commercial brewery boil?

I'm just wondering how much wort a micobrewery boils at one time and how the hell they do it? all electric? I've only ever boiled as much as 6 gallons before.

Usually from 7bbls to 50bbl+. Some use natural gas and a lot use steam jacketed kettles.

Steam is the industry standard.

The brewery I worked in in Washington state, had an interesting setup. It was natural gas but not technically direct fire. It has a coil in the bottom of the kettle but it had a turbo fan on the exhaust stack. They would kick that on and it would suck the flame through the coil and it would boil it that way.

A gas fired, low pressure, steam generator is the most common method for brewpubs and micro-breweries.

12 psi and under steam is fairly safe to operate. High pressure steam is used in the larger systems and costs quite a bit more to have equipment built that can safely handle it. The inspection and certificates required to operate such boilers also add to the cost.

Holy Crap that's a big boil. I would love to work in a microbrewery to see how all this is done properly.

Like in a huge mash tun how does the immense weight of the grain and water not cause a stuck mash all the time? I guess this is done differently than in my little cooler.

Holy Crap that's a big boil. I would love to work in a microbrewery to see how all this is done properly.

Like in a huge mash tun how does the immense weight of the grain and water not cause a stuck mash all the time?

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Not really.
Remember grain floats until you drain most of the wort.
Most breweries use two different vessels, one for mashing and one for lautering.
The lautering vessel is equipped with a cutters which can be raised and lowered to cut the grain bed.
The other factor is the grain bed height, in the lauter tun is around 3-4 feet and the diameter is 10-14 feet.
My edit:

Lauter tun


Rake with cutters and sparge ring

I guess this is done differently than in my little cooler.

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No, just the dimension are optimal.


Cheers,
ClaudiusB

+1 Claudius.

Grain is mixed into Strike water and mashed in the Mash Tun. Mash is then pumped to Lauter Tun. Lauter Tun is gravity drained to a grant, which fills and is repeatedly pumped up to the Boil Kettle.

Having a closed steam system also gives them 190* hot strike water, at all times.

Lauter Tun


The Grant is the cylinder in foreground with the blue float switch.

Henry Hill, not much has changed since 1842 (my pics) and your lauter tun.

The only new part in the old tun is the air cylinder to turn the plates to clean out the grain.
Before a large handwheel did the job.

Show more pics of your commercial setup.

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

Actually, this is a 30BBL Century, and it has only a hand-smacked rake pivot. The cylinder on the copper tun is much more modern.

I have misplaced most of what I had of the BrewHouse, but here is the BrewHouse from floor level. Looking past the Chiller and Brew Kettle, the Mash Tun is on the left in rear on platform, and the Lauter Tun is hidden between the Mash Tun and the Boil Kettle, just above the Chiller. The Control Panel is center rear. The wort is oxygenated as it leaves the Chiller, via a stone in the line.



I should replace my archive of the BrewHouse pics.

Henry, what brewery is this?

Picobrew said:

Henry, what brewery is this?

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OH you know, just a his modest setup in his garage.

z987k said:

OH you know, just a his modest setup in his garage.

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By the look of those muttonchops, it's gotta be a commercial brewery.

z987k said:

OH you know, just a his modest setup in his garage.

Click to expand...

By the look of those muttonchops, it's gotta be a commercial brewery.

Picobrew said:

By the look of those muttonchops, it's gotta be a commercial brewery.

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Thats michigan brewing the guy with the chops is Josh he is the brewer at arcadia brewing

The Delafield Brewhaus has the same brewery. Best Brewpub setup I have seen. It is such a slick design....

lehr is correct. That's Josh Davies, Head Brewer of Arcadia Ales, now, but he was the Brewer at MBC, then (The Old Days). The gentleman at the Grant is the current Brewer at MBC, Stu Crittendon, although he sports a chin-beard now.

Josh got me started, then he split, and Stu is my Go-To Guy, now.

It is because of these two that I started right off brewing all grain.

I first built a Sanyo and bought corny's, bought and wired a digital Ranco for my cheezer, bought bulk grain and hops, and vac/pac'd, built 3 all-stainless keggles with sight-glass (Bobby), 3-piece stainless military ballvalves, Blickmann thermometers. I crushed my own grain with a Bodine powered Schmidling that was the crusher at Things Beer at MBC, that I built. I bought Beersmith and wrote all of my own recipes, bought a huge O'haus scale for grain, an Escali Aqua scale for hops, a Wheaton stirplate and a bunch of various Erlenmeyers. THEN, I started to brew.

I owe all this background to my drinking buddies at MBC, and will be forever grateful.

If you are interested in the latest technology for wort processing used in the bigger breweries, you might want to check out this brochure from Steinecker

http://www.krones.cn/downloads/wuerzekochung_e.pdf

I know New Belgium uses a Merlin based brewhouse.