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  • Pilot Brewery - Waste of time?

    Hi everyone,

    In getting to know a few micro-breweries and brewers here in the UK, I've been suprised that very few have pilot breweries (say 10-20 gallon) in which to trial new recipes or tweak old ones.

    Can any of you experieced micro brewers provide me with some reasoning behind this? Is having a pilot brewery a complete waste of time? Is this why some micros end up with 15-20 different beers, because they are piloting at 20 barrels?

    Any insight appreciated.

    Thanks and Cheers,

    Jeff
    Jeff Rosenmeier (Rosie)
    Chairman of the Beer
    Lovibonds Brewery Ltd
    Henley-on-Thames, Englandshire
    W: www.lovibonds.com
    F: LovibondsBrewery
    T: @Lovibonds

  • #2
    Most micros don't have any money left over for a pilot brewery after the production brewery is built.

    A pilot brewery is a great tool for testing new recipes, materials, and any other parameter of the brewing process. Its definitely not a waste of time.

    Just remember it costs extra money to operate one in labor and materials. It also takes time! A small brew takes just as long as a large brew. The production is usually too small to sell also (unless you are a brewpub).

    So time and money are the biggest reasons why most micros do not have a pilot brewery.

    Comment


    • #3
      Zbrew2k thanks for the feedback.

      If there are any micros out there that are doing pilot brewing, I would appreciate some feedback. For instance, what size is your pilot kit? What you do with the pilot brews? When do you pilot brew? Do the pilot beers coorelate with the production versions...what adjustments need to be made (hop utilisation, etc).

      Thanks very much,
      Jeff Rosenmeier (Rosie)
      Chairman of the Beer
      Lovibonds Brewery Ltd
      Henley-on-Thames, Englandshire
      W: www.lovibonds.com
      F: LovibondsBrewery
      T: @Lovibonds

      Comment


      • #4
        We still use my old 12 gallon homebrew system to test new recipes of beers I have never brewed before - I developed all of our current recipes on it before we opened. It's a simple RIMS system made out of converted kegs. I found that all I had to do to scale up the recipes to our 10 bbl system was to increase our mash efficiency and hop utilization for the big system - from 85% to 96% on the mash efficiency and increase the hop utilization by a factor of 3.

        The bigger batches were of course much cleaner tasting and more attenuated, but using a pilot system is a much easier way to develop new recipes than just winging it. It does take as much time to make 12 gallons as to make 300 gallons. But dumping 300 gallons is much more painful.

        Cheers,

        Linus Hall
        Yazoo Brewing
        Nashville, TN
        Linus Hall
        Yazoo Brewing
        Nashville, TN
        www.yazoobrew.com

        Comment


        • #5
          We have a 10 bbl. pilot brewery at Widmer Brothers. The brewery is used for R&D and also to brew some of our draft only brands. All of the "off" brands are sold in our restaurant with some of the kegs sold to dock sales. This smaller brewery also allows us to brew specialty beers for beer festivals such as the Oregon Brewers Festival. One brewer does most of the brewing at this facility but other brewers help out if they have a new recipe they have developed. The pilot brewery is a real asset to the brewery especially for new product development. The Rose Garden brewhouse is different but gets us very close when it comes time to brew a batch on the large brewhouse (250 bbl). The test brews get a standard analysis along with evaluation from a taste panel. If the product is what we want it is sold through the restaurant otherwise the beer is recycled and we adjust the recipe and brew the test brew again. Hope this info helps.
          Mike Jordan
          Brewmaster
          Boxing Cat Brewery
          Shanghai, P.R. China
          michael@boxingcatbrewery.com

          Comment


          • #6
            Thanks for all the info guys...
            Jeff Rosenmeier (Rosie)
            Chairman of the Beer
            Lovibonds Brewery Ltd
            Henley-on-Thames, Englandshire
            W: www.lovibonds.com
            F: LovibondsBrewery
            T: @Lovibonds

            Comment


            • #7
              Just a note Rosie....if you are building a small brewery (10-30 bbls) a 10 gal pilot brewery isn't going to be of much use to you.. the efficiency will vary a ton from your regular system on several things which you are trying to figure out. Most notably: Color, extract, hop bitterness and aroma extraction. Don't bother. Spend your money learning about your brewhouse. You will find that with a little experience you will be able to predict the outcome of your regular size batches with ease.

              If you are interested in the performance of a new product (ie base malt) the sales force of your potential new supplier will be happy to supply enough malt (etc) to trial on your full size rig.

              i've worked for brewery after brewery with pilot systems collecting dust in the corner...it takes the same amount of time to make 10 gals as it does to make 300...
              Larry Horwitz

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