Brewery Floor Coating?

[Renegade Brewer]

Looking to coat our brewery floors with a two part epoxy made by "Top Secret". My first step is to complete a vapor test on the concrete. Anyone familiar with this product? Any suggestions/successes/failures with that or other products? I also have concerns about adding walnut chips or sand as a non-slip but feel in some areas it may be necessary. Any help appreciated.

Casey
Old Schoolhouse Brewery

[triple]

Looking to coat our brewery floors with a two part epoxy made by "Top Secret". My first step is to complete a vapor test on the concrete. Anyone familiar with this product? Any suggestions/successes/failures with that or other products? I also have concerns about adding walnut chips or sand as a non-slip but feel in some areas it may be necessary. Any help appreciated.

Casey
Old Schoolhouse Brewery

We had issues with epoxy based products because of the high temperature of our cleaning water. When the floor got a chip, the water, caustic, oxine would get into the chip and degrade the bonding suface causing it to peal. If you can keep it from getting chipped. (Dropped kegs, pallets with nails or bolts through the bottom), you may have a chance. You can put rubber mats down to help the chipping but care must still be taken.

We tore out the epoxy and went with a cement type covering that seems to be much more durable. We are still using the rubber mats to protect the new investment. One note: A glossy finish doesn't stain like a matt finish.

[fcaseyf]

A urethane treatment like U-Crete is a far better option than epoxy coating, I have it by my keg area and you can't break or chip the stuff.

[fossil.cove]

I just finished sealing my floors with a product from a company called "VFI". The product number is "1007". It is a polyurethane coating that you simply roll onto the floor. It basically makes a thin coat of plastic on the floor and actually soaks into the concrete so you dont have to worry about it peeling up. Also you have the option of broadcasting (spreading) sand over the first coat and then following with a second coat to create a very sweet non-slick surface. I did it both ways in our place (non-slip in the tasting room) and adding the sand really makes it look cool, I wish we had done it in the brewery space. It is still not very slick without the sand though.

If anybody is interested in the product you can e-mail me at: fossilcovebrewing@gmail.com

Ben Mills
Fossil Cove Brewing Co.
Fayetteville, AR

[theBrewMeister]

Before I was a brewer, I was an epoxy floor installer. As mentioned above, UCrete is tuff stuff, however, it's pretty damn expensive. But, if you prep the concrete the right way, and there's no residual oil soaked into it, you can have a nice 2 part epoxy floor last forever. The key, is in the prepping. Even new concrete needs "opened" up to allow for a durable bond. Without it, you can expect chips to occur. Once you get a chip, water alone will work under the coating and eventually destroy your floor.

A lot of people, in trying to save money, will just roll on the epoxy and hope for the best. Remember, water is the universal solvent - it can erode the hardest rocks on the planet in time. The key is to prevent the water from penetrating the surface, and that involves proper preperation of the concrete surface.

The other option, if you have naked concrete, is just to stain/waterproof the concrete itself. I like this concept because there's no chipping to worry about.

[triple]

Before I was a brewer, I was an epoxy floor installer. As mentioned above, UCrete is tuff stuff, however, it's pretty damn expensive. But, if you prep the concrete the right way, and there's no residual oil soaked into it, you can have a nice 2 part epoxy floor last forever. The key, is in the prepping. Even new concrete needs "opened" up to allow for a durable bond. Without it, you can expect chips to occur. Once you get a chip, water alone will work under the coating and eventually destroy your floor.

A lot of people, in trying to save money, will just roll on the epoxy and hope for the best. Remember, water is the universal solvent - it can erode the hardest rocks on the planet in time. The key is to prevent the water from penetrating the surface, and that involves proper preperation of the concrete surface.

The other option, if you have naked concrete, is just to stain/waterproof the concrete itself. I like this concept because there's no chipping to worry about.

A note to add. Each state has different laws for food/ beverage floor coverings. I would check that first. Too bad polished concrete won't suffice.

[jfulton]

The fundamental problem with thin coat epoxies, even when applied professionally, is that they do not have the same coefficient of expansion as concrete. In the brewery, where you often have near boiling liquid hitting the floor, the epoxy will eventually crack from the stress of expanding and contracting. This will obviously happen much faster with cold floors. Then everything mentioned above will begin. Also, as mentioned previously, they just cannot withstand dropping SS parts onto them. They chip and the whole system begins to fail.

IMHO spend the extra money and get a urethane enriched concrete topcoat.