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Hey Guys,
We've been open for 1 year now, and I wanted to do a check-in on some of our processes and get a little feedback! Brand new brewer, running a pretty busy operation- so I need all the help I can get.
We've been very successful (for a small town brewery) and it's just two of us running the whole show, with me producing all the beer, bartending, waiting tables and much more. There is so little time. If I find something that works, I've just stuck to it for lack of time to try anything else -- so I think it's important to step back for a second here.
1) General Cleaning
I quickly moved away from caustics, and I use a simple two-step PBW and Saniclean (phosphoric/oleic) regiment for clean and sanitize. I see a lot of people doing more complex cleaning procedures and I want to know if what I'm doing is enough. I've had zero contaminations for the whole year, brewing 2-3 batches per week. I still don't visually see any reason to do an acid wash. No calcium deposits anywhere, etc. Am I being naive? Should I be doing more?
2) Keg Cleaning
I do the exact same process for the kegs. PBW and Saniclean and that's it for the whole year. This concerns me a little since I cant see inside the kegs without removing spears. I serve 4 beers out of brites and keg off two other batches every week. So not super heavy keg usage-- all in house. How often should I do an Acid #6 (etc.) for kegs in my situation?
3) Yeast
This one I hate admitting. I've got so little time, that I use a very rough pitch/re-pitch method. Early on, I calculated my AVERAGE yeast pitch for most beers and it came out to roughly a 5 gallon bucket full of medium-thick slurry. I literally pitch the exact same amount (4.5-5 gallons) of slurry for every single beer I brew. They're all pretty moderate in gravity. I keep six on tap and I don't have too many brews over 1.065. Occasionally I brew a higher gravity one, but I'm still using the same pitch for those. Comes out great. This tells me I'm greatly over-pitching most of the time. I know -- this method is bad practice. MY question is-- how bad? Am I headed for disaster?
I don't want to make excuses, but it IS a one man brewing show and it's only half of my job because we run a busy restaurant too. There are so many little things I haven't got time for right now, and that includes any extra cleaning cycles, better yeast calculations, etc.
That's enough for now. Love to hear some honest opinions about someone in my situation...
Cheers,
Tim
We've been open for 1 year now, and I wanted to do a check-in on some of our processes and get a little feedback! Brand new brewer, running a pretty busy operation- so I need all the help I can get.
We've been very successful (for a small town brewery) and it's just two of us running the whole show, with me producing all the beer, bartending, waiting tables and much more. There is so little time. If I find something that works, I've just stuck to it for lack of time to try anything else -- so I think it's important to step back for a second here.
1) General Cleaning
I quickly moved away from caustics, and I use a simple two-step PBW and Saniclean (phosphoric/oleic) regiment for clean and sanitize. I see a lot of people doing more complex cleaning procedures and I want to know if what I'm doing is enough. I've had zero contaminations for the whole year, brewing 2-3 batches per week. I still don't visually see any reason to do an acid wash. No calcium deposits anywhere, etc. Am I being naive? Should I be doing more?
2) Keg Cleaning
I do the exact same process for the kegs. PBW and Saniclean and that's it for the whole year. This concerns me a little since I cant see inside the kegs without removing spears. I serve 4 beers out of brites and keg off two other batches every week. So not super heavy keg usage-- all in house. How often should I do an Acid #6 (etc.) for kegs in my situation?
3) Yeast
This one I hate admitting. I've got so little time, that I use a very rough pitch/re-pitch method. Early on, I calculated my AVERAGE yeast pitch for most beers and it came out to roughly a 5 gallon bucket full of medium-thick slurry. I literally pitch the exact same amount (4.5-5 gallons) of slurry for every single beer I brew. They're all pretty moderate in gravity. I keep six on tap and I don't have too many brews over 1.065. Occasionally I brew a higher gravity one, but I'm still using the same pitch for those. Comes out great. This tells me I'm greatly over-pitching most of the time. I know -- this method is bad practice. MY question is-- how bad? Am I headed for disaster?
I don't want to make excuses, but it IS a one man brewing show and it's only half of my job because we run a busy restaurant too. There are so many little things I haven't got time for right now, and that includes any extra cleaning cycles, better yeast calculations, etc.
That's enough for now. Love to hear some honest opinions about someone in my situation...
Cheers,
Tim
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