What should be considered when choose your brewery equipment
- Mar 17, 2022
- 190
- tiantai
As a sales person have been in beer brewery equipment manufacturing industry for 7 years, I've seen so many clients have no idea what configuration they really need. Or some clients come to me with an exact configuration of the brewery equipment "I need a 20HL four vessel brewhouse and 4 sets 20HL fermenters" . This configuration may be estimated by themselves, or obtained from the quotations of other suppliers.
But why is that? What is the thing that make someone with perhaps great home or hobby brewing experience get the engineering all wrong when it comes time to scale up? Usually, it’s because that person hasn’t delved into the dark arts of brewery engineering before.
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In this article, I’m going to run through 5 basic considerations you need to consider when size your brewery equipment, get the maximum output and reduce capital costs at the same time.
I. How much beer you plan to sell or brew per month or per year?
Your expected monthly or annual beer production would determine how big the brewhouse and how many fermenters would be used actually.
Your business plan should have at least a 2 year sales forecast which should be broken down into keg and pack (bottle/can) sales as well as how many different types of beer you intend to brew simultaneously. Once you have your plan then you need to break it down into weekly or monthly production.
So, let’s say you wanna sell 50 x 50L kegs of beer and 100 x 24x375mL Cases of Cans (9L each), that’s a total of 3,400L of beer production per week without considering of beer loss. That’s not a lot when you own a 2000L brew house.
II. How many batches you plan to brew per day?
It is the key point for determining the brewhouse structure as well as the volume of your beer fermenters.
When running a brewery, it’s usually set up into “shifts” which is an 8 hour work day for an individual. This means that you can have up to 3 shifts per 24 hour period. But in actual beer brewing, it’s only very large breweries that brew 3 batches within 24 hours. As a small or new brewery, you’re probably going to start only 1 batch per day, that is also most f our clients’ choice actually.
The more brew batches per day, the more volume of wort you would get which equates directly to the amount of beer you can produce. But brewing is not only wort production, and that’s only one part of the job. When working out how many batches your brewery will run, don’t forget to consider the time you’ll need to take quality checks, do cellar work such as yeast handling, dry-hopping and transfers etc.
III. How many types of beer you plan to brew within a fermenting cycle?
The next thing you need to consider is how many type of beer you intend to make, that would determine the quantity of your fermenters as well.
The more diverse your line up of beers you want to sell, the more tanks you’ll need to buy. Because you can only fill one fermenter with one type of beer at a time. Some beers sell better than others, then these top sellers can go into bigger fermenters or brite tanks, so you have more of that popular beer to sell. Your brewery might be a mixture of different size tanks, saying may with 20hl and 40hl fermenters for your 20hl brewhouse.
IV. Fermenters are the measure of your brewery output, not your brewhouse!
There are many brewery equipment suppliers want you to buy more stainless steel from them!
But you need to be objective in your equipment selection.
Does my client really need that 4 vessel, 20hL brew house with 5 x 20hL Unitanks?
For getting 3400L beer per week, you only needs to brew just 1.75 times per week with the 20hl brewery equipment. So why not consider a 2 vessel 10hl brewhouse and having more space for fermentation tanks to increase throughput.
V. Right sizing your fermenter tank volume
Another mistake I often see: A new brewery owners only buy fermenters with same volume as their brewhouse.
i.e. they buy a 10hL brew house and 10hL fermenters only. I am not saying using 10hl fermenter is totally not correct. At beginning of your new brewing business, it may works. But when your business got improved, now you could consider to use bigger fermenter like 20hl. Now you can put 2 batches of 10hl beer into one 20hl fermentation tank. You should know that, the cost of a 20hl fermenter is lower than 2x10hl fermenters.
Designing a brewery equipment is never easy and many of our clients are not that experienced in brewery engineering when we are starting out. So please let us know your real needs during our discussion, we will try to work out suitable brewery equipment solution accordingly. Do not hesitate to deliver your ideas with us, special customization is never a problem!
Laura Hou
Sales Manager
Tiantai Beer Equipment
[email protected]
But why is that? What is the thing that make someone with perhaps great home or hobby brewing experience get the engineering all wrong when it comes time to scale up? Usually, it’s because that person hasn’t delved into the dark arts of brewery engineering before.
In this article, I’m going to run through 5 basic considerations you need to consider when size your brewery equipment, get the maximum output and reduce capital costs at the same time.
I. How much beer you plan to sell or brew per month or per year?
Your expected monthly or annual beer production would determine how big the brewhouse and how many fermenters would be used actually.
Your business plan should have at least a 2 year sales forecast which should be broken down into keg and pack (bottle/can) sales as well as how many different types of beer you intend to brew simultaneously. Once you have your plan then you need to break it down into weekly or monthly production.
So, let’s say you wanna sell 50 x 50L kegs of beer and 100 x 24x375mL Cases of Cans (9L each), that’s a total of 3,400L of beer production per week without considering of beer loss. That’s not a lot when you own a 2000L brew house.
II. How many batches you plan to brew per day?
It is the key point for determining the brewhouse structure as well as the volume of your beer fermenters.
When running a brewery, it’s usually set up into “shifts” which is an 8 hour work day for an individual. This means that you can have up to 3 shifts per 24 hour period. But in actual beer brewing, it’s only very large breweries that brew 3 batches within 24 hours. As a small or new brewery, you’re probably going to start only 1 batch per day, that is also most f our clients’ choice actually.
The more brew batches per day, the more volume of wort you would get which equates directly to the amount of beer you can produce. But brewing is not only wort production, and that’s only one part of the job. When working out how many batches your brewery will run, don’t forget to consider the time you’ll need to take quality checks, do cellar work such as yeast handling, dry-hopping and transfers etc.
III. How many types of beer you plan to brew within a fermenting cycle?
The next thing you need to consider is how many type of beer you intend to make, that would determine the quantity of your fermenters as well.
The more diverse your line up of beers you want to sell, the more tanks you’ll need to buy. Because you can only fill one fermenter with one type of beer at a time. Some beers sell better than others, then these top sellers can go into bigger fermenters or brite tanks, so you have more of that popular beer to sell. Your brewery might be a mixture of different size tanks, saying may with 20hl and 40hl fermenters for your 20hl brewhouse.
IV. Fermenters are the measure of your brewery output, not your brewhouse!
There are many brewery equipment suppliers want you to buy more stainless steel from them!
But you need to be objective in your equipment selection.
Does my client really need that 4 vessel, 20hL brew house with 5 x 20hL Unitanks?
For getting 3400L beer per week, you only needs to brew just 1.75 times per week with the 20hl brewery equipment. So why not consider a 2 vessel 10hl brewhouse and having more space for fermentation tanks to increase throughput.
V. Right sizing your fermenter tank volume
Another mistake I often see: A new brewery owners only buy fermenters with same volume as their brewhouse.
i.e. they buy a 10hL brew house and 10hL fermenters only. I am not saying using 10hl fermenter is totally not correct. At beginning of your new brewing business, it may works. But when your business got improved, now you could consider to use bigger fermenter like 20hl. Now you can put 2 batches of 10hl beer into one 20hl fermentation tank. You should know that, the cost of a 20hl fermenter is lower than 2x10hl fermenters.
Designing a brewery equipment is never easy and many of our clients are not that experienced in brewery engineering when we are starting out. So please let us know your real needs during our discussion, we will try to work out suitable brewery equipment solution accordingly. Do not hesitate to deliver your ideas with us, special customization is never a problem!
Laura Hou
Sales Manager
Tiantai Beer Equipment
[email protected]
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