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

Yakima 728
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uncleben113 said:
That's interesting. I always figured commercial breweries of all sizes would try to max out their efficiency and have to be super consistent but that makes a lot of sense. As long as it comes out consistent and passes your quality standards then you're golden. Thanks for the info
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I would THINK (I am guessing) places like Boston Beer (Sam Adams) or An-Bush... BIG breweries like that... Maxing out efficiency is more important because I think you get into a "if we can squeeze another two points of efficiency out of our process, we will increase our profit margin by X%". For us... We would make another $4. It's not worth risking over-sparging and pulling all sorts of tannins, or crushing the malt into powder and sticking a mash, etc. it's just not worth it.

From a homebrewer perspective, and I swear I don't mean this as some sort of dig, but I never understood the big push for the highest efficiency possible. It alway struck me as a "I made 5.2 gallons instead of 5.0 gallons! Yeah!! High five!!!" situation. I get you can save a little money but again... Personally I just don't think it is worth the trouble. That said, if someone wants to tackle that aspect to see what they can squeeze out of a grain bill.... more power to em.

We are very consistent and our efficiency is at a reasonable level so... It's not something we even think about.
 
I get what you are saying and I like this take on it. I think there is a push for a lot of people to get the most out of their grain and it is somehow reflective of the brewer's skills but I guess if you're getting a reasonable efficiency, brewing consistent batches, and OK with where you're at then why change anything?
 
uncleben113 said:
I get what you are saying and I like this take on it. I think there is a push for a lot of people to get the most out of their grain and it is somehow reflective of the brewer's skills but I guess if you're getting a reasonable efficiency, brewing consistent batches, and OK with where you're at then why change anything?
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At a homebrew or small scale efficiency is largely a matter of equipment. If a brewer can knock out batches consistently, that is reflective of skill IMO.

However, as things scale up, consistency becomes more a matter of equipment as things get more automated. Meanwhile the need to get more efficient begins to require a more knowledgeable brewer capable of getting that high efficiency without tannins or stuck sparges.

I would say all things are a matter of scale and often the best solution for a homebrewer has nothing to do with what is best for the commercial scale. Should Cape's nano grow into something sizeable down the road, efficiency concerns (not just attenuation, but all consumables) will become an increasing business consideration.
 
I can tell you all just from the issues I've been housing trying to price everything just getting to the point that OP is at now is a major accomplishment. There are so many options out there as far as set ups that you can truly disable yourself with information overload. The fact he and his partners did it with cash and no loans/credit is awesome! Especially in a metro area such as he is in.

I hope someday I can post a thread that is as positive and helpful as this...
 
Cape Brewing said:
Treehouse? I personally haven't been out there but one of my two partners has been there a couple if times and we've met those guys a couple of times. They have a really nice set up out there. Its a shame what they're going through now with the town.
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Yeah Treehouse... Good guys :)

Here's the problem (Not to take over your thread ;) ) --
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/08/tree_house_brewing_co_sues_the.html
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/06/zba_to_decide_fate_of_brimfiel.html
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/07/brimfield_zba_says_no_to_mini-.html
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/06/tree_house_brewery_proponents.html
http://www.telegram.com/article/20130718/NEWS/307189473/1116

That John Mortarelli (who thinks he's an inventor) has nothing better to do it seems - http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...df+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1102534574528-29/DEP+DPH+Letter.pdf

I think he's just upset because people drive down his road to get to Treehouse.

I wonder if the Treehouse folks know about his "live-in" girlfriend having an established practice out of his house?

http://www.npivalidator.com/Medical_Data/NPI/1396932612.html
 
I was at treehouse a couple weeks ago and they were talking about moving this winter to a bigger facility. I was kinda eavesdropping while waiting for beer but I think she said to a barn? If it's in an adjacent town maybe that will alleviate some of their problems? Man I can't believe that guy is hellbent on shutting them down?! They are great people and make great beer. They're brewers...they'll find a way.
 
Bensiff said:
At a homebrew or small scale efficiency is largely a matter of equipment. If a brewer can knock out batches consistently, that is reflective of skill IMO.

However, as things scale up, consistency becomes more a matter of equipment as things get more automated. Meanwhile the need to get more efficient begins to require a more knowledgeable brewer capable of getting that high efficiency without tannins or stuck sparges.

I would say all things are a matter of scale and often the best solution for a homebrewer has nothing to do with what is best for the commercial scale. Should Cape's nano grow into something sizeable down the road, efficiency concerns (not just attenuation, but all consumables) will become an increasing business consideration.
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Thanks for the info. It seems that the brewery I was at before was considerably larger than Cape's so this is all coming together now.
 
Cape Brewing said:
There are always threads floating around by folks who are thinking about the same dream 98% of us have... starting a brewery. I have been responding here and there and figured I would just start a thread.
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Good read -- thanks for sharing your experience. I'll have to save this and read through a few times !
 
Congrats on how far you've come, and thank you for all of the information! Very helpful indeed.

I don't believe this was answered, although I could be wrong. What kept you from being able to use your home fab'd stand with a UL certified burner?
 
gabeM said:
Congrats on how far you've come, and thank you for all of the information! Very helpful indeed.

I don't believe this was answered, although I could be wrong. What kept you from being able to use your home fab'd stand with a UL certified burner?
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The local plumbing inspector. It wasn't "industry certified" so he wouldn't let us use it. In hind sight... it was a blessing in disguise. The burners we are using now are fantastic and we aren't actually upset, after using what we have now, that we had to make the switch.

One other quick update... we have our 3bbl rig up and running and have a few of our fermenters swapped over to 132 gallon fermenters with two more ready to be hooked up.

We are working with the town building inspector and will HOPEFULLY start work on our new space this week. Our GC is pulling a demo permit so we can go in and start knocking down walls and refinishing the space. The new space will triple our footprint, allow for dramatically more fermentation capacity (which we will use) as well as a much larger and nicer "tap room".

We'll still be very tiny but... bigger than we were... so we'll see how it goes. So far so good though.
 
I did not see this question on here but I might have missed it but; are you having to get label aproval with every new beer you make or are yall sticking with a standard beer?
 
bootney said:
What was the square footage on your initial building?
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399 sq feet

(that's not a typo)

It was a tiny space in a much larger building that has a large amount of expansion space available on either side of it. We started with that closet of a space to keep inititial expenses down as low as possible (especially while we waited for TTB approval, etc.). Our rent was basically the change you can find in your couch cushions.

We are now moving up to about 1,500 sq feet by going through one of our walls and taking over an 1,100 sq ft spot next to us.

There is another... maybe 8,000 sq ft on the other side of that and...maybe 20,000 sq ft space that is on the opposite side of our current space.

Plenty of room to grow.
 
texwake said:
I did not see this question on here but I might have missed it but; are you having to get label aproval with every new beer you make or are yall sticking with a standard beer?
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We are only doing growler sales out of the brewery at this point and aren't bottling anything so we only went to the TTB and got a general label approved for the growlers. We then simply put those small dot stickers on the cap to identify the style. That's all we had to do for the TTB.

We are likely going to be doing some limited bottling in December and are looking at labeling now. My partner thinks, because we aren't distributing outside of Mass, we don't need to have labels approved. I'm not 100% that's right and we're looking into it. He has handled all of our Federal stuff so he's probably right... we need to confirm though.

One quick note though... our interaction with the TTB has been pretty easy. Things don't seem to take that long in terms of recipe approvals and the label stuff we've done so far.
 
Those that were posting from the state of FL where can I find what areas are wet zones and what levels those particular zones are. TIA
 
SavoryChef said:
Do you have to get your recipe approved every time you tweak it?
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... embarrassed to admit I'm not sure. It hasn't come up for us. We test batch the crap out of our styles and once we have it where we want it, we submit the recipe and haven't tweaked any of them once they've gone into "production".
 
bootney said:
Those that were posting from the state of FL where can I find what areas are wet zones and what levels those particular zones are. TIA
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City hall. ...I'm in Opa Locka and after many locations turned down I ended here for now
 
bootney said:
Those that were posting from the state of FL where can I find what areas are wet zones and what levels those particular zones are. TIA
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Not to detract from the thread and content, but.. What the hell does this mean. Code for something?
 
TrickyDick said:
Not to detract from the thread and content, but.. What the hell does this mean. Code for something?
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Pretty sure he was asking what areas are allowed to produce/serve alcohol since it is prohibited in some areas (aka "dry areas"). So "wet areas" would be where alcohol can be served and then to what extent... Beer, beer and wine, all alcohol, etc. (TIA = thanks in advance)
 
Great thread, great brewery with great beer, and two thirds of the owners are great guys!
 
I'm sure this has been asked already so I apologize but are you guys reusing your yeast or just using fresh packs each batch?
If you are washing and reusing your yeast, how are you guys going about that?
Obviously a homebrewer doesnt have as much to lose if their reusing yeast were to somehow infect a batch where in your case that's a costly mistake both time/money wise. I know the big guys have specialists watch the strains for purity/mutations so I'm interested to hear your approach coming from a different level, unless you guys happen to have a microbiologist on staff of course lol.
 
It depends on the beer. We never wash yeast cakes and re-pitch. If anything, we will occasionally pitch right on top of an emptied fermenter and cake. We won't repitch our IPA given the hop sludge left from dry hopping. Our black lager.. We'll repitch in that one often but just once. There is no dryhopping and that is a yeast we have build up from small samples so it's a bit of a pain.

Our blonde... Again, no dry hopping and it's a nice shortcut.

By in large though, we don't bother. In grand scheme of things, yeast costs aren't significant so we typically just pitch fresh yeast
 
Cape Brewing said:
It depends on the beer. We never wash yeast cakes and re-pitch. If anything, we will occasionally pitch right on top of an emptied fermenter and cake. We won't repitch our IPA given the hop sludge left from dry hopping. Our black lager.. We'll repitch in that one often but just once. There is no dryhopping and that is a yeast we have build up from small samples so it's a bit of a pain.

Our blonde... Again, no dry hopping and it's a nice shortcut.

By in large though, we don't bother. In grand scheme of things, yeast costs aren't significant so we typically just pitch fresh yeast
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That's about what I assumed for the most part. Interesting to see which brews you reuse your cakes for though.
 
Mini update... Interior walls have started being torn down in the space next to our current space to accommodate a much larger fermentation area (and therefore more capacity) and a much larger, nicer taproom. We already have the license, insurance, etc. to serve pints just like a bar so... Once the new space is fitted out... Pints and fills will be avail.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
None that I would wanna post. I only have a couple pics of a random commercial space with the walls knocked down.

Once we have some serious progress on the re-fit done, I can def post some "before and afters"


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew because it impresses people
 
How did you guys go about brewing up Da Honey Stank without risking infecting the rest of the brewery?
What batch size are you guys brewing and what volume are your fermenters? Just wondering if you guys have or had to run double batches and what your approach was to pitching rates and oxygenation.
 
KeyWestBrewing said:
How did you guys go about brewing up Da Honey Stank without risking infecting the rest of the brewery?
What batch size are you guys brewing and what volume are your fermenters? Just wondering if you guys have or had to run double batches and what your approach was to pitching rates and oxygenation.
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We have a small room on the other side of our space and on the opposite side from our normal fermentation area. We ferment the Stank in there. It is isolated and locked so there is no public access.

We are doing 100 gallon batches and have 132 gallon fermenters. No, we don't double batch anything.

Pitching rates are generally an entire brick of US05 (500 grams) per 100 gallons (or about 2.5 times "normal homebrew rates").

We have an inline oxygen feed that directly feeds Oxygen into the wort as it comes out of the plate chiller (we have a good sized commercial brewery chiller)
 
Cape Brewing said:
We have a small room on the other side of our space and on the opposite side from our normal fermentation area. We ferment the Stank in there. It is isolated and locked so there is no public access.

We are doing 100 gallon batches and have 132 gallon fermenters. No, we don't double batch anything.

Pitching rates are generally an entire brick of US05 (500 grams) per 100 gallons (or about 2.5 times "normal homebrew rates").

We have an inline oxygen feed that directly feeds Oxygen into the wort as it comes out of the plate chiller (we have a good sized commercial brewery chiller)
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Yea I meant how you were pitching/oxygenating your double batches if thats what you were doing but you cleared that up. Thanks for the quick response and keep crankin out the brews :mug:
 
The Bog Water has run dry at the BBC and they're waiting for something to kick before they put a new keg of Bog Water on. I TRIED to put a couple of sheckles in your pocket Cape, but it wasn't in the cards.

To console myself I'm going to have a few Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ales.

I think I'll get over my disappointment.
 
Hey Brian,

Have a question that I don't think was talked about already. I see on your website how you came up with your brewery name but did you have any issues with actually getting the name locked in with the state? Can you explain that part of the process at all? I have a little experience with starting a business and understand that a business license is needed from the State and when you do that the name is pretty much yours. Then you can go further to protect your name in different ways on the State and Federal level.

I ask because I too have the dream of opening a brewery one day but for me it is a long ways out. My buddies and I have thought of a pretty good name though and I essentially want to see if there is a way I can protect it from being taken from someone else without actually starting a brewery? Could I open up a business account with the name I want and just pay the state fee each year so no one else could take it? I figured I could make a website and what not and just use it as a blog for now, that way the domains are safe too.

I know seems like an odd question and if you don't know an answer that is okay, just figured I would ask someone who went through the process. Thanks!
 

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