Agribusiness & Food

Simplicity drives malt conveyor specification at Madrid brewery

Brewers from Madrid, Spain, have installed a flexible screw conveyor to drastically improve their production process.

Brewers from Madrid, Spain, have installed a flexible screw conveyor to drastically improve their production process.


Operated by a father and son team, the Cervecera Peninsula craft brewery offers hoppy, American-style beers to the heartlands of Spain.

Established in 2017, the duo originally moved the grain by hand and needed a more efficient way of moving grain from the milling room to the brew tank.

“In the beginning, we had to do everything ourselves,” says Roman Jove, Cervecera Peninsula Founder and Head Brewer.

“We needed certain processes to be very simple. I had looked at many options but Flexicon was recommended by brewer friends in the US”

The brewers decided to use a flexible screw conveyor from Flexicon Europe, using Flexicon’s Quick Ship program to quickly deliver the frequently purchased items.

Moving milled grain to the mash house

The brewing process begins in the milling room, where milled, malted grain is conveyed from a 225-litre capacity floor hopper to a brew tank by a 6.5-metre-long flexible screw conveyor.

As it rotates, the screw self-centres within the 67-millimetre diameter polymer tube, providing ample space between the tube and screw wall to avoid grinding of the milled grain.

The mill produces two 400-kilogram batches per day of either malted wheat or a malted wheat-oat blend, all of which is transported directly to the brew tank by the conveyor. 

The design of the conveyor screw was specifically selected to efficiently transport the various free-flowing materials. With the drive motor located beyond the discharge point, the material does not contact seals or bearings.

Jove says the installation of the conveyor was “very simple”. It is cleaned after every five batches, a procedure that consists of reversing the screw to evacuate residual material, and in-place flushing of the interior. Alternatively, the screw can be removed through a lower end cap for sanitising.

The conveyor meets Cervecera Peninsula’s requirements for gentle handling of the malted grain with no separation of wheat-oat blends.

“It moves all the material together at the same speed,” Jove says. The enclosed tube also eliminates dust and spillage, as well as contamination of the product or plant environment. 

“It takes a lot of the work out of brewing and that’s something we appreciate.” 

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