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Hello ProBrewers!
I wanted to leverage the power and intel of this awesome forum to help solve some (fun) problems we are working on for a community-based commercial nano brewery.
Very soon I, along with several other experienced, award-winning home brewers, will be brewing commercially at a new local nano brewery (as a spin-off from an existing bottle shop) in Charlotte, NC. A bit different than your normal brewery setup, we'll all be keeping our day jobs and volunteering our free time in the evenings and on weekends to brew batches of beer and see them through to packaging. The project will be volunteer-based and limited to a select few people to keep things tight and organized. While this is very exciting for all of us, we also know we face some challenges with this setup. I wanted to present a list of challenges and possible solutions that have been discussed so far and see if anyone on ProBrewer foresees additional challenges, or (even better) has some good/better solutions. Here goes!
Also, if you respond back to the thread with feedback, please indicate which item # you are referring to. That would be helpful to keep the discussion organized.
1) Meeting Demand – Our beers will be served on tap at the bottle shop which already has 10 solid commercial beers on tap at all times. Ideally, we’d like to keep 1-2 additional taps flowing with in-house beers. Our system is 1BBL and we’re looking to keep things interesting and fun by doing lots of experimental beers and split batches. Currently, there will be three of us brewing, hoping to hold at least 2 brew sessions a month. We may have to adjust as we go based on personal schedules, or even consider adding additional brewers, but we want to keep the brewer’s list small for better control.
2) Fermenters – We have purchased multiple plastic Speidel fermenters (1 BBL and smaller in size) to use for primary and secondary fermentation. We plan to label the fermenters (clean and wild) so brewers can keep equipment and cleaning regimes separate. Eventually, we may get some conicals and add temp control, but that’s not currently in the budget (see Temperature Control below for more information) so we are making the best of what we have. We are planning to get moving dollies to place the fermenters on so we can roll them around the shop and easily move them from place to place during the fermentation/racking process.
3) Sanitation – With sharing the task of brewing/cleaning across several people, this is probably the item we are most concerned about. While the three of us all have high standards and are meticulous when it comes to cleaning and sanitizing, there is still margin for error or accidents here that we have to assume. I know this will be something we have to work through, but we are planning to label equipment and stay organized to prevent contamination, accidental infections, use of wrong equipment, etc.
4) Temperature Control – In the beginning we will not have much in the way of temperature control for fermentation. The brewing will take place on site at the bottle shop and fermentation will be done either in the ambient room-temp of the bottle shop (ranging 70-80F) or in a dedicated small office with a separate A/C unit. Either way, the temp control for fermentation will be limited to ambient temperatures. While we’d love to do a brew number of clean beers, we’re going to lean more towards wild ales and warm-fermenting strains such as Belgian/saisons due to our situation. Our palettes lean that way anyway, so it’s not a huge issue, but we also love many clean styles such as IPAs, stouts, barley wines, etc and would like to find a way to make quality clean beers as well. We may be able to use the cooler office to ferment those styles of beer but will have to feel that out as we get rolling.
5) Lack of Cold Crashing – Given that we will not have temperature control in the beginning, we will not have a means of cold crashing or clearing beers before carbonation and kegging. This may prolong the fermentation/settling timeline for some beers, or we may have to cold crash in the keg and pour off the sediment for serving. I typically steer clear of adding unnecessary chemicals to beer, but this might be a situation where Polyclar could be used.
6) Racking & Kegging – This is a really tricky one that we don’t yet have a solution for. In most cases we will have 1BBL of worth that will need to be moved from fermenter to fermenter and fermenter to keg. We will be using the March pumps (which require priming) on the brew house to automate this where possible but given that the fermenters will not be very far off the ground, getting a good prime and flow in the pumps is going to be difficult. I thought of possible creating a wench-based lift hooked to a strong rafter in the shop that has a platform for raising the fermenters up during racking. This would allow us to transfer to fermenters or kegs either using manual flow or using a sanitized pump. Another option is to use CO2 to push the wort/beer from vessel to vessel.
7) Carbonation – We’ve talked about this one a lot and are not sure if we are going to force-carbonate, or try to inject CO2 inline on the way to the keg for a quicker turnaround carbonation. We’re leaning towards force carbonation with high PSI for a few days per keg. We are going to be using Sanke kegs (and most of us are more familiar with Cornelius kegs). The main issue with force carbonating in the keg is that it will add another 1-2 days to the timeline for the beer being ready, and we won’t have complete control of the final PSI (which we can probably work around). The inline method would allow us to have beer ready faster and offer more consistency, but also adds to initial equipment costs.
8) Incentivizing Brewers – While we all love brewing and drinking beer, I’d be remiss if I left this one off. Volunteers/brewers will be taking time away from their families and other responsibilities to brew beer for the bottle shop. The shop owner has agreed that brewers should be incentivized and rewarded for their time and efforts to keep the program active and beer flowing. All ingredients and equipment needs will be covered 100% by the shop but time provided by brewers will be volunteer-based and unpaid. Possible incentives that we have come up with so far include; ongoing 10% employee discount on purchases at the shop if you are an active brewer, a specified amount of store credit per batch to be used towards draft/bottle purchases at the shop; a 5-gallon keg of beer from the batch; and public notoriety that you made the beer. Are there other things that can be on this list that we are not considering?
Additionally, we determined that in order to reap the rewards, the brewer first must complete brewing and packaging of the beer including all clean up, etc for the next brewer/batch. In the case of a spoiled beer or beer that just didn’t turn out well, the shop owner would make a decision of how to handle it on a per-situation basis but in most cases you wouldn't be rewarded since it didn't turn out. If the problem was out of the control of the brewer, maybe a partial reward could be offered for their time.
I wanted to leverage the power and intel of this awesome forum to help solve some (fun) problems we are working on for a community-based commercial nano brewery.
Very soon I, along with several other experienced, award-winning home brewers, will be brewing commercially at a new local nano brewery (as a spin-off from an existing bottle shop) in Charlotte, NC. A bit different than your normal brewery setup, we'll all be keeping our day jobs and volunteering our free time in the evenings and on weekends to brew batches of beer and see them through to packaging. The project will be volunteer-based and limited to a select few people to keep things tight and organized. While this is very exciting for all of us, we also know we face some challenges with this setup. I wanted to present a list of challenges and possible solutions that have been discussed so far and see if anyone on ProBrewer foresees additional challenges, or (even better) has some good/better solutions. Here goes!
Also, if you respond back to the thread with feedback, please indicate which item # you are referring to. That would be helpful to keep the discussion organized.
1) Meeting Demand – Our beers will be served on tap at the bottle shop which already has 10 solid commercial beers on tap at all times. Ideally, we’d like to keep 1-2 additional taps flowing with in-house beers. Our system is 1BBL and we’re looking to keep things interesting and fun by doing lots of experimental beers and split batches. Currently, there will be three of us brewing, hoping to hold at least 2 brew sessions a month. We may have to adjust as we go based on personal schedules, or even consider adding additional brewers, but we want to keep the brewer’s list small for better control.
2) Fermenters – We have purchased multiple plastic Speidel fermenters (1 BBL and smaller in size) to use for primary and secondary fermentation. We plan to label the fermenters (clean and wild) so brewers can keep equipment and cleaning regimes separate. Eventually, we may get some conicals and add temp control, but that’s not currently in the budget (see Temperature Control below for more information) so we are making the best of what we have. We are planning to get moving dollies to place the fermenters on so we can roll them around the shop and easily move them from place to place during the fermentation/racking process.
3) Sanitation – With sharing the task of brewing/cleaning across several people, this is probably the item we are most concerned about. While the three of us all have high standards and are meticulous when it comes to cleaning and sanitizing, there is still margin for error or accidents here that we have to assume. I know this will be something we have to work through, but we are planning to label equipment and stay organized to prevent contamination, accidental infections, use of wrong equipment, etc.
4) Temperature Control – In the beginning we will not have much in the way of temperature control for fermentation. The brewing will take place on site at the bottle shop and fermentation will be done either in the ambient room-temp of the bottle shop (ranging 70-80F) or in a dedicated small office with a separate A/C unit. Either way, the temp control for fermentation will be limited to ambient temperatures. While we’d love to do a brew number of clean beers, we’re going to lean more towards wild ales and warm-fermenting strains such as Belgian/saisons due to our situation. Our palettes lean that way anyway, so it’s not a huge issue, but we also love many clean styles such as IPAs, stouts, barley wines, etc and would like to find a way to make quality clean beers as well. We may be able to use the cooler office to ferment those styles of beer but will have to feel that out as we get rolling.
5) Lack of Cold Crashing – Given that we will not have temperature control in the beginning, we will not have a means of cold crashing or clearing beers before carbonation and kegging. This may prolong the fermentation/settling timeline for some beers, or we may have to cold crash in the keg and pour off the sediment for serving. I typically steer clear of adding unnecessary chemicals to beer, but this might be a situation where Polyclar could be used.
6) Racking & Kegging – This is a really tricky one that we don’t yet have a solution for. In most cases we will have 1BBL of worth that will need to be moved from fermenter to fermenter and fermenter to keg. We will be using the March pumps (which require priming) on the brew house to automate this where possible but given that the fermenters will not be very far off the ground, getting a good prime and flow in the pumps is going to be difficult. I thought of possible creating a wench-based lift hooked to a strong rafter in the shop that has a platform for raising the fermenters up during racking. This would allow us to transfer to fermenters or kegs either using manual flow or using a sanitized pump. Another option is to use CO2 to push the wort/beer from vessel to vessel.
7) Carbonation – We’ve talked about this one a lot and are not sure if we are going to force-carbonate, or try to inject CO2 inline on the way to the keg for a quicker turnaround carbonation. We’re leaning towards force carbonation with high PSI for a few days per keg. We are going to be using Sanke kegs (and most of us are more familiar with Cornelius kegs). The main issue with force carbonating in the keg is that it will add another 1-2 days to the timeline for the beer being ready, and we won’t have complete control of the final PSI (which we can probably work around). The inline method would allow us to have beer ready faster and offer more consistency, but also adds to initial equipment costs.
8) Incentivizing Brewers – While we all love brewing and drinking beer, I’d be remiss if I left this one off. Volunteers/brewers will be taking time away from their families and other responsibilities to brew beer for the bottle shop. The shop owner has agreed that brewers should be incentivized and rewarded for their time and efforts to keep the program active and beer flowing. All ingredients and equipment needs will be covered 100% by the shop but time provided by brewers will be volunteer-based and unpaid. Possible incentives that we have come up with so far include; ongoing 10% employee discount on purchases at the shop if you are an active brewer, a specified amount of store credit per batch to be used towards draft/bottle purchases at the shop; a 5-gallon keg of beer from the batch; and public notoriety that you made the beer. Are there other things that can be on this list that we are not considering?
Additionally, we determined that in order to reap the rewards, the brewer first must complete brewing and packaging of the beer including all clean up, etc for the next brewer/batch. In the case of a spoiled beer or beer that just didn’t turn out well, the shop owner would make a decision of how to handle it on a per-situation basis but in most cases you wouldn't be rewarded since it didn't turn out. If the problem was out of the control of the brewer, maybe a partial reward could be offered for their time.
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