3 compartment sink or auto glass washer

[beerisgood]

In a new brewery tasting room would you recommend a 3 compartment sink or an auto glass washer for washing your beer glasses. We have room for 100 people. We're at the point of ordering our bar equipment and are unsure of which way to go. It seems that the auto washer would be much more convenient, especially when we're busy, but at a much higher cost.
What do you have?

[Bainbridge]

I believe in most health districts, and certainly here, you need the three compartment sink anyway, even if you've got the washer. So you'll probably have it anyway. We were running over on the taproom buildout so it was auto-washer or paint the walls. We went with paint. But we did plumb it so we could put a washer in later if we wanted to. We use a little motorized glass scrubber and the three basin sink, and dry the glasses in some drip-trays and by hand. It works but it's definitely a chore, particularly as the glasses pile up when it's busy, and someone always, always, walks up and orders three flights right as you start washing the glasses. And God how we all hate pouring and washing the tasting glasses.

If you're doing tasting glasses in flights and you can afford it, I'd say get the washer. If you're just doing pints, maybe just a couple odd tasters, then the sink one is like $200 instead of several thousand and a little extra labor is cheap. It's not that bad but it does get old quick; there are nights where we wash hundreds of glasses.

[gungadin]

You might also explore a "lease" of a glass washer. There are companies out there that will give you the machine as long as you buy chemicals from them, Auto-Chlor is one. Some food service wholesalers may also give you a machine (probably only if you are doing food in your tasting room though). Used dish machines should be plentiful as well, check with your local Hobart dealer to see what they have rebuilt, you will save a couple grand off the price of new and still get a very solid machine.

[Brewtopian]

The health department is going to require you have a 3 compartment sink for glassware so that's a foregone conclusion. For the sake of efficiency go ahead and buy or lease a high temp sanitizer since that will save you and your staff a lot of time and energy.

[OurMutualBrewer]

Like these previous dudes said, you need the 3 bin anyways. We leased a dishwasher initially, then got rid of it because we only used it once at the end of the night. We don't miss it and it saves us 150 a month.

[ChesterBrew]

For a hundred person facility, I'd say it depends how many glasses you have, whether you give each patron a fresh glass (as opposed to a bar-mounted glass rinser) each time, and how much of the time you expect it to be at capacity.

Washing a couple hundred glasses every day would get old real fast for me.

[gointomexico]

I have a three compartment sink, and use beer clean to wash/sanatize. I was pretty slow at first, but I got used to it. I can wash about 30 taster glasses in 4 or 5 minutes, 20 pints in the same amount of time. My taproom seats 50. I have about 200 glasses total.

[Packey]

We have a dishwasher in the kitchen that some of our beer glasses go through. It leaves a residue on our glasses and doesn't get them "beer clean" even if we rinse the glasses before pouring. We also have a 3 compartment sink and that does a much better job at getting our glasses "beer clean." Since you'll most likely be required by the health department to have the 3 compartment sink anyways, I'd go that route.