Category: Brewing Equipment
Brewery Equipment explores all the equipment needed to produce quality craft beer throughout the brewing process including brewhouse, cellar, packaging, lab, quality control and more.
Malt storage
Storage of malt on-site:
Malt has a low moisture content of around 3.5% – 5% and is therefore a relatively stable product. Typically regular 2-row malt can last 4 to 6 month (or even longer), darker malts or caramel malts are more sensitive especially as far as aroma thereof is concerned. The shelf life for the latter malts should be less than 3 months between 6 – 8 weeks would be optimal. In general malt needs to be stored dry without the possibility of moisture or water uptake; additional aeration, particular cooling or heating for malt (storage) should not be necessary.
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Brewing Equipment featured expert topic supported by California Craft Brewers Association
The 2024 California Craft Beer Summit is the most important event of the year for California Brewers or anyone interested in building their business in the craft beer industry. The 2024 Summit will be held in Sacramento on March 12-14, 2024.
Malt handling introduction
Every brewery should have a plan for what they’d like their malt handling flow to look like. There are many aspects to consider and a perfect solution isn’t always easy to come by. Malt handling and all that it entails is often times underestimated and often problems arise due to lack of proper planning and consideration. It is in the best interest of a brewery to find an optimal solution for their malt handling needs.
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Turnkey – Miscellaneous equipment
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.
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Turnkey – System Installation
Installation assistance and customer support are critical components of a turnkey purchase. Installation assistance can vary greatly in scope. Make sure you understand, preferably in writing, what the seller plans to offer in assistance. What is the additional fee, and what will you need to reach out for additional outside help to accomplish. The list can be a short as a few electrical and plumbing needs. On systems larger than 20-bbl, many suppliers send a representative or team out to make sure the brewhouse is put together correctly and functionally. It’s not uncommon for a representative to expect a labor force to be provided to work under their supervision. This is an important area to go over closely with the supplier of a turnkey system to prevent as many expensive surprises as possible.
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Turnkey – Hot side
Hot Water Source – A lot of hot water is needed to make beer. 170 degree water is much hotter than what comes out of your home hot water heater and requires special considerations to be used safely. The water can be heated via electrical heating elements in small to medium systems but steam or occasionally direct flame is needed for larger volumes of water.
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Turnkey – Cold side
Fermenters – There are many choices regarding fermenters. They can be horizontal or vertical, dish or cone bottomed, jacketed or single wall. Doors can be on the top or on the side. The main requirements are that the tank can be safely cleaned and sterilized, that the tank be made of material that will not taint the beer, and that proper fermentation temperatures can be maintained. The most commonly accepted standard for craft breweries is an insulated vertical stainless steel tank with a cone bottom, a manhole on the side, glycol cooling jackets on both the cone and sides, CIP attachments, and an adjustable racking port. The cone bottoms allow for the efficient removal of yeast from the beer after fermentation. The glycol jackets and insulation make it possible to install the tanks almost anywhere.
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Expert Topic Electric Brewing – The other heat source
When planning a brew system, the big decision used to be direct fire or steam. But, for brewers with systems up to 10 barrels, there is a third viable option for firing a brewhouse. Increasingly, brewers are using electric elements to heat their strike, sparge water, and boil their wort.
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Nano Brewery Equipment Introduction
Today’s prospective nano brewer has more options than ever before when it comes to equipment. Whether the increase in the number of companies making nano-sized equipment has grown as a result of the nano boom, or whether the availability of equipment has fueled the growth spurt is a chicken-and-egg question. Regardless, you will have plenty of choices no matter what size system you choose.
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Nano Brewery Basics
The term “nano brewery” may be a fairly recent addition to the craft brewing lexicon, but the concept of small breweries with a pint-sized brew length is nothing new. Although Anchor Brewing in San Francisco might be considered the first American craft brewery, it was New Albion Brewing of Sonoma, Calif., that showed other entrepreneurs they could build a brewery from the ground up. New Albion opened in 1976 using a 55-gallon brewing system.
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Types of pumps
Despite what all the engineers and pump salesmen will tell you, there really are only two types of pumps; centrifugal and positive displacement. Understand the difference between these two and you are well on your way to understanding pumps. The difference is that centrifugal pumps spins at a high speed and transfers centrifugal or kinetic energy into the liquid in the form of velocity and pressure. The positive displacement pump, on the other hand, transfers a precise measured amount of liquid from the inlet to the outlet for each rotation or stroke of the pump. Let’s look at each.
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Sizing your pump
Once you have selected your pump type you have to select the right size. Pick too small a pump and the problems will be obvious but picking too big a pump can be just as bad. Not only are you wasting your money on an unnecessarily expensive pump, but it can beat up your beer. After all the pump wants to move stuff around and if your pump is too big for your lines, it will cavitate and damage your beer, your pump and your lines and…
So to size your pump you need to figure out a few basic things:
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Expert Topic All About Used Brewery Tanks
So you have decided to purchase “pre-owned” brewing equipment and need your money to go as far as it can, yet still be an intelligent decision. What can you do to assure that you are not spending your hard-won money on what might essentially be scrap metal? Well, draw up a chair and let’s talk about the good & the bad experiences that others have had and how to maximize your chances for success in this fluid marketplace. By John Mallett, Brewmaster, Bell’s Brewery
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