Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Planning a 10 bbl brewpub

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Planning a 10 bbl brewpub

    Hey everyone! Long time follower, first time poster! We are almost done putting the finishing touches on our business plan for a 10 bbl brewpub. My question is how many fermenters and brite tanks would we need to have a yearly production of 1000 bbl per year with 5-7 tap handles? My research has shown that we would need five 10 bbl fermenters (2 brews per week for 20 weeks). We made the decision to not distribute in the first year of production so there won't be a need for kegs right away. Would we need 5-7 brite tanks for serving too?

    Thank you everyone for the comments!

  • #2
    Originally posted by tylerhoppel View Post
    My question is how many fermenters and brite tanks would we need to have a yearly production of 1000 bbl per year with 5-7 tap handles?
    A little back of the napkin math here.

    1000 BBL at 10BBL batches means 100 batches per year
    Assuming 4 weeks in fermentation per batch on average (this is probably high) that's 400 weeks of fermentation time
    To do 400 weeks of fermentation in 52 weeks per year you'll need 7.69 fermenters, let's call that 8
    Of course you have to assume there will be some time that you're not actively using your fermenters so you may have to add in a bit of a fudge factor on how much yearly production you can get out of one tank. Then again the 4 week number might be a bit long as well so maybe there's already enough fudge there. Look at how long you expect a batch to be in a fermenter and then run the same basic calculations to come up with a number of tanks required.

    As for Brights, that's a bit different. It really boils down to being able to move the beer along with your fermentation schedule. if so, you may only need an equal number of brights to your beers. I suspect this may not be the case however as beer doesn't always flow out at exactly the same steady rate at which you will be producing it. Hopefully somebody else can provide a little input here.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by kcolby View Post
      A little back of the napkin math here.

      1000 BBL at 10BBL batches means 100 batches per year
      Assuming 4 weeks in fermentation per batch on average (this is probably high) that's 400 weeks of fermentation time
      To do 400 weeks of fermentation in 52 weeks per year you'll need 7.69 fermenters, let's call that 8
      Of course you have to assume there will be some time that you're not actively using your fermenters so you may have to add in a bit of a fudge factor on how much yearly production you can get out of one tank. Then again the 4 week number might be a bit long as well so maybe there's already enough fudge there. Look at how long you expect a batch to be in a fermenter and then run the same basic calculations to come up with a number of tanks required.

      As for Brights, that's a bit different. It really boils down to being able to move the beer along with your fermentation schedule. if so, you may only need an equal number of brights to your beers. I suspect this may not be the case however as beer doesn't always flow out at exactly the same steady rate at which you will be producing it. Hopefully somebody else can provide a little input here.
      Fermenter math looks good. Where I work we were trying to do a 2 week fermentation, but I moved it to a 4 week to help with consistency. I'd plan on 4 weeks and then you can see if it's getting you reliable results sooner on your system.

      As far as brights, figure an absolute minimum of 1 brite per handle. With that number, you will have taps out of service while you are refilling the britethat it's on though. If you hit the end of 2 brites at the same day, that's 2 handles out of service for 24 hours or so. I'm thinking you would want # of handles +2 for brites.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by tylerhoppel View Post
        Hey everyone! Long time follower, first time poster! We are almost done putting the finishing touches on our business plan for a 10 bbl brewpub. My question is how many fermenters and brite tanks would we need to have a yearly production of 1000 bbl per year with 5-7 tap handles? My research has shown that we would need five 10 bbl fermenters (2 brews per week for 20 weeks). We made the decision to not distribute in the first year of production so there won't be a need for kegs right away. Would we need 5-7 brite tanks for serving too?

        Thank you everyone for the comments!
        Why not bail on the serving tanks and keg all your beer starting D1? That way you can minimize the # of BBT's you need and you have the flexibility of distributing sooner if you like. It is also a bit more efficient use of equipment. Lets say it takes you a week to empty one BBT. At any time after the initial fill, its only partially used, thus not fully maximized. If, however, you kegged your beer (which you profess you will do in the future anyways), then that one BBT can be used to keg multiple batches a week. Plus, lets say you are half way through a 10BBL kegged batch of both IPA and APA. That means you have enough empty kegs to keg another 10BBL batch. So effectively, you can have 3 batches on tap with enough kegs for 2 batches. To me, the increase potential in packaging efficiency, and the fact that you will keg at some point in the near future anyways, suggests kegs are the way to go.

        And I write this because I was in your same thinking mode 6 months ago, and the argument I present to you today is the same that a small brewery owner posed to me. Now he and his brewery are undergoing a massive expansion after year 1 and I save ~10K in my start-up cost projections and have costed in more packaging capacity in kegs than if I stuck with serving tanks.....

        My $0.02
        Cheers and best of luck

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by OGBrewer76 View Post
          Why not bail on the serving tanks and keg all your beer starting D1? That way you can minimize the # of BBT's you need and you have the flexibility of distributing sooner if you like. It is also a bit more efficient use of equipment. Lets say it takes you a week to empty one BBT. At any time after the initial fill, its only partially used, thus not fully maximized. If, however, you kegged your beer (which you profess you will do in the future anyways), then that one BBT can be used to keg multiple batches a week. Plus, lets say you are half way through a 10BBL kegged batch of both IPA and APA. That means you have enough empty kegs to keg another 10BBL batch. So effectively, you can have 3 batches on tap with enough kegs for 2 batches. To me, the increase potential in packaging efficiency, and the fact that you will keg at some point in the near future anyways, suggests kegs are the way to go.

          And I write this because I was in your same thinking mode 6 months ago, and the argument I present to you today is the same that a small brewery owner posed to me. Now he and his brewery are undergoing a massive expansion after year 1 and I save ~10K in my start-up cost projections and have costed in more packaging capacity in kegs than if I stuck with serving tanks.....

          My $0.02
          Cheers and best of luck
          Thank you for your opinion! I think you may be right about kegging right off the bat. I am worried about not kegging and doing festivals. Now with that in mind if we had a 10 BBL Brewhouse, we anticipate doing 500-750 BBL/year (going off other local production breweries around town, there are only 2 brewpubs in my area) we had to change the number. We would need to lower the amount of serving tanks needed...if we had eight 10 BBL fermenters and one 10 BBL brite and kegging, that would be sufficient enough?

          Comment

          Working...
          X