New brewery layout and height questions

[dfalken]

I am in the process of building a new distribution brewery in El Salvador (first one in the country). Have the location picked out but will be tearing down the majority of an existing building and putting in a new floor, roof, raising walls, etc.

The brewhouse is 20HL and I will be starting keg only with 4x20HL FVs and 2x20BBTs planning to be brewing at a rate of 1500HL per year by the end of year 1. I plan to start bottling a year after opening and hope to, in 5 years time, reach 7,000HL at this location.

The initial brewery building is going to be 258sqm (~2,800 sqf) in size and I get to pick the ceiling height. I am leaning to going with 6m (~20') throughout most of it, except the front of the building (for aesthetic purposes) which will be 4m (13') (initially I was thinking of making it all 4m but I realized I might regret that later and given that my floor size is rather limited, height will help me as I get bigger).

As I require more space, there is another area of about 160sqm (~1700sqf) perpendicular to the back of the original building (L shape) that I could build out.

The initial building is about 9m (30') in width at the front and 24m (~80') in length. The last 12m are slightly wider at 12.6m (41'). It will have only one access point at the front.

I am curious to hear your opinions on my plans to set up in this somewhat limited space and also your opinions on how you would layout the brewery given that it is basically a narrow long building with the access being on the narrow side.

I am not sure it is wide enough to implement the U shape that is recommended for production lines. I have been leaning to actually having the brewhouse and grain storage at the furthest point in the back, followed by the fermentation vessels and then leaving the front as a more open area for kegging/bottling, storage, etc. It might sound counterintuitive to have the first step of the process all the way at the back but I feel that the brewhouse and FVs at the front of a narrow building would interfere with pallet entry/exit.

Furthermore, if and when I do the expansion the extra 160sqm would connect to the building at the back in an L shape and that new area would have another access point at the furthest most point of the L. That area would roughly be 10m (~33') in width by 16m (~52') in length. Now the brewhouse would be located at the angle of the L and I could use either side of the L as a storage and the other side for packaging as I would have 2 access points, one at each end.


What do you guys think of ceiling height, size of floor space given my production plans, and my idea of equipment placement? Please rip apart any or all of my ideas.

Thanks in advance and hi to all as I have been mostly lurking for the last year and change.

David

[Graydon]

David,

What you have proposed will snarl you in a knotted mess. I cant send you a private message because you have somehow disabled this function, but you need to speak to someone that has built several breweries. If you want you can e-mail me.

A good consultant will save you 2 to 3 times as much cash as they will cost, and in many cases a good consultant will mean the difference between success and failure.

Good Luck
Graydon
live2brew@yahoo.com