Pumps – A portable centrifugal pump is needed for the cleaning tanks. It can also be used to transfer the beer from one tank to another, or to turn a brew over on itself in situations such as dry hopping. Two portable pumps are much better than just one. And ask for spare seals.
Hoses – A number of sanitary beer hoses are needed. Five and ten footers for cleaning tanks. Longer hoses for transferring the beer from the brewhouse to the fermenters, for use with the filter, and for the transfer from the brite tank to packaging. 1 ½” sizing with triclamp fittings is fairly standard. At well over $10 per foot plus expensive fittings and clamps make sure you receive as many hoses as possible. “Garden” style hose for general cleanup will generally not be supplied as part of the system.
Fittings – Stainless steel tri-clamps, Tees, Elbows, Sanitary butterfly valves, gaskets. You never have quite enough of them!
Lab/Testing Equipment – You will probably not get much, if any, of this with the system. Plan on buying something like the Zahm and Nagel SS-60 to measure carbonation levels. There is a lot of great analytical equipment available. It is costly to buy things like microscopes, dissolved oxygen testers, pH meters, microbiological testing supplies, spectrophotometers, centrifuges, etc. It takes some time to establish a good lab and personnel to operate it, but the beer you make will deserve the extra investments to ensure that it will stay as good as you need and want it to be.
After all this, you’d figure everything’s been covered. But no, there are still a few more things that you will need.
Grain Handling – The brewery should come with a mill for the malt, and with the needed augers drives and chutes to convey the malt from the bags, through the mill, to the mash tun. A grist hopper is often incorporated into the line to speed up the process and allow the malt to be milled prior to the start of the brew.
Spent Grain Handling – A method for removing the spent grain from below the trap door in the lauter tun to a location where it can be removed from the brewery is needed. In a large system, this will usually be a feed chute into an auger, which then takes the spent grain outside to a tank or trailer. Smaller breweries rely on manual labor and drums or dump carts.
So now you have a brewery! And beer!! All that is required now are some kegs, some tap equipment, maybe a cold box to keep the kegs in. A little glassware, a couple of friends, some customers…