I went "pro" - What it actually takes to do so

No problem at all and unfortunately I dont have many pics. Even if I did, trust me, they aren't as sexy as you might expect.

This link is our "fermenter cam" though... Give's at least a glimpse.

It snaps a pic every ten minutes I think and posts it to this link so we can monitor our fermentation temps at all times from our phones.

http://bogironbrewing.com/images/cam1/BogCam1_1.jpg

Way cool Cape. Best of luck to you!

I personally think the starting small capacity is perfect. Build up the rep, get your feet wet, and decide if you want to go all in.

Nice read

solbes said:

Way cool Cape. Best of luck to you!

I personally think the starting small capacity is perfect. Build up the rep, get your feet wet, and decide if you want to go all in.

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Thank you very much. Is been.... interesting... so far.

It was the right approach for us. May not be for everyone but I think we are glad we went this way.

Cool thread. Good luck with it!

Cape Brewing said:

Thank you very much. Is been.... interesting... so far.

It was the right approach for us. May not be for everyone but I think we are glad we went this way.

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My friend just opened a brewery and started with a sabco....we've done a lot of brewing to get ahead but they are pricing larger systems now....I believe they are going with a 10 bbl but have discussed a 15 bbl....good luck

Cape Brewing said:

For our fermenters we are using 200 liter variable headspace fermenter tanks. They are usually used for wine but they are stainless, have spigoted bottoms and work perfect for us. We also got a fantastic deal on them as opposed to wasting money on conicals

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New/used? Who manufactures them?

Gratz on the great turn out!

Great read, thanks for all the info! And tonight's your second revealing, right? Good luck! Kyle

Whalewang said:

New/used? Who manufactures them?

Gratz on the great turn out!

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http://www.thegrape.net/browse.cfm/wine-tank-200-liter/4,10000.html

This isnt where we bought them from, it is just the first link I found. We got them cheaper than what these guys have them at.

Conan said:

Great read, thanks for all the info! And tonight's your second revealing, right? Good luck! Kyle

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It was. We were really psyched and flattered with how it went. We went through another dozen kegs really quickly. It was pretty cool.

We're now OUT of beer. The two release parties sold out of everything we had made.

Cape Brewing said:

It was. We were really psyched and flattered with how it went. We went through another dozen kegs really quickly. It was pretty cool.

We're now OUT of beer. The two release parties sold out of everything we had made.

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Brew more beer!

Congrats!

Good luck with everything. How about throwing a 'brew with the brewery' tour and getting hbt people working for you brewing some beer up. Free labor!

If a brewery near here wanted help brewing their beer, I would love to help them as the knowledge gained would be payment enough!

Cape Brewing said:

...wasting money on conicals (must.... not... rant... about how... dumb... conicals are)

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If you don't mind me asking, why do you hate conicals? And if/when you upgrade would you be opposed to using these wine tanks on a larger scale?

Thanks for posting all of this, and Congrats! I can't wait to make it back up to the New England area, and hopefully, I'll be able to find a pint.

Old-Ned said:

If you don't mind me asking, why do you hate conicals? And if/when you upgrade would you be opposed to using these wine tanks on a larger scale?

Thanks for posting all of this, and Congrats! I can't wait to make it back up to the New England area, and hopefully, I'll be able to find a pint.

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Also are you havesting yeast? AFAIK that is the real reason for using conicals.

I missed this thread Cape...congrats on the venture and what sounds like a good launch. Don't enjoy the poster child industry for over regulation too much .

Thanks for the post Cape, and congrats on moving toward living the dream. I knew going through all paperwork would take a while but I didn't realize it would take that long. Hopefully (and I doubt I'm alone in this feeling) I'll be following suit soon enough.

Any advice on what to do on the amateur side to prep for making the jump to pro? How many recipes had you gotten to the point that you felt they were commercially viable, and about how many attempts did it take to get them there?

I'm not going launch into my usual lunatic rant about conicals. I have done that too many times.

But...

My own personal view is that unless you are fermenting well north of 100 gallons at a whack, conicals provide zero tangible benefit ither than bling factor... and ... Hey... I got NUTHIN against bling factor as long as it was bought for bling.

We have 52.5 gallon stainless fermenters that we got for less than $400 a pop. It would have cost us four times that to go with conicals. And the only benefit we would get is that we wouldnt have to rack off yeast cakes.... Which takes about four minutes of work. I will work the four minutes to save a couple grand.

Yes, we are harvesting yeast. Instead of turning a racking arm... we simply tilt the fermenter a little bit and pour it out the bottom spigot. Not exactly difficult and certainly not worth thousands of dollars to avoid having to do.

On recipes development.... There really isnt a single answer here.

One recipe we make (our Black Steam) was ONE shot. I tried altering a Cali Common about two years ago and bam, first shot. We have tried a couole very slightly modified recipes just to see... and the first recipe beat em all and thats the recipe we use at the brewery.

For our "Burley Blonde", we did... I dunno... Maybe five or six test batches before we hit the recipe we really liked and the one we use today.

The IPA? Sht.... That was probably 35 test batches between the three of us. That was a constant tweaking right up until the firat batch to come out of the brewery.

One luxury we have is that we didn't have to do any material scaling since our brewery is so small. Scaling a ten gallon recipe up to 7 bbls isnt as straight forward as just multiplying everything up. But we havent needed to worry about that. We can just run with our "homebrew" recipes.

Sorry... Forgot about the prepping question.

Uhhhh. I dunno. All I can think of is to find a nano (assuming you are going that size)... or better yet, a couple of nanos, and beg em to let you come in and help for a month or two.

You would be a little shocked at all of the tiny thing you're going to have to do a little differently and getting ideas on how to set things up will make a huge difference.

Simple example... One of my partners built this really nice platform for our fermenters. Problem is they dont all fit exactly side by side. Meh...No biggie. Wrong. Its a huge pain in the azz. We're gonna take it down and build individual stands on insanely heavy duty casters so we can move the full fermenters around.

Its that sort of little stuff that you'll never think about until you see it working in a little brewery.

Just read the whole blog, good read, thanks for all the info. My pipe dream of opening a full scale micro-brewery is starting to morph more into a nano-brewery dream, and your information is super helpful. Good luck and cheers!

Interesting read. Thanks for posting this.

Probst! Best of luck from all of us who aspire to open our own brewery - big or small.

Sorry if this has been asked already but so your pitching rates differ than the avg 5 gal homebrewer?

I may be wrong but I feel like the reason the big breweries ferment out batches in only a few days is because they pitch way more yeast than most homebrewers do. In proportion of course.

KeyWestBrewing said:

Sorry if this has been asked already but so your pitching rates differ than the avg 5 gal homebrewer?

I may be wrong but I feel like the reason the big breweries ferment out batches in only a few days is because they pitch way more yeast than most homebrewers do. In proportion of course.

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I wouldn't rely on me because I am a "pro" now any more than anyone else on this site. I have only been a pro for a grand total of about eight weeks now and I'm just as full of sht as the next guy. I THINK i have something offer in terms of the whole "what you need to do to go pro" (hence this thread) but, again, I am no better of a brewer than anyone else out there.

That disclaimer said... I have heard the same thing about pitching rates and we do overpitch a bit compared to what I believe the average homebrewer pitches. For 45 gallon batches, we have pitched as much as 240 grams of US-05 and we were extremely happy with that beer. It is not a huge OG beer and that rate is about double what a homebrewer would pitch when you adjust it for volume.

Cape Brewing said:

I wouldn't rely on me because I am a "pro" now any more than anyone else on this site. I have only been a pro for a grand total of about eight weeks now and I'm just as full of sht as the next guy. I THINK i have something offer in terms of the whole "what you need to do to go pro" (hence this thread) but, again, I am no better of a brewer than anyone else out there.

That disclaimer said... I have heard the same thing about pitching rates and we do overpitch a bit compared to what I believe the average homebrewer pitches. For 45 gallon batches, we have pitched as much as 240 grams of US-05 and we were extremely happy with that beer. It is not a huge OG beer and that rate is about double what a homebrewer would pitch when you adjust it for volume.

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Definitely not knocking anyone here or saying you've got it all figured out, no offense. I definitely see where your coming from with the whole thread and know I speak for more than myself when I say its greatly appreciated. You've given us a much more detailed and realistic idea of what it really takes to make the dream a reality.

As you mentioned, I just think on the bigger scale that breweries have way higher pitching rates than homebrewers and that's part of how they are able to produce so quickly. Again sorry if its been mentioned but.... How fast are you going from grain to glass?

Depends on the beer but about two and a half weeks is probably a good estimate... Which I understand is actually a bit longer than most. We don't want to rush things too much before we get a lot more experience under our belts.

Cape Brewing said:

Depends on the beer but about two and a half weeks is probably a good estimate... Which I understand is actually a bit longer than most. We don't want to rush things too much before we get a lot more experience under our belts.

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I'd say that's probably the best way to go about it. Thanks again and best of luck!!

Hey Cape brewing are you going to partner up with The Chive and brew their beers?

http://thechive.com/2013/02/27/kcco...r-with-for-creation-of-liquid-gold-11-photos/

Thanks for sharing.

I'm way too new to even be thinking about going pro, but I really like the idea of being able to sell my beer. I think it would really be cool to be able to sell brews along side my wife's ceramic goodies (tankards, goblets, beer steins, pitchers, etc). I hope to have some really good recipes and build a brew shed up on the in-law's property in a few years.

That said, I've looked at the ttb's site, and even read a few threads on here about people who built their own buildings to go nano. That said, I've had a difficult time finding exact specs on requirements, other than the floor drain and being able to pass inspections. Were the regulations about your burners and the natural gas lines more of a local ordinance?

Congratulations on your quick success! I've read through this post and your blog and it seems like ya'll are making great beer are doing it the way you want to do it, which I admire. One question, and maybe I just missed this somewhere, but what is the square footage / dimensions of your brewery? Also, are you sourcing your grains/hops/yeast/chemicals with large scale commercial contracts, through large homebrew-style purchases, or somewhere in between?

Good luck and great success, man.

When the next person asks about if i'll be selling my beer or opening up a brewery, I will refer him or her to this thread as to why I won't be doing that. It's a bureaucratic nightmare and I admire anyone who's willing to go through it - one more reason to support your local breweries.

Congrats on your success cape! Given me a lot of thinking to do! Would love to do this one day

Congrats! I'll have to check you out next time I am up there and go to Wendall's for my 3.5 wing fix!

T-Dan said:

Congrats! I'll have to check you out next time I am up there and go to Wendall's for my 3.5 wing fix!

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We have a strict policy that requires anyone going to Wendall's bring the brewery across the street an order of 3.5s as well.

Just making you aware of the rules.

Wendell's wings suck. Their sauce is the best in NE but they pour that sauce over tiny, overlooked pieces of cardboard. 3.5 is for Nancy's. Suicidal is so much better and Double Dare makes you forget how bad the wings are. Now you know the truth.

paulthenurse said:

Wendell's wings suck. Their sauce is the best in NE but they pour that sauce over tiny, overlooked pieces of cardboard. 3.5 is for Nancy's. Suicidal is so much better and Double Dare makes you forget how bad the wings are. Now you know the truth.

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EB's wings (Agawam, MA) are the best wings in the state. Jumbo wings, perfectly cooked, just the right amount of sauce, and their buffalo sauce is great.

Nightshade said:

meh....local brewer here has been turning a good enough profit for the last two years on a 1.5bbl system to purchase a 10bbl setup in cash and also pay for both of his expansions in cash. It's a lot of work but if done right and you aren't a fool with your money you can turn a profit on a 10gal system.

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Dirty Bucket?

Really nice website. Wish u lots of success.

Hey there! Really enjoyed reading this thread. Congrats on making it happen.

Had a question about tasting room laws in Mass. Will you be able to serve whole pints and charge per pint just like a bar? What are the restrictions?

Thanks!

No, just free 2 oz pours as samples but we can sell growlers "to be consumed off premisis". That is what our state farmer-brewer license and local pourer's license will allow us to do. We are not a bar in any way.