What Should You Consider When Setting Up A New Brewery?

Customizing Your Brewery Setup: Understanding the Initial Scope

When a client contacts us to build a brewery, we first understand their specific needs. We ask questions such as:

• What is the size of your planned brewery?

• What kind of beer will you brew?

• Have you already decided on a location for your brewery?

• Do you plan to use a lot of automation in your brewery?

• What sales do you expect in the first, second, and third year?

• We have worked with many clients who have brewing experience but lack equipment and engineering knowledge. By gathering basic information about their needs, we can assess their initial requirements and provide recommendations on equipment configuration and structure. Our goal is to ensure that our clients’ brewery setup is fully tailored to their unique needs and specifications.

Optimizing brewery size

With the increasing competition in the craft beer industry, brewery size determination has never been more important. Breweries must meet market demands, offer new brewing processes, and ensure that beer remains fresh. This requires a balance between producing high-volume beers and unique beers that sell more slowly.

Having a smaller brewery that can produce multiple batches of beer per day is often the best solution for flexibility and dynamism. There are two main options: a main brewery and a pilot system, or a main brewery and cellars of different sizes.

Adding a pilot system can be expensive, so we usually design a main system with a smaller brewing capacity, such as half or a third of the capacity, and equip it with several small cellars to solve the problems of the pilot system. This avoids the additional costs of the pilot system while maintaining flexibility and quality.

Advantages of Using a Large Single Tank Brewery for Cellar Storage

When choosing the best equipment for your brewery, it is important to weigh the advantages of different options. One option worth considering is to use a large single tank brewery for cellar storage instead of multiple small tanks. This approach has several advantages:

• Using one large single tank brewery requires less work than using multiple small tanks because only one container needs to be prepared to fill the wort.

• Using one large tank can reduce beer losses.

• If the brewery needs two days to fill a tank, less yeast can be used.

• A large tank takes up less space in a shipping container, which helps optimize space and reduce shipping costs.

By choosing a large single tank brewery for cellar storage, you can save on upfront costs and reduce long-term operating costs. This is an option worth considering for any brewery looking to maximize efficiency and profitability.

Brewery Equipment Configuration

There are several other aspects to consider when configuring brewery equipment, including:

• Size of the hot liquor tank (HLT) – Will the brewery produce multiple batches of beer per day? What other uses will the HLT have?

• Size of the mash tank – This depends on the type of beer brewed and the processes involved.

• Does a hot liquor tank (CLT) need to be added? – This is still to be determined and needs to be reviewed.

• Automation requirements – The level of automation required depends on the size and scope of the project, as well as the budget. However, a high degree of automation can significantly improve efficiency and reliability.

Mainstream Beer Considerations

When designing brewery equipment, it is important to consider the type of beer that will be produced. The style of beer will affect the brewing process and the design and equipment requirements of the brewery.

For example, a brewery that focuses on producing lager beer will have different equipment needs than a brewery that mainly produces hazy IPAs. This will affect the design of the brewery and the composition of the cellar tanks.

The modern brewing industry is constantly evolving, and new innovative beer styles are emerging in an endless stream. This has led to frequent equipment updates, such as tubular heat exchangers, heating bodies, and double kettle whirlpools. Each commercial-scale system is unique and reflects the specific needs of the brewery.

There are many unexpected issues that must be considered in the setup of a brewery, and our team has many years of experience in the brewing industry. If you need help with your project, please feel free to contact us.