is a rework cycle measured in months.

Get an itemised SBKJ quote for your brewery, distillery or winery project →

FAQ

What stainless grade should I specify for brewery and winery HVAC ductwork?

Specify 304L stainless (1.4307) as the baseline for sanitary food-zone HVAC and 316L stainless (1.4404) where chloride exposure is significant — coastal sites, brine cleaning, citric or nitric acid CIP cycles. For non-food zones (offices, dry stores, barrel halls outside food contact), galvanised G90 is acceptable and dramatically cheaper. The cost premium of 316L over galvanised is roughly 4 to 6 times on material alone — reserve it for the zones that genuinely need it.

How do I size CO2 evacuation in a brewery fermentation cellar?

CO2 displaces oxygen and is heavier than air, so it pools at floor level. Australian Workplace Exposure Standards align with the international 5,000 ppm 8-hour TWA and 30,000 ppm 15-minute STEL. Size cellar exhaust to maintain CO2 below 5,000 ppm under worst-case fermentation activity, with low-level extraction grilles 200 to 400 mm above slab and a CO2 monitor with audible and visual alarm at 5,000 ppm and forced lockout at 15,000 ppm. Air change rate typically 6 to 12 ACH. Always design for the worst-case batch concurrency, not the average.

What ATEX zone applies around a whisky still vapour vent?

The vapour vent and a small radius around it are typically Zone 1, the surrounding still room is Zone 2, and the broader still hall outside the vent radius is non-classified provided ventilation is adequate. Final classification must come from a documented hazardous area dossier with input from a competent person under AS/NZS 60079.10.1. All HVAC equipment within the classified zone must carry matching ATEX or IECEx Ex marking.

Why does whisky cask warehouse HVAC look so minimal?

Cask warehouse maturation depends on slow ambient temperature and humidity swings interacting with the cask wood. Most traditional dunnage and racked warehouses (Lark, Sullivans Cove, Starward, Bakery Hill, Hellyers Road) are deliberately unconditioned with controlled passive ventilation only. HVAC scope is limited to monitoring instrumentation, fire detection and modest mechanical ventilation to manage ethanol vapour build-up rather than to control temperature.

What standards govern food premises HVAC ductwork in Australia?

FSANZ Food Standards Code Chapter 3, AS 4674 (food premises construction including ventilation), AS 1668.2 (mechanical ventilation), AS/NZS 4254 (ductwork construction and pressure classes), and the relevant state EPA permit conditions. Export-oriented producers also work to BRC, IFS or SQF. Codex Alimentarius general hygiene principles underpin the whole stack.

Does grain dust in a brewery malt mill really need an explosion vent?

Yes. Barley and malt dust are combustible particulates under NFPA 484 with Kst typically 50 to 200 bar.m/s (St-1 class). The Australian framework requires a documented Dust Hazard Analysis under AS/NZS 4360, AS 1668.2 ventilation rates and ATEX dust zoning under AS/NZS 60079.10.2 with isolated explosion venting on the mill enclosure, spark detection upstream of any dust collector, and conductive ductwork bonded and earthed.

How much HVAC humidity control does a winery barrel hall need?

Traditional French oak and American oak barrel halls target 12 to 16 degrees C and 65 to 75 percent relative humidity. Lower humidity drives excessive evaporation and dries the cork; higher humidity encourages mould on cooperage. The HVAC scope is typically modest cooling and dehumidification with humidification in dry months. Coonawarra, Margaret River, the Yarra Valley, the Barossa and McLaren Vale all see summer dehumidification loads and winter humidification loads.

What is the lead time for SBKJ duct machinery into an Australian brewery or winery project?

For an SBAL-V auto duct line in 304L stainless variant, plan 12 to 16 weeks build-to-order from PO to bill of lading, plus 2 to 4 weeks main carriage to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Fremantle or Hobart, plus 2 to 6 weeks installation and commissioning on site. Total handover is typically 5 to 7 months from PO. SBKJ engineers from the Box Hill North VIC office handle Australian commissioning and operator training in English on site.