the big picture .... with details

[ismellbanana]

beer making journey thus far: extract for years, all-grain for more years. Irish Stout and Scottish 80 speciality.

Won a few HB awards, like my beer, others line up for it.

Quit 23 year profession, payout, beer is passion,

Applying for Cert 3 brewing at Tafe this semester.

...brewer and brewery on the way.

My Plan:

1. continue to refine best ale beer possible on new system (see below)
2. incorporate refrigeration for lagers after step 1 achieved
3. work on branding and licensing for home producer
4. market product to local establishments (bottles and kegs)
5. make beer and wait for demand
6. sell beer
7. rearrange finances
8. lease premises
9. own premises

I know, you 'may' have heard the dream before. But I'm semi retiring age and completely committed to making quality beer for my community. The time is right.

I sold my previous system (hatch-potch). Now looking for a system that will allow me to do the following...

• brew and ferment enough beer to fill a pub keg
• to experiment and fail with brews
• to spread my beer around family and friends for feedback
• To work on a system that is a smaller scale version of a larger micro brewery.

I've been considering:

• 20L Braumeister
• 50L Braumeister both from Grain and Grape 7BRAUM 50L PLUS--50-litre-braumeister-plus
• a 3 vessel, single tier, HERMS premade eg

65l-intermediate-3-vessel-system-with-built-in-herms

• or making my own 3V system from parts (I'm handy)

Questions I have....

I want to know more about brewing and the techniques to make a wide variety of beer, no short cuts. What is the best micro pilot / small sellable batch system for me to use? My budget is about $8000 for this initial first step.

50L of beer is a lot to throw out if it's a bad batch or you simply want to make minor adjustments. Is 20L better suited to trials. But then 20L is too small to start small scale retailing?

Ok, let's have it..

 

[MHB]

I would think seriously of buying a 50L BM.
A copy of this The ULTIMATE ALMANAC of WORLD BEER RECIPES try Cryer malt.
And this A Handbook of Basic Brewing Calculations
Make sure you have some good fermenters and temperature control.
Anything you can brew on the 50L BM would scale up to a 200L, 500 or 1000L BM. the best thing about the BM is that you can repeat a recipe to 1 minute and 1oC, lets you fine tune very precisely.
Mark

 

[altone]

The equipment isn't important - the process is!
I used to use a 3v system but now I prefer to make cornie sized brews so I can try more things.
I'm using a 40l Guten but whatever you choose is capable of making great beer.

If you want to go commercial a larger pilot size is probably better as far as scaling is concerned, but small sized brews means more
room to experiment.

If you have some great recipes locked in stone already - go bigger, otherwise just start small and do LOTS of brews, changing ratios slightly till you get that
awesome beer you're looking for.

 

[FarsideOfCrazy]

Don't forget about licensing and all the taxes that go along with commercially producing beer.

 

[stux]

I would think seriously of buying a 50L BM.
A copy of this The ULTIMATE ALMANAC of WORLD BEER RECIPES try Cryer malt.
And this A Handbook of Basic Brewing Calculations
Make sure you have some good fermenters and temperature control.
Anything you can brew on the 50L BM would scale up to a 200L, 500 or 1000L BM. the best thing about the BM is that you can repeat a recipe to 1 minute and 1oC, lets you fine tune very precisely.
Mark

Heh.

Just realised I have all of those

Picked up the Almanac at Weyerman's premises, got the BBC from Mark