Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Keg vs Tank Dispense

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Keg vs Tank Dispense

    Like half the people here, I'm working on opening a brewpub. Searching the threads, I was surprised to find very little discussion on serving from bulk tanks vs kegs. Specifically, I'm comparing serving from bulk tanks and a small number of kegs (so I don't have tap downtimes) with serving exclusively from kegs. Below is my take on the situation, but I'm curious about what the rest of you think.

    Tank + keg dispense pros:
    -Less time spent on cleaning.
    -Less time spent on transferring/filling.
    -No additional brite tank required.
    -Easier to rotate filled keg inventory.
    -Less work for bartenders.
    -Less required space, both in the cold room and brewery.

    Keg-only dispense pros:
    -Lower up-front cost.
    -Don't have to clean serving vessels in the cold room.
    -Don't have to fill kegs in the cold room.
    -Ability to serve at higher pressures (no A$ME tanks for me).
    -Less confusion for bartenders.
    -Kegs would be pre-filled for direct sales, distribution & off-site events.

    At a brewpub I used to work at, the cold room floor drain and water supply - aka the kitchen prep sink with a hose on its faucet - were located outside of the cold room itself. Cleaning the tank was only a fraction of the battle. We cleaned our kegs manually with a modified keg coupler and a lot of shaking. Hassle-wise, I'd rather have cleaned 20 1/2-bbl kegs than one 10-bbl serving tank. Time-wise, the tanks required a lot less work. If I were to have a dedicated cold room drain and water supply, as well as a keg cleaner/filler, which dispense method would you prefer? For what it's worth, I'm hoping to have a small neighborhood pub (50-75 seats) with a 7-bbl brewhouse and expect to brew about 250 barrels a year (which I hope is a conservative estimate).

    Joe

  • #2
    First off, I'd make sure your state allows tank-direct dispense. Then I'd look at the potential to sell my products that are already in kegs versus having to keg-up whenever anyone wanted to purchase one. Also, as you're dispensing from the tank, what kind of gas are you using on the tank to push it? CO2? Might lead to overcarbonation. Can get expensive and confusing to carbonate with CO2 then fill the head pressure with aligas or nitro. Might just be the way I'm wired, but I really like dispensing from kegs instead of from the tank.
    Luck to ya'
    Dave
    Glacier Brewing Company
    406-883-2595
    info@glacierbrewing.com

    "who said what now?"

    Comment


    • #3
      Intersting business model and discussion. I'm just a homebrewer with aspirations similar to yours. Everything you said (kegs over tanks) makes sense to me. Yes there is more handling but if you're starting on a small budget there are some things that an individual can do to off set less capitol by using more labor which as the owner would be you. It seems to me that when you're talking about small operations with limited capitol you often run into either or scenarios. Either I use kegs becasue I can't afford tanks or I don't open my own place. Put in that way it becomes an easier decision.

      BTW I am in Wisconsin as you are so good luck. There have been a few brewery closings in the last couple of years which is scarey. However the beers I have sampled from the places that have closed indicates that they should have closed.

      If you don't make good beer you're not going to succeed.
      Tim Eichinger
      Visit our website blackhuskybrewing.com

      Comment


      • #4
        I am in a similar position as yourself, all our beer is kegged up in the cellar and is rolled to the back of the building where it sits in the coldstore and is hooked up to the bar as and when needed.

        Being the guy who acutally has to fill the kegs, i find it very time consuming and labour intensive. Probably takes me about 3 hours to fill a batch, cap em, tag em and roll em into the cold store where i have to lift and stack them. By the end of it i'm pretty done in. I have done transfers from tank to tank, takes about 5 mins. Time is a big factor for me personally, so a tank dispense would be the choice. Also once the serving tank is hooked up the bar staff don't have to worry about a thing.

        However as you say cleaning it could be an issue. Is there anyway you could get serving tanks jacketed and have them outside the coldstore, that way you can set the perfect dispense temperature and CIP them easier. Also perhaps you could modified your BBT's into serving tanks. We have unitanks and are hoping to convert them into servers.

        Perhaps an idea would be to buy serving tanks that are slightly smaller than your fermenters. Then you could fill the servers till they are full and keg off the rest for offsite sale?

        Cheers

        Comment


        • #5
          Thanks for your thoughts!

          Dave: I expect the off-premise demand to be relatively constant regardless of how big my pub ends up being. Since I'm hoping to have a small place, I want to be prepared for a relatively high percentage of off-premise sales. I'm not sure how I'm going to push my beer to the taps, but it won't affect my choice between kegs and tanks. I'm going to match my CO2 partial pressure with a specified carbonation level for each beer. If my line run ends up being long, I'll either add nitrogen or use pumps to increase the overall pressure.

          Callmetim: good point - I won't be able to buy what I can't afford. According to my projections, though, I won't save a whole lot by choosing kegs over tanks. The lower cost of kegs (brand new, about half the price of tanks) are offset by an increase in building square footage and the cost of a brite beer tank.

          Fatty Matty: I love the idea of using jacketed tanks, but it would be tough to keep each draft line at its target temperature all the way from the tank to the tap. Serving the last barrel or so of each batch from kegs would also be a mess, although not impossible. I'd either need to split my tap lines so they all go to both the cold room and the serving vessels, or I'd need to switch which tap a beer is on whenever I keg it off. As for undersized serving tanks, I'd rather have extra headspace than be forced to keg off a certain amount no matter what. I've always had access to a 2-wheel dolly, so moving kegs was never a problem for me. Do you have to navigate stairs?

          Comment


          • #6
            I work a 5.5Bbl. system and have both kegs and direct to bar serving tanks.
            I would hate to be stuck with just kegs, taking hours to keg off a batch instead of just hooking up a beer line.
            When I empty the last 50 litres, I just put the keg on my line to the bar connected using a pop-on connector on the beer line and when the keg runs out the staff just change it to the pop-on on the tank.
            I admit if I were allowed off-sales I might think differently, but brewpubs are not allowed in Quebec.
            Just my opinion

            Chris

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by bruboss
              I would hate to be stuck with just kegs, taking hours to keg off a batch instead of just hooking up a beer line.
              ..and hours more cleaning kegs!!-No thanks.

              You can also rig up a "Y" and a couple small valves in your draft lines that will switch from tank->keg or keg->tank instead of trusting your staff to deal with clamps and butterfly valves.

              We had a manager remove a clamp before shutting a valve 10 bbl's of porter and a white shirt, i didn't know weather to laugh or cry.
              Jeff Byrne

              Comment


              • #8
                When figuring your dispense/aging capacity, consider that the average serving vessel will be half full...the one you just put on averaging out the one almost empty. So your available space may dictate needing to use kegs; or if you were to design a big enough dispense/aging cellar, you could have a dozen or more Grundies and have plenty of capacity. The worst scenario with all tanks, is when (randomly) all 8 of your beers are nearing empty on the same weekend and you aren't able to make another batch until you have an empty tank. This is when the ability to keg up the last of a tank is a godsend. Also having a slow-moving stout or such can be kegged up and not take more useful tank/floor capacity.
                Too few tanks means your beer can never be well-aged.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Mixed Bag

                  At one of our locations, we have done a mix of all the variation mentioned above. Currently we use a mix of 7 bbl serving tanks, some kegs and–as of just a few weeks ago–two bright tanks that can serve double duty as serving tanks as well.

                  Personally, I prefer having a few serving tanks for the top sellers. You will always have to use some kegs, but knowing you can set up x-days or weeks of beer in a few minutes is handy.

                  In the beginning, we ran exclusively off kegs. Over the years, the tanks were added, and now we have almost as many tanks as we do taps. Still we must run a few kegs.

                  I would say the mix of beers and the turnover might be the key.

                  We try to keep our year-round beers in the serving tanks. We move through them quickly enough that it is easier than juggling the kegs. We also place our most popular seasonal beers in serving tanks. Our slower moving seasonal beers are usually kegged-off. We keep enough to keep it on tap in the serving cooler, the rest go into the storage cooler, bringing more up as needed.

                  Another option, if you don't feel the volume would warrant a serving tank right away, is to use kegs in series. However, if you race though beer (basically keeping the taps open while sliding pint after pint beneath it, say during a big event or festival) they don't keep up that well. However, for most purposes it does work.

                  Kegs will always be a necessity, but if you are able to install some serving tanks to take care of the higher-volume beers, it will radically reduce time spent moving, cleaning, tapping, fixing, finding, moving, cleaning, moving, storing, cleaning, etc. At the least, a keg cleaner/filler may save your sanity (and back).

                  If you can limit your kegging to pre-planned amounts for off-premise or keg sales, you can save a great deal of time.

                  A couple questions: How many beers will you have on tap at a time? How many would be staples?

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    MJMurphy - I'm probably going to have 5 regular beers and 3 seasonal/random beers. How easy is it for you to clean your tanks (easy access to water, nearby drains, keeping the cold room temperature constant)?

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Ease of Use

                      JWalts

                      At our downtown location, our serving cooler is dedicated to the tanks and kegs that feed our three bars and was set up to suit. It's not perfect, but it works well.

                      In the cooler, the tanks are located around the perimeter of the room. We have dedicated gas lines and regulators for each tank and several for the various kegs that may be in service. We use a mixing box for the gas so we also have some 50/50 nitrogen/CO2 service for nitrogenated beers.

                      We have a manifold where the draft lines come in that splits the output thre ways for the three bars, that way it only requires one trunk line from each tank or keg to serve the whole building. One of the bars is directly above the cooler, but for the other two we utilize beer pumps to help smooth out an issues with balancing the draft system. Each can be tweaked to suit.

                      There is a water line that connects to a 1 1/2" hose with tri-clamp fittings. That can connect directly to the tanks or to the brewers hoses used to clean them. We do not have a drain located in the cooler, but there is one located directly outside the door, and the floor is sloped to facilitate liquids running out. I think its recommended not to have a drain in the cooler for a variety of reasons not least cleanliness.

                      To clean them we use a hose to run hot liquor into the tanks, hook up hoses to a pump located outside the cooler (sometimes inside the cooler, but it gets cramped quick), and follow regular CIP procedures. There is some concern about thermal stress on the tanks, but by rinsing them with the tap water first, we lessen the temperature jump they go through. When draining them we use a hose to divert the hot chemicals out the door rather than adding all that heat to an old cooler.

                      The only real concern with cleaning them in the cooler is adding unnecessary load to the cooler with steam and hot liquor. If you can minimize that, you're better off. You can even shut it down while cleaning.

                      Running CIP on the serving tanks, even several in a day, is much easier than having to clean all the additional kegs serving from kegs required.

                      One thing I would recommend it to give yourself as much room as you can, and keep the cooler strictly for your beer. It allows you to clean more thoroughly and reduce the possibility of adding things that grow into your cooler. One mistake we made in building our new brewery and restaurant was building too small of a serving cooler. The tanks are on two levels and it's too narrow. Thus working in there is a pain, and it discourages thorough cleaning.

                      One neat idea, something we didn't do, but should have done, was to use the tanks to show off your beer. Build the cooler with a clear wall facing the patrons with a row of serving tanks along it. Add some cool lighting, keep it scrubbed and people will ooh and ah. It's your beer, show it off!

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Tanks and kegs, but mostly tanks....kegs are $150 each at least right now...and you have to clean all those bad boys.
                        Larry Horwitz

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          What size kegs are most of you using?

                          Originally posted by fatty_matty
                          I am in a similar position as yourself, all our beer is kegged up in the cellar and is rolled to the back of the building where it sits in the coldstore and is hooked up to the bar as and when needed. ... snip
                          Hi, 'FattyMatty'; you might recall me mentioning in another forum a long time ago that my son's nickname is 'FattyMatty', and I've teased him about owning a brewery (he's 18 and gets a kick out of that). Anyway, what type and size of kegs are you using? ... 1/2 barrel, 1/4 barrel, 5 gallon? You mentioned having to lift and stack the kegs, so I assume that they are not half-barrel. If different folks are using different ones, any comments about pros and cons of each would be appreciated -- but I guess that's pretty obvious; smaller kegs requires more of them and more cleaning. But I'm wondering about used corny kegs to reduce intial capital investment a little bit. Feasible? I would also appreciate any info on forced carbonation; if this is done in a tank, does that present problems filling the kegs. If done in the kegs, are 'keg-shakers' used, or is that just something that a few homebrewers do?

                          Thanks for any info.

                          Cheers.

                          Bill Velek

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Hey Bill, stacking half-barrels two high in a cold room is pretty commonplace. Stacked sixth-barrels are less stable and take up more floorspace. I'd use mostly half-barrels, but keep enough sixth-barrels on hand for carryout customers. Cornies converted to use Sanke-style keg couplers work fine (although the gaps in their top rings make them lousy for stacking), but I wouldn't recommend unmodified cornies. They are harder to clean then Sanke kegs, don't seal as reliably, lose more serving pressure in their thin dip tubes, are less familiar to the bartenders who will be changing the kegs, and require specialized dispense equipment that will limit your ability to sell kegs to other bars or directly to customers (homebrewers often bring their own cornies anyway).

                            Force carbonation is usually done with a carbonation stone either in the filling tank or inline on the way to it. If you plan to cool/cold age the beer in the fermenter for a couple of weeks, you can carbonate a beer by pressurizing the tank via the blowoff arm. If you seal the fermenter before fermentation is complete, you can capture some natural CO2 (which will be limited by your tanks' pressure ratings). The trick to moving carbonated beer, whether it's going to another tank or a keg, is to pressurize the receiving vessel with CO2 beforehand. For manual keg filling, put a valve on the gas fitting and crack it open to allow gas to slowly vent as beer flows in. The flow rate of the beer will be limited by the discharge rate of the gas, and the pressure in the keg will reduce foam breakout. For tank filling, you simply connect the gas fittings of both tanks to each other and open the valves - the beer is moved by pumping and the CO2 from the receiving tank will flow back to the source tank as you go.

                            Joe

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              tanks vs kegs

                              I have a 7bbl brewery in my brewpub with 6 x 7bbl single wall bright/serving tanks. We also have 2 single unitanks and 2 x double unitanks for fermentation.
                              Where possible we serve from tank, especially forthe biggest sellers, and we run them with straight CO2 at 15psi. Once they get down to about 200 litres, we keg the remainder off and serve from keg.
                              we normally have 4 regulars and 1-2 seasonals on at a time and have 4 bbt we use to serve and 2 to condition. We try to schedule our double batches so that we have two bbt free at the right time when we need to transfer the beer into the cool room. Our stout only stays in thebbt long enough to be lightly carbonated then goes into keg for nitrogenating.
                              We try and avoid kegging as much as possible and usually limit to the stout and seasonal special beers.

                              Allan
                              Tanglehead

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X