Brewhouse Layout

[Gabe]

We are getting set up in a 700 sqft brew room and wanted to get any pointers on the layout ,floorplan, of some of you more established breweries. Any tips on where to place certain pumps, kegwasher, walkin cooler, FV's or brites for a smooth running operation would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers, Gabe

[v2comp]

my single best suggestion is to keep processes from crossing over wherever possible.
simply put, dont ship out the same door that your grains, yeast etc. come in.
a simple horseshoe design works very well overall. just trying to make a smooth flowing process will save you much headache. just like with our ears, in one out the other works well in this situation.
another way to put it in football terms is always go Down Hill in the process, no overlap.

[GlacierBrewing]

Second what v2comp said. One of the only good pieces of advice an old boss gave me regarding production facilities: work for a linear flow of material. Raw material in one end, work it through until finished product out the other. 700 square feet isn't a heck of a lot of space to have completely dedicated space but that also depends on the size of your equipment. You can pick up a lot of smaller equipment storage space (ie pumps, filters, mobile keg washer) between the tanks. Also, you don't have to have the tanks all side-by-side, if you position them in a staggered configuration, they may not take up as much room. Biggest piece of advice; give yourself ample "free" space in the middle of the room to shovel out the tun, set up the CIP pump and hoses, room to keg, etc... Once the tanks are set and plumbed in, damn hard to move 'em. Luck to ya'

my two cents.....

Prost!
dave

[South County]

Do you have any as-built dwgs or sketches of the space, length x width? Entrance door locations, utilities hookups? If you had something like that we could take a stab and offer input. I don't know what size system your proposing but 700 sqft sounds tight for the things you've listed.

[South County]

Speaking of u-flow here is what I've come up with for my installation for a 15x30BBL.

[nohandslance]

Our layout was similar to your design, L shape of fermenters, sharing common drain with BH. BBT's directly behind row of 4 fermenters.
Boiler was outside. Total square footage of actual brewing, fermentation and packaging was 1000. We had 5000 total and naturally I "spread my wings", But could have smashed all process into 1000 if needed.

Good luck

[Gabe]

Thanks!

Our room is actually an old cider room. The room dim are 23'x31' with an L shaped drain along the walls, so 1 side has no drain along it and the door side has no drain. The whole room is sloped to the drain though. Our ceiling is sloped with the shorter side being 15' tall to 25' tall. The room is insulated with 10'' thick walls. We have 1 door that is 7' by 10' slider and is the only escape route. We plan on a 7-10 bbl setup. 4 FV 3 BT. The walk in could actually be in a different room if space was needed. All our electric is from pull downs on 3 walls plus a few 110 GFI's.
Boiler and Glycol will be outside under overhang on slab. Thanks for any ideas! Gabe

[schlosser]

Brewery Layout

Our layout was similar to your design, L shape of fermenters, sharing common drain with BH. BBT's directly behind row of 4 fermenters.
Boiler was outside. Total square footage of actual brewing, fermentation and packaging was 1000. We had 5000 total and naturally I "spread my wings", But could have smashed all process into 1000 if needed.

Good luck

Nohandslance,

Your design is similiar to what I'm laying out now. I have a question for you. In the picture you posted around the brewery there is a yellow line, is that a curb or is the entire brew area elevated? I'm asking b/c the building I have has a trench drain the length of the building, but poorly sloped (or not sloped at all) floors. I'm working through the details of either ripping up part of the floor (8' thick with 2 layers of mesh) and sloping correctly or laying a 6' layer of concrete on top of it with proper sloping and drains that tie into the main drain. I have plenty of ceiling height (24+ feet) so the loss of 6' wouldn't be a big deal.

Cheers,
Dave