Cool, Sustainable Solutions: Brewing Smarter with Frigid.Cloud

Cool, Sustainable Solutions: Brewing Smarter with Frigid.Cloud

Cheers to sustainable brewing: We’re brewing beer and saving enough energy to keep your snacks cold for the next 40 years! Through a partnership with Frigid.Cloud, we’ve scaled our sustainability efforts—this time, into the heart of our brewing operations—increasing efficiency and lowering our carbon footprint without sacrificing the flavor you love.

Keep reading to learn more about Frigid.Cloud, how the cloud-based software helps our brewery run more sustainably and efficiently, and to get a look at Cloud Pleaser, our new collaboration beer with Frigid.Cloud and GABF-winning Ambitious Ales!

 

about frigid.cloud

Frigid.Cloud, based in Adelaide, Australia, partners with breweries and wineries worldwide to optimize their refrigeration and fermentation systems. The cloud-based software uses sensors and advanced analytics to monitor temperatures, reduce and optimize energy use, automate processes, and deliver fermentation insights. These features allow companies to maintain precise cooling temps, decrease peak-hour energy consumption, schedule actions in advance, and prevent waste—all via a phone or tablet—helping operations run more efficiently, sustainably, and reliably.

Ambitious Ales in Long Beach was the first brewery in the United States to install Frigid.Cloud. Not long after, they took home Gold at the 2024 Great American Beer Festival for their hazy IPA, Professional Human Being, showcasing that sustainable practices and award-winning beer can thrive together.

Pure Project is the second brewery in the States to install Frigid.Cloud and, at the time of this writing, over 65 wineries and breweries worldwide have now implemented it into their refrigeration and fermentation systems.

our mission to cool smarter, not harder

Those familiar with brewing will know that a glycol chiller is an essential piece of brewing equipment. Think of it as a refrigerator, but instead of cooling the air inside a box, it circulates super-cold glycol around beer tanks to ensure precise temperature regulation during various brewing stages. The glycol chiller is also the main use of electricity at our brewing facilities.

Once a beer is done fermenting, the glycol chiller works to cool the beer to 32 degrees without freezing, which stops yeast activity and allows solids to drop out of the solution (called “crashing”). The chiller also maintains cold, controlled temperatures, which are essential for proper carbonation during canning. These steps together result in a cleaner, more flavorful brew.

While chilling is an essential part of the brewing process, there are certainly flaws in terms of chiller energy usage. Because tanks require cooling at different times, the chiller typically runs continuously to maintain the low temperature needed to provide cooling on demand. However, there are periods when no tanks require cooling, yet the chiller continues operating, resulting in unnecessary energy consumption ¹. This provided a perfect opportunity to reduce our carbon footprint across brewing operations at our main facility, Pure Vista. Enter: Frigid.Cloud!

CHEERS TO THE CLOUD: REDUCING ENERGY USE WHERE IT MATTERS MOST

In June 2024, we installed Frigid.Cloud at Pure Vista, connecting all of our tank thermometers and valves to the Frigid.Cloud cloud. But what does this mean for our brewing process, exactly?

With Frigid.Cloud’s advanced temperature tracking, we’re able to optimize cooling for each fermentation stage. Through proactive cooling, the software automatically adjusts glycol chiller setpoints according to tank requirements, delivering the right amount of cooling to the tank when needed ¹.

Not only is the cooling improved in terms of when it happens, but also how it occurs. Before, glycol was constantly running through the fermentation jackets. Now, cooling is delivered by pulse cooling, which pulses glycol through the tank valves. Proactive Cooling and Pulse Cooling not only reduce electricity usage, but also result in better heat transfer than having the glycol continuously running through the jackets.

Plus, by accessing the cloud through a tablet, we are able to control steps of the brewing process remotely and schedule actions ahead of time. With this, we implemented Frigid.Cloud’s Proactive Cooling algorithm: Scheduling cooling during off-peak and super off-peak periods, which has dramatically reduced our electricity consumption during peak hours (And, fun fact: We are now able to even completely turn off our water heaters during peak hours and weekends, which we were not able to do before).

Prior to installation, our brewing facility in Vista was using 88 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per day during peak periods. After installation, usage reduced to 30kWh per day (a 66% peak period electricity usage reduction). Furthermore, after a year of data collection, we have found that the cost of operating our glycol chiller has decreased by 25%, and overall, we’re now using 20,000-24,000 kilowatt-hours less per year than we would without Frigid.Cloud. The energy we’re saving in a year is equivalent to the energy needed to power a household refrigerator for 40 years!

 

INTRODUCING OUR COLLABORATIVE IPA, CLOUD PLEASER

We teamed up with Ambitious Ales and the crew at Frigid.Cloud to create Cloud Pleaser, a new murky IPA. This juicy brew features Nelson Sauvin, Mosaic Cryo, and Strata Abstrax hops. Filled with notes of mango, lime, and tangerine, this IPA is not only a statement because of its taste, but also for the message it sends: that forward-thinking technology can make brewing more sustainable and efficient, without compromising flavor.

Cloud Pleaser will be available on draft and in 4-packs to-go at all five of Pure Project’s taproom locations starting Thursday, September 4th, while supplies last. Can’t make it to a taproom? Check out our Beer Locator to see where you can find Pure beer near you!