₱90,000 a month back in your pocket.From day one.
For Philippine craft breweries and small-batch distilleries. The same Karnot platform that chills your wort and holds your fermentation cold heats your hot liquor and your CIP loop — one electricity bill, no LPG boiler, financed by the bank, paid for out of the saving. The heat you dump off the wort chiller today is the heat you buy back for the next brew.
The wort chiller dumps the heat. The hot-liquor tank buys it back.
Every brewhouse runs two opposing thermal jobs at the same time: wort comes off the boil at 100 °C and must hit 18 °C pitching temperature within the hour, while the next brew's hot liquor wants 76 °C and the CIP loop wants 85 °C all shift long. Today those two jobs run on two separate bills — Meralco to throw the wort's heat into a cooling tower, the LPG man to buy the same heat back.
Fermentation temperature IS your product — and your glycol chiller is the weak link
Ferment must hold within ±0.5 °C and crash-cool to 2 °C to drop yeast and condition the beer. Most PH craft breweries run an ageing R404A glycol chiller at COP ~2.8 with an F-gas phasedown clock on the asset register and service prices rising every year. Karnot iCOOL CO₂ holds the same glycol duty at COP 4.2 (Oak Ridge National Laboratory validated) — 40% less electricity on the cold side, and the heat it removes is the heat your next brew needs.
The LPG boiler is your biggest controllable cost — and it's optional
Hot liquor (76 °C strike and sparge), CIP caustic and acid loops (65–85 °C) and keg / cask washing (60 °C) burn roughly 19,900 kg of LPG a year on a 5,000 hL/yr brewery — about ₱1.69M/yr. But the heat your wort and ferment give up, captured at the iCOOL CO₂ gas cooler at 75–90 °C, covers the hot-liquor and CIP load. Convert the kettle to electric and the boiler is retired, not replaced. No flame, no flue, no insurance loading.
Chill the wort. Bank the heat. Retire the boiler.
A heat pump moves heat rather than creating it. When iCOOL knocks down your wort and holds the ferment cold, the heat removed is delivered to the hot side at 75–90 °C — exactly what the hot-liquor tank and the CIP system need. Your mash tun, kettle and fermenters stay — we replace the utilities around the brewhouse, not the brewhouse.
iCOOL CO₂
Wort knockdown, glycol fermentation and cold store at COP 4.2. The gas cooler delivers 75–90 °C hot water from the same compression cycle. A1 safety class — the same CO₂ that carbonates the beer.
iHEAT R290
Hot-liquor and CIP duty. Drop-in replacement for the LPG boiler. Outdoor install, sealed 1.4 kg charge, EN 378 compliant — no boiler room, no flame on site.
iSTOR PCM
Thermal battery on both sides. Hot: wort heat banked for the next strike. Cold: the fermentation cellar rides through a PH brownout with zero compressor load. The batch survives the outage.
iSAVE + iVOLT
iSAVE meters every duty — monthly IPMVP Option B report to your accountant and your lender. iVOLT zero-export solar on the brewery roof cuts the remaining grid draw a further 30–50%.
5,000 hL/yr brewery. A real number per hectolitre.
Modelled on a 5,000 hL/yr (~500,000 L) Philippine craft brewery — hot liquor and CIP, wort knockdown, glycol fermentation and crash cooling, cold store. Your brewery might be 1,000 hL/yr (divide by 5) or 50,000 hL/yr (multiply by 10) — the per-hectolitre economics hold.
| Annual figure · 5,000 hL/yr | Today · boiler + old chiller | Karnot platform | You stop paying |
|---|---|---|---|
| Process heat (hot liquor + CIP + preheat) | ~19,900 kg LPG/yr | 0 kg · recovered wort heat | ₱1.69M/yr |
| Fermentation + wort cooling | COP 2.8 · R404A | COP 4.2 · CO₂ GWP 1 | ₱720K/yr |
| Total heat + cooling bill | ~₱2.4M/yr | ~₱0.85M/yr | −64% / ~₱1.55M |
| Scope 1 + refrigerant exposure | ~50 tCO₂e + GWP 3,922 | GWP 1 & 3 · natural | ~55 tCO₂e/yr |
| Total investment (VAT-inc) | (already paid) | ~₱2.4M | 1.5 yr cash payback |
The cash flow. Plain and dull.
CAPEX of ~₱2.4M, financed under a green loan at ~7.5% p.a. over 7 years. The monthly saving (~₱129K) covers the monthly loan payment (~₱39K) more than three times over. Net cash in pocket from day one.
We don't guess the saving. We calculate your thermodynamic minimum.
Pinch analysis maps every hot stream in your brewery (wort that must cool, fermentation heat that must leave) against every cold stream (hot liquor and CIP water that must heat) and computes the three numbers that define your energy performance. A brewery is the textbook case — the analysis practically writes itself.
The absolute least boiler energy your brewery needs after maximum heat recovery. If your boiler burns more than this — and in every brewery we have surveyed, it does — the difference is pure waste.
The absolute least chiller energy required after recovery. Everything your glycol chiller removes above this is wort heat you paid to make and then paid again to throw away.
The brewery bottleneck temperature. Above it: heat deficit. Below it: heat surplus. A heat pump is the only utility that moves surplus heat from below the pinch to the deficit above it — which is why the saving is 64%, not 15%.
New to pinch analysis? We wrote the plain-English guide — no jargon, no PhD required, with worked composite curves explained in pictures. Then commission a Level 1 Energy Survey (₱90K, refunded in full on install) and we run the pinch study on your actual brew log.
You pay nothing up front. The bank does.
Three Philippine banks run green-loan programmes built for exactly this kind of project. The monthly saving covers the loan payment more than three times over. Net cash flow goes up from day one.
These are loans, not grants. Plus BOI Pioneer Income Tax Holiday under RA 11285 — energy-efficient manufacturing qualifies. Karnot files the loan, the BOI registration, the building permits and the monthly IPMVP M&V report your lender wants to see as part of project scope. You sign at the bank window, not before.
Download the Brewing & Distilling Application Brief
A 4-page application brief and a 10-slide deck — both ready to share with your head brewer, your accountant or your board.
4-Page Application Brief
A4 portrait PDF · print-ready. Hero, cash strip, problem + architecture, four products, the 5,000 hL/yr numbers table, pinch analysis, bank finance, founder quote.
10-Slide Sales Deck
16:9 landscape PDF. The complete presentation — problem, architecture, four boxes, the bill, cash flow, bank finance, pinch analysis, refrigerant trilemma, next steps.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much can a Philippine craft brewery save?
A modelled 5,000 hL/yr (500,000 L) Philippine craft brewery saves approximately ₱1.55M per year — a 64% reduction in the combined heating and cooling utility bill. Today's setup (LPG boiler ~₱1.69M/yr for hot liquor and CIP + glycol chiller electricity and mains-water knockdown ~₱720K/yr) costs about ₱2.4M/yr; the Karnot integrated platform delivers the same duties for about ₱0.85M/yr of electricity. With a 7-year green loan at ~7.5% p.a., the monthly saving (~₱129K) exceeds the loan payment (~₱39K), leaving roughly ₱90,000 net cash per month from day one. Breweries from 1,000 to 50,000 hL/yr scale proportionally.
How can the same machine chill the wort and heat the hot liquor?
A heat pump moves heat rather than creating it. When Karnot iCOOL CO₂ knocks the wort down from 100 °C and holds the fermentation glycol cold, the heat removed is rejected at the CO₂ gas cooler at 75–90 °C — exactly the temperature the hot-liquor tank and the CIP system need for the next brew. Today that heat goes into a cooling tower (wasting mains water) while an LPG boiler buys the same energy back. The Karnot platform transfers it across instead: chill the wort, bank the heat, retire the boiler. Your mash tun, kettle and fermenters stay — we replace the utilities around the brewhouse, not the brewhouse itself.
Can a heat pump reach brewing temperatures? What about the kettle boil?
The iCOOL CO₂ gas cooler delivers 75–90 °C hot water and the iHEAT R290 cascade delivers 60–85 °C at COP 4.0+ in Philippine ambient — covering hot liquor (76 °C strike and sparge), CIP loops (65–85 °C) and keg / cask washing (60 °C), which together are roughly 70% of brewery thermal demand. The rolling kettle boil at 100 °C is the one duty above heat-pump reach; the cleanest route is an electric kettle (already standard in modern craft breweries), with the heat pump preheating the wort into it. The boiler retires; the combustion goes with it.
What is pinch analysis and why does it matter for my brewery?
Pinch analysis maps every hot stream (wort that must cool, fermentation heat that must leave) against every cold stream (hot liquor and CIP water that must heat) and computes QHmin and QCmin — the absolute minimum heating and cooling your process needs after maximum heat recovery. Everything above that minimum is waste. In a brewery the pinch point sits around 30–40 °C, and a heat pump is the only utility that can move surplus heat from below the pinch to the deficit above it — which is why savings reach 64% rather than the 10–15% a heat-exchanger-only retrofit delivers. Start with the plain-English pinch guide, then commission a Level 1 Energy Survey (₱90K, refunded on install) and we run the pinch study on your actual brew log.
Is CO₂ refrigerant safe for a brewery?
Yes — CO₂ (R744) is an A1 safety class refrigerant: non-toxic, non-flammable, food-safe, and literally the same gas dissolved in your beer. GWP of 1 with no F-gas phasedown exposure. Compare the legacy options: R404A and R134a glycol chillers have GWP up to 3,922 with quota-driven service prices rising every year, and industrial ammonia is efficient but toxic — exclusion zones, specialist technicians, insurance loadings. Karnot iHEAT R290 (propane) sits outdoors with a sealed 1.4 kg charge under EN 378. Nothing on the asset register carries a phasedown date or an exclusion zone.
What happens to my fermentation during a brownout?
The iSTOR PCM thermal battery carries the fermentation cellar and cold store through 8–12 hours of grid outage on stored cooling alone — no compressor, no generator. Glycol holds the active ferments and bright tanks at temperature, protecting the yeast and the flavour stability of the batch. The same battery banks recovered wort heat between brews so the hot-liquor tank is ready for the next strike: the heat pump charges the hot buffer, the brewhouse draws on demand.
Does this work for a distillery too?
Yes — a distillery is an even stronger pinch case. The still condenser must reject a large heat load exactly when the next mash or wash needs heating, and the spirit safe and product cooling need chilled water. Karnot iCOOL CO₂ captures the condenser heat and the iHEAT R290 delivers it to mash heating and CIP at 60–85 °C, while the cold side handles condenser and product cooling. The same chill-the-vapour, bank-the-heat logic applies; we size on your still schedule and wash volumes.
What financing and incentives are available?
Three Philippine banks run green-loan programmes that fit brewery and distillery CAPEX: DBP SEFP (~6.5–8% p.a., 70–80% LTV, industrial energy-efficiency priority), LandBank SEILP (~7% p.a., strong for regional producers), and BPI SDF (~1–1.5% below standard SME rates). Most installs also qualify for BOI Pioneer status and an Income Tax Holiday under RA 11285 as energy-efficient manufacturing. Karnot files the loan application, the BOI registration, the building permits and the monthly IPMVP M&V report your lender wants — as part of project scope.
Want the numbers for your brewery?
Send us your annual volume (hL), 12 months of LPG + electricity bills and your brew + CIP schedule. We come back with a sized system, your QHmin and QCmin, projected saving, payback — and the bank application ready to sign.