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  • Brewery Layout Feedback

    I'm in the very early stages of a brewery buildout and was hoping to get some feedback on my layout (see below). The leased space is just under 4300 sq/ft. I'm aiming for a balance between a decent-sized taproom and some flexibility in the brewery space. This layout can accommodate five more fermenters in the 15-30 bbl range, two going next to fermenter D and three more across from those three. If that ends up being the case, the milling room and grain storage would move to the expanded space to make room for the fermenters.

    The brites I have are single-wall and will only be used for packaging. Packaging will be kegs only for the first year. My goal is to have some kind of junction in the cooler wall so I can hook a hose up from a fermenter to the junction and use a smaller hose within the cooler from the junction to the brite tank.

    Any advice/thoughts as to issues I could run into with this layout are greatly appreciated. I'd like to make sure I've addressed any possible issues that could've been avoided. Cheers!

    Matt

    Click image for larger version

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  • #2
    Is it worth rotating the kitchen (and A B C tanks) 90degrees so your staff are not walking past the toilets with food upon serving?

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    • #3
      That's a good observation. It's certainly worth looking into. I'd like to keep as much of the wall splitting the taproom/brewery as glass to offer a glimpse into the production area. I'll see what I can do to space out the kitchen/bathroom relationship.

      Thanks for the feedback!

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      • #4
        So, your employees are going to utilize the same restroom facilities as your guests?

        I'm working on a redraw for you.... Gives you and employees (brewers) restroom, eliminated the bathroom/kitchen conflict and adds space for storage of glassware and kitchen support items, , adds a rollup door (if not leased space), relocates your Mash Tun to an area closer to the Exit door of the brewery so you will have easier access for disposal of spent grains.

        Click image for larger version

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        Last edited by Scott M; 05-09-2016, 11:21 AM.

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        • #5
          On the whole it's much better laid-out than many we see on here. Where's empty keg storage? Both dirty and clean.

          Also, a piece of advice from someone who came in this Saturday to shut down and drain the glycol system in order to lean precariously on a 10' ladder to install a new pair of tank drops: spend the money now and pre-plumb in drops for those future tanks.
          Russell Everett
          Co-Founder / Head Brewer
          Bainbridge Island Brewing
          Bainbridge Island, WA

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Scott M View Post
            So, your employees are going to utilize the same restroom facilities as your guests?

            I'm working on a redraw for you....

            I'm not too worried about employees using the same bathroom as the guests. Perhaps my thinking is a little naive, but we'd be looking at 1-2 bartenders with 1-2 production for the first phase. We aren't planning on implementing the kitchen until we close in a year, maybe sooner, which would add another 1-2 employees. Once it's setup, it will be mainly pizza and not a full kitchen/menu. More of a bonus offering while enjoying your pints.

            In my mind, 6 employees potentially working at the same time shouldn't really create any kind of roadblock on the bathroom traffic.

            If/when things really start to ramp up and we're needing more space, we'll be adding the 4000 sq/ft that is adjacent to our space and can then have production-dedicated bathrooms in that space.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Bainbridge View Post
              On the whole it's much better laid-out than many we see on here. Where's empty keg storage? Both dirty and clean.

              Also, a piece of advice from someone who came in this Saturday to shut down and drain the glycol system in order to lean precariously on a 10' ladder to install a new pair of tank drops: spend the money now and pre-plumb in drops for those future tanks.
              Ah, the keg storage dilemma. We'll need to get a little creative in that regard.

              We have trusses that will limit our cooler height to 11' at the tallest. The actual ceiling is upwards of 16 ft. My plan was to work on some kind of pallet keg storage above the cooler, accessible with a forklift. That obviously won't hold all of our keg inventory. The other thought was actually storing clean kegs in the cooler, but that all depends on our inventory of full kegs. Hoping that a distributor would be stopping by often, we hopefully won't be jam-packed with full kegs. I really don't want to sit on beer any longer that necessary.

              Regarding our cooler, we're aiming for roughly 600 sq/ft. Seems like a decent size to me, but this is my first rodeo. We don't have much space for anything bigger, so I'm hoping it's a fitting solution until any future expansion would be necessary.

              Your advice on the tank drops is gold! I'm pretty well set on filling out that space with a total of 9 fermenters, so we can definitely add those in right off the bat.

              Thanks!

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              • #8
                Sorry for the delay........

                I was drawing.... :-)

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Scott M View Post
                  Sorry for the delay........

                  I was drawing.... :-)
                  Holy moly, you weren't kidding! Thank you for the drawing!

                  I'll dive into a few more of the particulars of our space which has dictated some of the placements. I'd like to utilize the corner that you've moved the brewhouse into, but there's a weird partial basement under that corner and I'm not sure if the floor could support the weight of that much equipment. In order to not have to move the water main (which is down there) and spend money filling in the basement, I figured we could just pop the office over that corner and leave the floor as is.

                  Another thing I really want to have is a decent view into the production area. The wall separating the taproom/brewery space would be glass from floor to ceiling. The alignment of the front door, the taproom/brewery doors (glass also) and brewhouse gives customers a nice line of sight all the way from the front door to the production area as soon as they walk in. The wall would be drywall where the kitchen butts up to it.

                  The possible expansion space is actually to the right of the space we currently have. As it sits now, the spaces are connected where the mill room will be. It'll be walled off until we need the space, at which point we'll simply open it back up. I'd love to get into the space below ours where you've placed the rollup door, but it's not in the plans as it's currently occupied.

                  Here is a fun link giving you a really good idea of the interior as it currently stands:
                  http://sphereshare.net/#!/s/3be2f1e5...f810c16269a076. That lone slab of concrete in the back corner is the where the partial basement is. You can also see the throughway in the back corner to the adjacent space we'll be looking into down the road.

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                  • #10
                    Looks like a nice space. At least, you won't have to worry about your existing brewery floor! Talk about a blank canvas!!

                    How are you planning to vent your kettle?

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Scott M View Post
                      Looks like a nice space. At least, you won't have to worry about your existing brewery floor! Talk about a blank canvas!!

                      How are you planning to vent your kettle?
                      I haven't ironed that out yet. I've heard to shy away from using a long straight vertical stack and aim for having a bend to prevent condensate from returning into the kettle. I'd like to have it come up aways and bend to the left so that it's routed out the side of the building above the office area. Not sure if that's too long to route the exhaust or not. If so, we may end up going straight up and out.
                      Last edited by mgohring; 05-09-2016, 12:45 PM.

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                      • #12
                        Just a thought for you. Depending on local and state codes you may not be able to do a glass wall looking into the brewery. I'd check with local codes before you get to set on having that.
                        Last brewery I helped build out wanted to have a very large glass window but ended up being restricted to 36" windows max due to a required fire rating between the production area and the taproom.
                        Manuel

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by mmussen View Post
                          Just a thought for you. Depending on local and state codes you may not be able to do a glass wall looking into the brewery. I'd check with local codes before you get to set on having that.
                          Last brewery I helped build out wanted to have a very large glass window but ended up being restricted to 36" windows max due to a required fire rating between the production area and the taproom.
                          Good thought. The architect made a remark along those lines that it would have to be fire-rated glass and thus, costly. That wasn't a deal-breaker for me, but I should probably find out for sure.

                          If we end up unable to make some kind of glass wall happen, I'll probably rotate the future kitchen area 90 degrees to mitigate the food traveling past the bathroom doors. I guess there'd still be the glass double doors that you could peek through.

                          Thanks!

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                          • #14
                            Set up a closed circuit TV system with 80" LCD monitors in the tasting room so your guests can watch what is going on in the brewery. Now no worries! ;-)

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Scott M View Post
                              Set up a closed circuit TV system with 80" LCD monitors in the tasting room so your guests can watch what is going on in the brewery. Now no worries! ;-)
                              Novel approach, but I think something like this should get you up to code: 120 Minute Fire Rated Glass Curtain Walls Expensive, yes? But damn worth it. They will look gorgeous, last forever, and keep you in code.

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