I put legs on the grist case.
Our little lab area, still waiting on more supplies!
Me starting to install the auger.
Our almost completed retro grant that Patrick and I designed.
I can't wait to use this thing; it just looks bad-ass!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Progress
It's been awhile but for a good reason! The past few weeks have been really busy with tons of work being completed, making the waiting time of savoring one of our very first beers in the not too distant future. Two things that I can't wait to work with: our new lab (making sure when you buy our beer that it is up to the quality that you demand) and our newly designed grant. The glycol piping is almost complete and I have to say that it the most impressive glycol setup that I have seen in a small craft brewery (only a brewer, I guess, would get stoked on glycol piping!)Our stainless welder, Todd, is finishing up with the custom piping that Patrick, Todd & I designed. All the loose ends are starting to come together (too much to list) and hopefully soon we will be able to brew, before I forget how to!
I put legs on the grist case.
Me starting to install the auger.
I put legs on the grist case. Me starting to install the auger.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Skyscraper Brewing First Anniversary Party
Just an FYI for those in Southern California-- next Saturday, January 19th from 2-8 pm will be a party at Skyscraper Brewing Co. celebrating their first year in business. They'll be pouring their Lug Nut Lager (a California Common style beer), Bulldozer Honeyweizen, and Winter Warmer. Cheers to Phil on making it through the first year, and here's to many more years of success! I hope to see you (blog readers) there!
3229 Durfee Ave., El Monte, CA
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Power Has Arrived!
Title says it all. We finally have power from Edison! Those of you who have been here in the dark know what a great feeling that is for me. I couldn't wait to roll up the many extension cords we had running all over the place around here. The unfortunate part is I could finally see how filthy the restrooms are.
12 Days Til the Yeast Arrives...
The completion of the construction schedule now revolves around an order of yeast. We are expecting our first yeast pitch from White Labs on the 22nd. Yeast is a delicate organism, and should be used soon after propagation for it to work under the most favorable conditions. I'd like to pitch it in a propagation batch on the 22nd to get enough yeast for a 30 bbl batch of Batch No. 01 and the following batch.
There's still a lot of work to complete, but it's not impossible that we'd be ready for the propagation batch on the 22nd. The key areas to finish are in welding, electricity to the brewing equipment, auger installation, utilities (gas/electric) approval, and City / Health Department approval.
It's not really about the yeast, but more about setting a deadline and doing everything in my power to meet that deadline. It's about getting this brewery up and running after a long 9 months of trying to get this off the ground.
Despite all of the tasks remaining, The Bruery is finally looking like a brewery. The brewhouse and all tanks are leveled and anchored, almost all equipment is in our possession, and my enthusiasm about running a brewery is as high as ever.
It is hard to believe that a year ago I was putting together a business plan and looking around aimlessly for a location that would be perfect for a brewery-- mostly I just wanted floor drains already there. Finding floor drains already installed was my goal, because I thought that would be the most expensive part of the construction process. It's funny looking back on how little I knew. It is humbling and frightening to realize that I'll think a year from now and have the same thought on how little I knew a year ago about running a brewery. It'll certainly be a learning experience.
I look forward to sharing my failures and successes with you.
Past Events in Pictures
In December the Hollingshead family invited me to speak at their Winter Tasting. I introduced about 11 beers, giving any information I know about the brewery, how the beer was made, why Belgian beers are so great, and so on. Kenny did a great job pimping The Bruery, comparing me to Vinnie Cilurzo (a stretch, I know!), and announcing he'd be the first account to sell my beer. The last beer of the night was my Quadrupel, which went over well with the crowd.
Our good friend Spence and Rachel at the tasting.
Tyler moving around a 15 bbl fermenter
The 30 bbl fermenter being moved over the curb
Glycol chiller being placed on the roof platform
Julian helping out in raising the brite beer tank
The lifting of the 30 bbl fermenter. My contractor Bob did a great job in getting this beast up safety, and without any expensive riggers!
The two tanks in their permanent location.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Still Here and Working
More than two weeks and no new blog posts can't be a good thing, so I had to break the vicious trend. I'll be catching up with all of the progress over the next day, but I'll give you a sneak preview:
The glycol chiller was placed, insulation installed, Rachel's recovering nicely from surgery but now has bronchitis and still isn't back to work, dozens of miscellaneous tasks too dull and ordinary to mention have been completed, had my brother drive from Portland to get a refrigerated trailer here a few weeks ago, yesterday found that the trailer was stolen from the Bruery parking lot, police are called, lots of drama, and so on.
Which brings us to the important question-- when's the first batch going to be brewed? January-- very late January.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Brewing Equipment: Getting By
As a continuation of the last thread, Nicholas asked: "Right now I'm looking for info on prices for new/used equipment so I can price out potential setups. I can find books upon books about beer, but nothing on equipment. Also, I'm a little spotty on what equipment/tanks do what and how many are necessary as a bare minimum, but I can't find any such reference."
For finding used equipment, I'd stay away from books as numbers will be outdated. Stainless steel prices change all the time, and used equipment isn't immune from stainless steel commodity prices. Instead, contact Brewing Equipment dealers such as Ian Day at North American Brewing Services, Vince Cottone at Sound Brewing Systems, or Jason Ager at Ager Tank & Equipment. Last year around this time I was looking for a used system and was finding it difficult to make an offer on one as they were usually sold within a few days of being offered for sale. I doubt that's the climate today with malt and hop shortages. Also, check ProBrewer Classified Forums. Sometimes used systems are listed on the Brewers Association Forum, but you'll have to sign up to the Brewers Association as a Brewery in Planning (around $300) to get on the list, plus you get a subscription for New Brewer magazine and get a better rate for the Great American Beer Festival and Craft Brewers Conference. Speaking of the Craft Brewers Conference, it's coming up this April in San Diego, and I'd recommend any prospective brewery startup to attend the seminars and get to know your suppliers.
The cost of brewing systems vary widely based on brew length (how much wort is being made at a time), how many vessels, what's included (pumps, hard piping, heat exchanger, etc.), steam or direct fire, whether the steam boiler (for a steam powered system), fermenters and a glycol chiller are included, and so on. For a 2-3 vessel 15-20 bbl system with everything you need, plus an acceptable amount of fermentation/cellar capacity (let's say 60-90 BBL's worth) will run around $150,000 - $200,000. A new system with everything you need will run around $300,000 from the value conscious suppliers. I'm sure there are better deals to be had, but this is just a general number you could expect.
The lowest amount you could expect with everything you need would be $50,000 for a bare bones 2 vessel system of 5 BBL or less. You can expect to use hose to connect your vessels during brewing, and you probably wouldn't need to spend too much on malt handling (augers, large mill, etc.) for this size of system. I wouldn't recommend a system under 15 BBL as you'll find making a profit in this industry is not easy. Having to brew 5 times a week on a 4 BBL system is a lot less efficient use of your time than brewing once on a 20 BBL system. If that's all that can be afforded, and it's just a starter system, then it might work for you. Just don't expect to make any money, and prepare to lose a bunch.
You could spend less on a single vessel malt extract kettle, but I'd stay away if your goal is to make great beer. If you're looking to spend less than $50,000 on equipment, I'd consider mead making as you'll only need a boil kettle and fermentation space. Plus, mead is increasing in popularity and there are very few commercial mead makers today.
As for what the vessels are used for-- I'd recommend getting into homebrewing and visiting breweries! I'll give a basic overview from what you need from the beginning of a brew to the end:
Malt-- You'll need a way to crush the malt, unless you intend to buy pre-milled malt. A 2 roller mill is what is used for a smaller system (under 30 BBL). You want to size the mill so you can mill enough malt to dough in within 30-45 minutes. If your batches used 2000 lbs. of malt, you'd want to get a mill that could handle 3000-4000 lbs. of malt per hour, or get a grist case to receive and hold milled malt prior to mashing.
Water-- At a minimum, you'd have an activated carbon filter to remove chlorine, organic compounds, and some hardness from your water.
Mash tun / lauter tun-- The mash tun is used for mixing malt and hot water in order to aid in conversion of starch (in malt) to sugars through the use of naturally occurring enzymes contained in the malt. Brewers yeast mainly metabolizes simple sugar, so this is why the conversion of starch to sugar is critical in brewing. The lauter tun is a vessel for separating the solid malt particles from the liquid wort. Smaller systems have a combined mash tun / lauter tun, meaning the same vessel is used for starch conversion and for drawing the wort from the grain.
Boil kettle-- Once the wort is drawn off from the lauter tun, it is brought to a boil. Hops are added at different intervals in the boil for bitterness, aroma, and flavor. If you had a malt extract system, you would skip to this step. You'd add malt syrup or malt powder to filtered water, mix, bring to a boil, and add hops as usual. There are even no-boil extract systems where the extract is already hopped, but expect the beer to be pretty nasty. A typical boil is 60-90 minutes.
Whirlpool-- Some systems have a dedicated whirlpool, which is used for recirculating the hot wort in a centrifugal fashion, bringing the hop / protein solids to the middle of the vessel for easy separation of the liquid. Most systems just include a whirlpool port on the kettle to perform this function in one vessel. The advantage of having a separate vessel is when brewing multiple batches at a time, you can get the first batch out of the kettle and begin lautering / boiling your second batch. This would shave 1 to 2 hours from the total brew day if brewing two batches that day.
Heat Exchanger-- For sanitary and flavor purposes, you need to bring the wort down to 50-70 degrees fairly quickly once the boil is finished. A stainless steel plate heat exchanger is typically used. Cold water runs through one side, while the hot wort is pumped through the other side, resulting in a cooled wort once it makes its way through the heat exchanger. This is directly pumped into a fermenter.
Fermentation-- Typically cone shaped fermenters (cylindroconical) are used for fermentation, as their height takes up less of your valuable real estate, and the cone shape aids in yeast collection and trub dumping. This is where the yeast is added, and the yeast converts most of the sugars in the wort into carbon dioxide and alcohol. Fermenters should have jackets for running chilled glycol in order to control fermentation temperature. Alternatively, you could have a temperature controlled room for regulating fermentation temperatures, but it'll be less precise and result in a higher electricity bill.
Cellar-- Once fermentation has ended, typically you'd have a brite beer tank for beer maturation, cooling, and carbonation addition. Beer is packaged (into kegs / bottles / cans) from this vessel.
Bottling / Kegging / Canning-- My numbers above didn't include this part of the brewing process. Kegging is usually the least expensive option, especially at the beginning when you don't need many kegs on hand. Bottling and canning lines can be very expensive. If you're looking to make a bottle conditioned beer, you can spend a lot less because your equipment doesn't have to deal with carbonated beer and reducing oxygen pickup is less of an issue. Of course, you could also use homebrew equipment for the bottling of carbonated beer, but don't expect to pay the bills by packaging that way (it's very slow).
For finding used equipment, I'd stay away from books as numbers will be outdated. Stainless steel prices change all the time, and used equipment isn't immune from stainless steel commodity prices. Instead, contact Brewing Equipment dealers such as Ian Day at North American Brewing Services, Vince Cottone at Sound Brewing Systems, or Jason Ager at Ager Tank & Equipment. Last year around this time I was looking for a used system and was finding it difficult to make an offer on one as they were usually sold within a few days of being offered for sale. I doubt that's the climate today with malt and hop shortages. Also, check ProBrewer Classified Forums. Sometimes used systems are listed on the Brewers Association Forum, but you'll have to sign up to the Brewers Association as a Brewery in Planning (around $300) to get on the list, plus you get a subscription for New Brewer magazine and get a better rate for the Great American Beer Festival and Craft Brewers Conference. Speaking of the Craft Brewers Conference, it's coming up this April in San Diego, and I'd recommend any prospective brewery startup to attend the seminars and get to know your suppliers.
The cost of brewing systems vary widely based on brew length (how much wort is being made at a time), how many vessels, what's included (pumps, hard piping, heat exchanger, etc.), steam or direct fire, whether the steam boiler (for a steam powered system), fermenters and a glycol chiller are included, and so on. For a 2-3 vessel 15-20 bbl system with everything you need, plus an acceptable amount of fermentation/cellar capacity (let's say 60-90 BBL's worth) will run around $150,000 - $200,000. A new system with everything you need will run around $300,000 from the value conscious suppliers. I'm sure there are better deals to be had, but this is just a general number you could expect.
The lowest amount you could expect with everything you need would be $50,000 for a bare bones 2 vessel system of 5 BBL or less. You can expect to use hose to connect your vessels during brewing, and you probably wouldn't need to spend too much on malt handling (augers, large mill, etc.) for this size of system. I wouldn't recommend a system under 15 BBL as you'll find making a profit in this industry is not easy. Having to brew 5 times a week on a 4 BBL system is a lot less efficient use of your time than brewing once on a 20 BBL system. If that's all that can be afforded, and it's just a starter system, then it might work for you. Just don't expect to make any money, and prepare to lose a bunch.
You could spend less on a single vessel malt extract kettle, but I'd stay away if your goal is to make great beer. If you're looking to spend less than $50,000 on equipment, I'd consider mead making as you'll only need a boil kettle and fermentation space. Plus, mead is increasing in popularity and there are very few commercial mead makers today.
As for what the vessels are used for-- I'd recommend getting into homebrewing and visiting breweries! I'll give a basic overview from what you need from the beginning of a brew to the end:
Malt-- You'll need a way to crush the malt, unless you intend to buy pre-milled malt. A 2 roller mill is what is used for a smaller system (under 30 BBL). You want to size the mill so you can mill enough malt to dough in within 30-45 minutes. If your batches used 2000 lbs. of malt, you'd want to get a mill that could handle 3000-4000 lbs. of malt per hour, or get a grist case to receive and hold milled malt prior to mashing.
Water-- At a minimum, you'd have an activated carbon filter to remove chlorine, organic compounds, and some hardness from your water.
Mash tun / lauter tun-- The mash tun is used for mixing malt and hot water in order to aid in conversion of starch (in malt) to sugars through the use of naturally occurring enzymes contained in the malt. Brewers yeast mainly metabolizes simple sugar, so this is why the conversion of starch to sugar is critical in brewing. The lauter tun is a vessel for separating the solid malt particles from the liquid wort. Smaller systems have a combined mash tun / lauter tun, meaning the same vessel is used for starch conversion and for drawing the wort from the grain.
Boil kettle-- Once the wort is drawn off from the lauter tun, it is brought to a boil. Hops are added at different intervals in the boil for bitterness, aroma, and flavor. If you had a malt extract system, you would skip to this step. You'd add malt syrup or malt powder to filtered water, mix, bring to a boil, and add hops as usual. There are even no-boil extract systems where the extract is already hopped, but expect the beer to be pretty nasty. A typical boil is 60-90 minutes.
Whirlpool-- Some systems have a dedicated whirlpool, which is used for recirculating the hot wort in a centrifugal fashion, bringing the hop / protein solids to the middle of the vessel for easy separation of the liquid. Most systems just include a whirlpool port on the kettle to perform this function in one vessel. The advantage of having a separate vessel is when brewing multiple batches at a time, you can get the first batch out of the kettle and begin lautering / boiling your second batch. This would shave 1 to 2 hours from the total brew day if brewing two batches that day.
Heat Exchanger-- For sanitary and flavor purposes, you need to bring the wort down to 50-70 degrees fairly quickly once the boil is finished. A stainless steel plate heat exchanger is typically used. Cold water runs through one side, while the hot wort is pumped through the other side, resulting in a cooled wort once it makes its way through the heat exchanger. This is directly pumped into a fermenter.
Fermentation-- Typically cone shaped fermenters (cylindroconical) are used for fermentation, as their height takes up less of your valuable real estate, and the cone shape aids in yeast collection and trub dumping. This is where the yeast is added, and the yeast converts most of the sugars in the wort into carbon dioxide and alcohol. Fermenters should have jackets for running chilled glycol in order to control fermentation temperature. Alternatively, you could have a temperature controlled room for regulating fermentation temperatures, but it'll be less precise and result in a higher electricity bill.
Cellar-- Once fermentation has ended, typically you'd have a brite beer tank for beer maturation, cooling, and carbonation addition. Beer is packaged (into kegs / bottles / cans) from this vessel.
Bottling / Kegging / Canning-- My numbers above didn't include this part of the brewing process. Kegging is usually the least expensive option, especially at the beginning when you don't need many kegs on hand. Bottling and canning lines can be very expensive. If you're looking to make a bottle conditioned beer, you can spend a lot less because your equipment doesn't have to deal with carbonated beer and reducing oxygen pickup is less of an issue. Of course, you could also use homebrew equipment for the bottling of carbonated beer, but don't expect to pay the bills by packaging that way (it's very slow).
I hope this info will help Nick and others!
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