Ratio of FV to BBT, supporting 5 sustained on tap. (BrewPub)

[Cameron R]

I am looking to find the best configuration/ratio of FV to BBT.

I am currently calculating the use of 6FV and 6BBT. A 1 to 1 ratio, supporting 5 beers.

x5 BBT as serving 100%
x1 BBT for cleaning/transferring remaining beer in low tank into 1/2bbl sankes for storage.

x4FV for Ales/Wheats
x2 for Lagering

Trying to find the method that is most efficient for operations, allowing me to cycle my brews in the FV lineup to support the demand, while not having to wait for a beer to finish fermenting and/or wait for free space in a BBT for serving.

Anticipated 3.5bbl batch to be run dry within 2-3 weeks. Keeping up with estimated demand is key.

Thanks Everyone,
Cameron

[mwth0mas]

That's a really opened ended question. Start with sizing your FVs by estimating how much time beer will spend in primary fermentation, along with tank size, and number of tanks will give you your barrelage per year. Then figure how long beer will spend in BBT for carbonation/conditioning, along with number of tanks, will determine the average time you can serve from the tanks. Some caveats:

- not all beer will sell at the same rate.
- once beer falls below the thermowell in a BBT, you can experience dispensing problems if the temperature fluctuates.
- kegs are a great way to manage the ebbs and flows of beer sales from tanks while not impacting your brew schedule.

[awtesta]

I'm struggling with the same question myself. mwth0mas brings up some good points that its hard to answer this for everyone however I was wondering anyone could take a stab at it.

All things being equal, and all 5 beers selling at the exact same rate, is the 6BBT and 6FV guess right? I was thinking 4FV and 4BBT would be enough but i'm only really guessing based on some rough research.

[mmussen]

Depends a lot on Volume and your setup. If you're doing a pub and selling (almost) all of your beer on site you may want to have 1 SV per tap. It makes juggling things a lot easier.
I've kepts 8 SV's full of beer on 4 FV's before, but it wasn't easy to do. And it pretty much made it impossible to do Lagers.
So its going to depend a lot on how you plan on selling beer, what styles of beer you plan on making, what sells in your area.... There's no good way to answer that without a lot more information

[mwth0mas]

Example Calculations

I created a spreadsheet to calculate a lot of this info so I can change the variables, but let's take an example scenario so you can see how I approach the sizing. Plug in your processes and timeframes for fermentation, dry hopping, conditioning, carbing, sell rate, etc

7bbl tanks, 3FVs, 6BBTs
- 2 brews per week, Monday and Thursday, gives you 10.5 days in primary fermentation, and 700bls per year (100 brew days)
- beer lives in a BBT for 21 days before needing to be kegged off to make room for beer from a FV.
- Say 7 days for carbonation/conditioning, and you are serving from the BBT for 14 days, and serving from only 4 of the BBTs at any one time.
- At 700bls/year, you will be selling 13.46bbls per week. Divide that by the number of beers you want on tap, let's say 5, therefore each beer sells 2.69bbls per week.
- Since it is selling out of the serving tank for 14 days, 1.62bbls will be need to be served from kegs, which is 23% of all your beer sales.

To minimize keg labor, you will want to keg off your slowest selling beer earlier, to serve the faster selling beers from the BBTs for longer.