Equipment Identification

[Chadillac]

Hi all,
I am thinking of purchasing an existing brewpub and am currently going over the equipment list. Among the items are an 8 bbl "French" boil kettle and several 7 bbl Porter Lancaster jacketed uni tanks. I have not been able to find any information online regarding them. Has anybody heard of these or have links to manufacturer's sites?

Thanks!
Chad

[Guest]

Porter Lancastrian were the other UK firm (to Grundy) who made the 5-barrel(UK) pub cellar tanks that spawned a thousand micros in UK, US & elsewhere.
(here whole breweries were made out of them - copper, mashtun, HLT, CLT, FVs & CTs. IME they were basic, but worked pretty well.

They were originally (1960s-1970s?) made to be put in pub cellars & have bulk beer piped into them from road tankers. I got chatting to an old guy recently who was the Bass QC manager for the North of England - can you imagine training 1000 people to CIP a tank properly without poisoning their customers, having off/flat beer, having the tanks explode/implode in the cellar, etc!?

The Porter Lancastrian firm somehow lives on in a new form, just making dispense equipment - http://www.porta.co.uk/

[Chadillac]

Thanks Mic Mac,
Looks like the equipment is all fairly aged. Would hiring a consultant for a day to inspect the equipment be worth the time/money? Is this a common thing to do (like hiring a surveyor when buying a large boat) when purchasing a brewpub/brewery?

Chad

[dick murton]

Nt necessarily merely a brewing consultant. You are looking for two things. Firstly, is the kit safe to use, e.g. are the welds in good condition, full penetration (no residual gaps) are they finished off OK, ground back, polished , passivated etc, any signs of rust or other corrosion, pits, cracks in the stainless, particularly around the welds. Have the tanks been sucked in and then blown back out again, leaving creases ?

And then secondly, is the kit fit for purpose - can you actually control flows, temperatures etc, Is it insulated so you don't waste heat or cooling energy. Do the pipe run down hill, rather than up hill, can you clean stuff OK, high enough flows in pipes, coverage in vessels, or safe access for manual cleaning. Do you have half a chance of of getting decent extracts / utilisation? How easy is th estuff to operate ? Is the environment OK -safe floors, good drainage, good ventilation, and so on Oh and electrical safety - which really does require a specialist, rather than a jaundiced eye

Hope this gives a little food for thought. I guess if they have been successful though, chances are that most of the safety / extracts etc have been covered off before - but still worth checking

Cheers

[Guest]

Thanks Mic Mac,
Looks like the equipment is all fairly aged. Would hiring a consultant for a day to inspect the equipment be worth the time/money? Is this a common thing to do (like hiring a surveyor when buying a large boat) when purchasing a brewpub/brewery?

Chad

funnily enough, we've just done this & more - hired an experienced & well-qualified brewer (& brewing engineer / brewery manufacturer) to have a look over our new (i.e. old) brewplant.

We also had a few conversations with the experienced braumeister who was brewing on it up until a couple of weeks before we removed the plant. Then we got the first chap to oversee the removal & will soon get him to do the re-install.

If you have access to a trusted brewing engineer/consultant then I'd think about using him/her & likewise I'd recommend talking to folks who've brewed on the plant.

(Dick's answer's all very wise stuff too - Hi Dick)