Using a plastic food drum for fermentation in a nano-brewery?

I'm planning (fantasizing) about building a nano-brewery. 1 BBL capacity per brew. (31 gallons)

The brew day gear is a reasonable cost, but if I want to do a batch per day, 5 days a week, and ferment for 3 weeks, then I need 15 fermenters.

A new 42-gallon Blichmann Conical fermenter as an example is $1300 or so each. That's $20K just for fermenters.

So, I'm thinking about using food safe plastic drums (easily available used for $50 ea). Here's a new one for only $57:

http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/m...drums-pails/drum-open-head-with-bung-cover-11

I know they can scratch and host infections, so I'm thinking of using a food safe drum liner (think of a large trash bag) for each batch. At the end of the ferment, just pump out the beer, then pull out the liner and throw it away.

I'm thinking a drum pump is cheap. $12 for this one:

http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/m...mp-light-oil-kerosene-water-based-chemicals-2

I could cut the pipe to the right length and maybe even have several pre-cut to various lengths. Then pump out all but the bottom 3 inches in one big rack. Then take off the lid and decide how much more beer to pump out. Pick the pump that will get the most beer, but leave most of the yeast cake behind and finish racking.

Thoughts, experiences, etc?

folowing

How are you planning to temperature control your fermentation?

When you start getting that much mass together you're going to be generating a lot of heat.

I just brewed my first batch at my nano weekend before last. We are using two 110gallon plastic conicals. (http://www.ntotank.com/110gafudrcob.html) Shipped to my door they were about $900. Then I added wheels for another $50 each. You could ferment about 2.5bbl in each. If you were to brew every day you could put two days worth of brewing into 1 fermenter. So it is still not as cheap as 55gal drums but you get the conical advantage. Here is a video of the equipment we are using which may be of interest to you. http://lazybeachbrewing.com/equipment-tour/ I can give more specifics if you want them.

weirdboy said:

How are you planning to temperature control your fermentation?

When you start getting that much mass together you're going to be generating a lot of heat.

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I've read Boar Beer's fantastic thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/squam-lakes-brewery-pictures-144764/

He has successfully been using a fermentation room and temperature tolerant yeast. I'm thinking the same could be done. That is, setup a fermentation room maintained at 65 degrees (or as appropriate). The plastic drums should let the heat out well enough.

I note in http://lazybeachbrewing.com/equipment-tour/ video, their fermenters also don't seem to have any active cooling in the fermenter itself.

If cooling is needed for a few days, we could probably rig up a modified lid with a immersion coil mounted below it. Then run (fermentation) room temperature water through it for the first several days. After the active fermentation is over. Pull that lid off and replace with a un-modified lid.

One beauty of the plastic drums is they have 2 bung holes in the lid, so we can make (or buy) accessories as needed pretty easily it seems. A bung hole mounted thermometer might be one of the first accessories to make/buy. If we do have use an immersion cooling coil, I would want to drill new holes for it and save the bung holes for other uses.

If we need to move the drums like lazy beach brewing is doing, drum lifters are easy to buy. Global has this one for around $400. Note we would just need to buy one, not one per fermenter.

http://www.globalindustrial.com/g/m...drum-lift-trucks/portable-hydraulic-drum-jack

So 4 50 gallon new drums are about $250 total and $400 for the drum lifter. Only $650 total. Even at that small quantity it is pretty cost effective. And if you grow to 10 or 15 fermenters, it is really cost effective.

CoryMathews said:

I just brewed my first batch at my nano weekend before last. We are using two 110gallon plastic conicals. (http://www.ntotank.com/110gafudrcob.html) Shipped to my door they were about $900. Then I added wheels for another $50 each. You could ferment about 2.5bbl in each. If you were to brew every day you could put two days worth of brewing into 1 fermenter. So it is still not as cheap as 55gal drums but you get the conical advantage. Here is a video of the equipment we are using which may be of interest to you. http://lazybeachbrewing.com/equipment-tour/ I can give more specifics if you want them.

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Nice, and the price is intriguing.

But the biggest concern I've heard with the drums is if you ever get a scratch on the inside of the plastic, then it is really hard to repair / clean / disinfect.

Do you have a plan for that, or are you just going to be gentle any time you open up the fermenter to clean it?

With the drums, food safe drum liners are commonly available.

These guys even sell a stepped up liner that has some structural strength:

http://www.cdf1.com/ds_plastic.php

It says it is used with food. You can see in the picture that the liner can stand on its own. Just put it in the drum to give it the strength to hold liquid.

It looks re-usable, so maybe use it for 6 months, then replace it. (I have no idea what they cost. New plastic drums are cheap, so it may be smarter just to replace the drums once a year, etc.)

Well, since you asked for my opinion...

Typically when planning tank space guys will use 2-weeks rotation on the fermenters. Also, when you look at your brew days and time invested I think you might find it more efficient to double batch. You could brew 3-days per week and produce 6-bbl. Even if you stayed with drums and liners you could be a little more efficient with your time.

Also, need to consider the "rotation." So while you are filling tanks with wort you are also emptying tanks into kegs. So you can get a schedule going and lessen the number of tanks you need. A bright tank, or two, would also be good. 24-hours in a brite to carbonate and then keg it off is all you need.

Our local nano's have cold rooms and plastic conicals. You could also run glycol immersion chillers in the plastic conicals. The "beer line" glycol chillers will handle several small conicals and can be had for ~$1500. Plus they will be UL rated and such.

Just don't be like our new startup and skip the fermentation control completely! They finally got a cold room and have the AC set at 68... Who knows what temp 3bbls of full krausen beer REALLY is inside that plastic conical!

They finally got a cold room and have the AC set at 68... Who knows what temp 3bbls of full krausen beer REALLY is inside that plastic conical![/QUOTE]

Using a 55 gallon barrel you will only acturaly get 30- 35 gallons of beer and my experience says that with SS you could expect 2-4 Degree F rise in temp the first 3 days. Maybe 5 degrees if you have a big beer.

sandyeggoxj said:

Typically when planning tank space guys will use 2-weeks rotation on the fermenters.

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2-weeks? I was assuming 3, so only 2-weeks in the fermenter would be great, but if I'm using plastic drums to ferment/condition the capital cost is not high enough to rush the beer.

sandyeggoxj said:

A bright tank, or two, would also be good. 24-hours in a brite to carbonate and then keg it off is all you need.

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I haven't started looking at brite tanks yet. I assume I could just get a stainless drum:

http://www.bubbasbarrels.com/40-gallon-closed-head-drum-new

I would need to get some good plugs to fill the bung holes and hold the pressure, but that doesn't seem too hard. Then if I add some ports for CO2 injection, kegging and bottling connections I can package straight from the brite tank.

I assume one brite tank would be good until I get to double batching in one day.

My "cold room" might be achieved via a decent size used stand-up refrigerator with all the shelves/drawers removed. The bubba's barrels stainless drum is only 22" across and 29" high so finding a fridge to hold it should not be too hard. It would be about 300 lbs full, so hopefully a sturdy fridge could take the weight.

So the brite tank / cold room combo looks like it could be done for under $1K. Add some money for kegging equipment and maybe its $1500.

If I put the beer in the brite tank warm (68 degrees) and inject CO2, any idea how long it would take to get cold and carbonate in a normal refrigerator?

If it's too long, would it make sense to get a second fridge and put a simple 55 plastic drum in it. Then fill the plastic drum with water and treat it like a CLT (Cold Liquor Tank) to run through a plate chiller to cool the wort down to near freezing quickly when racking the beer from the fermenter to the brite tank.

That would need another fridge and a plastic drum, but they are both cheap used. I could use the same heat exchanger I plan to use to cool the post-boil wort, so no expense there. The heat exchanger (plate chiller) I'm looking at claims 1.9 gallons of cool water to cool 1 gallon of warm water 140 degrees, so from 70 down to 32 should only take a little over a barrel of 32 degree water to chill a barrel of beer pretty cold.

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It seems to me the above is made more affordable because 1 barrel drums should fit in a normal fridge. If I was doing 2-barrel batches or larger, I'd have to get out of the low-cost consumer market for cold crashing / cooling the brite tank.

I haven't run through the whole economics yet, but it just seems to me that a nano that is trying to be really frugal on capital costs has more options at the one-barrel batch size.

Boar Beer said:

Using a 55 gallon barrel you will only acturaly get 30- 35 gallons of beer and my experience says that with SS you could expect 2-4 Degree F rise in temp the first 3 days. Maybe 5 degrees if you have a big beer.

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That isn't as much as I feared. Thanks for the info.

Here is some more reading: http://jvnw.com/Industries/BeerTanks.html Some applies to nano, some does not.

CLTs are awesome. Handy for all kinds of stuff. Along that line consider a on-demand hot water heater to preheat your strike water.

You can also use those drums as holding tanks for RO water. Rig them with a float switch and your filter can take it's time filtering but then you always have filtered water ready for a brew. Between RO storage and on-demand heat you can have nearly instant strike water. Pretty inexpensive too.

You can box in a cold room, insulate it and cool it with a window AC unit. Cheap and effective. You can just keep the barrel in there for the CLT. Or Two barrels. or... you get the idea. You can also drill some holes in the wall, bolt a drip tray to it and boom, serving area for cold kegs. Split the cold area up with 2 window units and a wall and you have a fermentation side and a cold side for kegs for taproom serving. Hops can be stored in the same room as your kegs and clt.

How much do the liners cost for the drums? Make sure to factor that in to your COGS. I know you are trying to save on startup cost but trying to avoid spending money twice in the first year or so is good. Plastic conicals are pretty inexpensive if you put the valving on yourself. How are you going to get the beer out of the barrels when you are done?

A good homebrew mill will work fine for a nano, although I would probably motorize it without using a drill. An actual motor and pulley or gearbox drive would be much better.

Double up on things that will quickly limit your capacity. If you go plastic conicals then go with 110gallon. You can do 1, 2 or 3bbls in them without wasting time and money replacing. With barrels you just add another barrel to expand. Make sure you can get those quickly and reliably.

Will the bubba barrel hold brite tank pressures? If you can push 20+psi with those then that sounds like a good option. Back to the previous point, make sure that you have a way to increase capacity quickly. You don't want to be running out of beer for inhouse sales. If bubba can get you one in a week or two then you will probably be ok.



A big thing to remember is that when you are brewing you aren't kegging, cleaning kegs, keeping track of the books, ordering supplies, etc. So if you brew 5-days a week, when are you kegging? If you think you have 40-hours of work to do each week, double it as other crap comes up.

In an ideal world you should really size your system based on what you want to produce annually an in a manner that has you brewing 2-3x per week. Brewing more than that means you are undersized. Brewing less and you are oversized and could have bought less.

I think you *could* get your doors open for 30-40k, but that is being very creative and DIY. Don't forget about engineer stamped plans, city inspectors, conditional use permits and possible fees for excessive water use or sewer output.

I have spent a metric $#!tload of time so far in 2014 reading, planning and scheming. I'd like to open up a brewhouse myself, but I am looking at a little bit larger. I am thinking of the 3-5bbl range.

A 3-bbl brewhouse, with (5) 7-bbl jacketed fermenters, and a cold room really seems attractive and at a pretty attractive price. I am just finishing building a new 1/2bbl bcs powered electric rig for a homebrew setup that I could integrate into the system. The BCS462 could control 5-fermenters and the pilot system. I could build another panel for ~$1500 for the 3-bbl system with another BCS. Or maybe toss the BCS and just use a true PLC. Lots of choices when you can think outside the box and build your own stuff.

I am excited for you and I hope you can make your dream come true! What part of the country are you looking to open up?

I think with the fermentors, you should be wary that "shortcuts can cause long delays." I think you can do a lot of DIY for the brewhouse, but your fermentors are what control your product flow and beer quality. I wouldn't skimp on them. At your scale, if the temp gets out of wack on one or more fermentors, you might not be able to deliver the beer you promised. Or worse, you'll be forced to deliver substandard beer.

In order to figure out how many you need, you're going to have to figure out how many accounts you'll have and how many beers they'll buy. Factor in some room for growth.

If it were me, I'd do everything I could to save up and get jacketed fermentors and a glycol system.

Good luck!

I don't think there is really one way to do it, but glycol jackets are very expensive for a low budget nano

Why do you have a drum for plastic food?

A friend of mine has a micro meadery. She ferments in these 275 gallon totes.

sandyeggoxj said:

Here is some more reading: http://jvnw.com/Industries/BeerTanks.html Some applies to nano, some does not.

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Very nice

sandyeggoxj said:

CLTs are awesome. Handy for all kinds of stuff. Along that line consider a on-demand hot water heater to preheat your strike water.

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The first potential location I was looking at is electric only, so no on-demand if we stick with it.

sandyeggoxj said:

You can also use those drums as holding tanks for RO water. Rig them with a float switch and your filter can take it's time filtering but then you always have filtered water ready for a brew. Between RO storage and on-demand heat you can have nearly instant strike water. Pretty inexpensive too.

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I'll keep that in mind. One more reason to look for a different location.

sandyeggoxj said:

You can box in a cold room, insulate it and cool it with a window AC unit. Cheap and effective. You can just keep the barrel in there for the CLT. Or Two barrels. or... you get the idea.

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A normal window unit will go that low? I had no idea it would take it down to near freezing.

sandyeggoxj said:

Split the cold area up with 2 window units and a wall and you have a fermentation side and a cold side for kegs for taproom serving. Hops can be stored in the same room as your kegs and clt.

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Even nicer. I assume you know about ductless A/C units. You mount the air handler / blower on the wall, then run freon (or whatever) lines to your compressor outside. For instance:

https://www.acwholesalers.com/Mitsu...ler/19567.ac?gclid=CNr7_5uC5L0CFUtk7AodPQsAEA

They are getting common around here for room additions, etc.

sandyeggoxj said:

How much do the liners cost for the drums? Make sure to factor that in to your COGS.

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These are $4.50 each, but you buy a case of 40 at a time:

http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail...=72163222042&gclid=CI21vquD5L0CFSwV7AodsH0Ahg

If I get 30 gallons out of that, it is $0.15 per gallon.

I found some that have limited oxygen permeability that I need to get around to pricing. One issue I have heard of with the drums is they can be oxygen permeable, so I'm hoping to find liners that block oxygen.

sandyeggoxj said:

I know you are trying to save on startup cost but trying to avoid spending money twice in the first year or so is good. Plastic conicals are pretty inexpensive if you put the valving on yourself.

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Yeah, but once you scratch one, you have to replace it. With the drums I can just replace the liner.

sandyeggoxj said:

How are you going to get the beer out of the barrels when you are done?

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Lots of pumps available. I found a $50 hand-pump that will move a quart per motion. So 120 motions to empty a barrel of wort. More likely I will rig up a rigid tube to a bung insert and connect it to a pump.

sandyeggoxj said:

A good homebrew mill will work fine for a nano, although I would probably motorize it without using a drill. An actual motor and pulley or gearbox drive would be much better.

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Makes sense.

sandyeggoxj said:

Double up on things that will quickly limit your capacity. If you go plastic conicals then go with 110gallon. You can do 1, 2 or 3bbls in them without wasting time and money replacing. With barrels you just add another barrel to expand. Make sure you can get those quickly and reliably.

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If I go with the plastic drums, they are everywhere. Very easy to get.

sandyeggoxj said:

Will the bubba barrel hold brite tank pressures? If you can push 20+psi with those then that sounds like a good option. Back to the previous point, make sure that you have a way to increase capacity quickly. You don't want to be running out of beer for inhouse sales. If bubba can get you one in a week or two then you will probably be ok.

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Bubba is in AL and I'm in GA, so its a short drive. They have the barrels in stock, so worst case I drive over. Also, GA seems like a tough place to kick this off, but NC and TN are both close and easier to work with. Will need to figure out where this needs to be.

sandyeggoxj said:

A big thing to remember is that when you are brewing you aren't kegging, cleaning kegs, keeping track of the books, ordering supplies, etc. So if you brew 5-days a week, when are you kegging? If you think you have 40-hours of work to do each week, double it as other crap comes up.

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I've worked around commercial chicken cooking production lines. They cook a few million lbs of chicken a year in a facility. They hire lots of semi-skilled labor and they have a few experts oversee the process.

I'm thinking a lot of the day-to-day brew house work could be done by semi-skilled labor.

sandyeggoxj said:

I think you *could* get your doors open for 30-40k, but that is being very creative and DIY. Don't forget about engineer stamped plans, city inspectors, conditional use permits and possible fees for excessive water use or sewer output.

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I hope your high for a truly budget operation.

I ordered a 100gal SS drum from bubbas barrels for the boil kettle and a 55gal SS drum as a mash tun, and use a 55gal plastic for a temporary HLT. The plan is to upgrade this to have another 55gal SS drum as a second mash tun and another 100gal SS drum as HLT combine the two mash tuns into the one 100gal kettle, giving an almost 2.5bbl system, that can be slowly bought over time as an upgrade, once sales catch up.

Our fermenters have no active cooling. We have not gone far enough to see if it is going to be a problem without them yet. We do have them in a walk in cooler that we can temp control, and we set it about 5 degrees colder than what we want. We have our first test batch in there fermenting right now. It was only 1bbl so it is not as large as the conical can handle, and thus won't give as much problems, but should at least give us a hint.

I have plans to add some SS coils in the fermenters and pump cold water from the walk in cooler next to it (which is kept in the high 30s) to keep the core of the fermenters more stable, in addition to the walk in cooler being temp set. This way we could get slightly different temps for each fermenter if needed.

As for cleaning the fermenters, I can actually kind of fit in the top when I lay it on its side and can manually wipe the inside with a soft cloth to get the stubborn stuff. Otherwise we are going to use a spray ball and sub pump and recirculate PBW in it.

I asked bubbas barrels about using a 55gal SS drum under pressure and he said it might work but he would not recommend it. After tons of research on cheapest routes I plan to just order a 3bbl bright from stout tanks in the very near future.

Liner cost is high
“If I get 30 gallons out of that, it is $0.15 per gallon.”
I guess your going to spend about 1 to 1.5 Dollars per gallon for Grain, yeast, and hops (for a cheap beer)
That means you have a recurring cost of 7.5% to 15% for liners

Boar Beer said:

Liner cost is high
“If I get 30 gallons out of that, it is $0.15 per gallon.”
I guess your going to spend about 1 to 1.5 Dollars per gallon for Grain, yeast, and hops (for a cheap beer)
That means you have a recurring cost of 7.5% to 15% for liners

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Greg, I will respond to the rest of your post later when I'm on a computer. But this is right. Every 8 weeks, assuming 5-day brewing weeks you are spending $180+ tax and shipping for liners. It isn't much more than that for a 3bbl plastic conical. Treated right it will last for a long time. Pair that with a low cost stainless coil from stainless brewing and you have a respectable fermentation system. That doesn't have recurring fees.

I'll get to the rest of the points later. You brought up some good points!

sandyeggoxj said:

Greg, I will respond to the rest of your post later when I'm on a computer. But this is right. Every 8 weeks, assuming 5-day brewing weeks you are spending $180+ tax and shipping for liners. It isn't much more than that for a 3bbl plastic conical. Treated right it will last for a long time. Pair that with a low cost stainless coil from stainless brewing and you have a respectable fermentation system. That doesn't have recurring fees.

I'll get to the rest of the points later. You brought up some good points!

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I'll do more research into the cost of liners. The ones for $4.50 were just the first I saw.

If that is indeed a true cost, even if I stick with plastic drums, it would make more sense to consider them disposable. ie. Every 50 brew cycles (2 or 3 years), dispose of them and get new ones. New drums range from $60-$120 from what I've seen.

Hopefully I should be able to do 50 fermentations out of drum without scratching it up. If so, even at $100 / drum, that's only $2 per batch/barrel compared to $4.50 for a liner.

Nice! That is the thinking that will make you successful. If you can maintain quality and lower COGS then it is a win win.

gregfreemyer said:

I'll do more research into the cost of liners. The ones for $4.50 were just the first I saw.

If that is indeed a true cost, even if I stick with plastic drums, it would make more sense to consider them disposable. ie. Every 50 brew cycles (2 or 3 years), dispose of them and get new ones. New drums range from $60-$120 from what I've seen.

Hopefully I should be able to do 50 fermentations out of drum without scratching it up. If so, even at $100 / drum, that's only $2 per batch/barrel compared to $4.50 for a liner.

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You could probably even resell the plastic drums and recover some of those costs.

sandyeggoxj said:

I don't think there is really one way to do it, but glycol jackets are very expensive for a low budget nano

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Obviously it's not immediately compatible with existing conicals, but I've always thought SS or even plastic in a water bath would be buffered against temperature swings in a way the same fermenter in cold air simply isn't. I mean if you can keep ambient in the mid-60s (more or less your target temp), simply having your fermenter in a large amount of water should conduct and disperse the heat of fermentation really effectively, and cut the temperature swing down to almost nothing (especially if you could circulate it cheaply).

Just mouthing off, here, I just think it's a solution micro- and nano-scale breweries and equipment manufacturers have underexplored, given how cheap you could make it. Regional water scarcity probably doesn't help I guess, given how much of the industry is in the Southwest.

Your idea is basically a giant glycol jacket. Hmmm. Now you have me thinking.

Or a scaled-up swamp cooler. That sounds way less sexy, though.

https://www.facebook.com/JWellsBrewery

J Wells used/uses 55 stainless drums to ferment in. Ask him how he did it, I know it's not plastic but still the same size. He has upgraded to 3 or 5 barrel plastic conical within one year of opening.

I have been fermenting in a water/glycol bath for years. In my experience, it does in fact help regulate the temperature and reduce temperature swings due to the extra thermal mass. The only times I usually see a larger than 1* F temperature gradient between the temp inside the fermenter and the bath, are when I am actively heating or cooling the bath

For doing the cooling/heating I either use an aquarium chiller or heater as necessary--given my location in sunny LA, most of the time it is the aquarium chiller that is hooked up.

However I am doing this on a much smaller scale than 3bbl, and I think there may be some additional logistical challenges in using the same method I do now on that scale.

What kind of aquarium chiller do you run? I looked for those and the ones that weren't basically a bunch of little computer fans (?!?!) were pricy.

I too do what looks like a swamp cooler but is really usually a swamp warmer, using an aquarium heater. This will be my first summer in this house, but even when it's 70F+ outside the basement is about 50, so I'm hoping I can still do lagers in the summer as long as I have a water bath going.

And I second your 1F gradient reading, that's about what I've seen, though I use a $7 aquarium pump in the bath on an outlet timer (runs 25% of the time) to circulate too. I use 5-6 gal HDPE exclusively, glass probably conducts better.

Even when I get a controlled fermentation chamber set up, I intend to use a bath to buffer the swings, the more I see it work and test it against open air the more I think it can't be beat.

Yes you really need a pump to recirculate, or else the heater/chiller will not work. I got a cheap immersion pump for that purpose.

The chiller I use is a 1/4 HP I found on craigslist. I paid $100 for it...the guy aksed for more in the listing, but jumped at $100 cash when I offered it on the spot. The LED display was a bit "broken", but easily fixed. It was just a loose solder joint.

gregfreemyer said:

The first potential location I was looking at is electric only, so no on-demand if we stick with it.

You can get electric ondemand heaters. Just pull another circuit. Bypass the internal controls and you should be able to push pretty warm liquor temps. Go heavy on HLT heating capacity because the bigger the volume the more important it is to heat fast. Once your dough in you'll need a lot of hot water ready to sparge. It is ok to bring to a boil slower because you'll be cleaning the tun and other chores in the mean time. The ability to heat strike/sparge water fast will REALLY benefit you WHEN you start doing double batches in an attempt to keep up with demand.


I'll keep that in mind. One more reason to look for a different location.

It is the little things that streamline the process and add little to no cost that will prove to be helpful longterm. At least that is what I think... But who am I? Just some dude behind keyboard!


A normal window unit will go that low? I had no idea it would take it down to near freezing.

Yep. Just bypass the thermostat. They go quite low. I first got the idea from JZ on an old BS episode when he talked about building a cold room at his house using a window unit. Got me thinking about this. Depending on where you are at you could take advantage of the heat produced to heat the brewery between brew days.


Even nicer. I assume you know about ductless A/C units. You mount the air handler / blower on the wall, then run freon (or whatever) lines to your compressor outside. For instance:

I have seen those. They seem pretty effective. I haven't used one but it would at least work for the fermentation room.





Yeah, but once you scratch one, you have to replace it. With the drums I can just replace the liner.

I think that if you are careful you won't have scratch problems. Just don't hire idiots. HA!

In terms of o2 permeability HDPE is a decent barrier. You won't be holding them for too long in the tank (conical/barrel) so it should be an issue. It would be like fermenting for 2-weeks in a bucket on the homebrew level. Doesn't seem to be an issue. If you are going to keep something around long cask or keg it. A casked beer could sell for more anyway.



Lots of pumps available. I found a $50 hand-pump that will move a quart per motion. So 120 motions to empty a barrel of wort. More likely I will rig up a rigid tube to a bung insert and connect it to a pump.

Must be a diaphragm pump. That isn't too bad. I don't think that would get old too fast.



If I go with the plastic drums, they are everywhere. Very easy to get.

Perfect. Being flexible is going to be important at first.


Bubba is in AL and I'm in GA, so its a short drive. They have the barrels in stock, so worst case I drive over. Also, GA seems like a tough place to kick this off, but NC and TN are both close and easier to work with. Will need to figure out where this needs to be.

Sounds like you are in an emerging market! People are waking up to good beer and places that couldn't support a brewery 5 years ago are rockin with new operations now. I wouldn't discount a state because it is tough. If it is your dream then step up and make it happen. Join your state Guild, or create it if it doesn't exist, and lobby to the state to change the alcohol laws. There are always hurdles to overcome but it should become a game or a goal to beat. It makes me feel good to overcome stuff. I would assume that translates to other people.


I've worked around commercial chicken cooking production lines. They cook a few million lbs of chicken a year in a facility. They hire lots of semi-skilled labor and they have a few experts oversee the process.

I'm thinking a lot of the day-to-day brew house work could be done by semi-skilled labor.

That is called a "brewers assistant." AKA the Brewers *****. He gets to mop the floor, clean the tun, wash the kegs. All the fun things. 8) Just don't hire a moron or someone just looking for a job.


I hope your high for a truly budget operation.

Some people think I am high, but that is another conversation. It really just depends what you can find and how good of a deal. Pay for as much stuff as you can in beer. Also, find a location that has minimal regulation and is as close to ready to roll as possible. Don't forget about ADA and water use.

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I don't remember, were you going to keep your job and do this on the side? Any partners?

I really think that you should figure 2-weeks turnaround on ales. I bet you can finish your ferment in 8-10 days and then go to brite for a day or two and then to kegs. Might not be optimal time to serve that particular beer but it can go to cold storage and "age" in the keg until you need it. It would free up the tank for another batch and cut down on equipment you need to buy upfront AND the space to use that equipment. If you can have another 500ft2 of cold storage or taproom or... you get the idea.

SavoryChef said:

https://www.facebook.com/JWellsBrewery

J Wells used/uses 55 stainless drums to ferment in. Ask him how he did it, I know it's not plastic but still the same size. He has upgraded to 3 or 5 barrel plastic conical within one year of opening.

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Thats the way to go.
Use your barrel idea to prove your business plan then up grade.
Until you actually brew 10-20 batches you probably will not see the advantage. But your waste using barrels will be huge compared to a 3 0r 5 bbl conical. And I doubt you really want to make cheap beer so that loss is will be HUGE.

We started with a carboy, went to a 5 gallon conical, then a 15 gallon demijohn, then a 42 gallon Blichmann "4 when we went pro", Then to 7 of them. Then added the extension and now have (7) 96 gallon conicals with no external heating or cooling (central NH) Even with a 3bbl BK and MT it is impossible for one person to keep the 7 in operation with a 3 week rotation.

Use your barrel idea to prove your business plan then up grade.
You will find 100's of brewers that followed that route. Start small, learn the ropes, and then grow.

Good luck

RE: Use plastic drums to kick off the idea, then replace with conicals as we grow.

That may be exactly what we do.

Your comment about the drums having more waste than a conical catches me by surprise. I've never used a conical. I guess you're saying that pulling the trub out of the bottom of the conical wastes less beer than trying to pump the beer off the top of a flat bottomed drum?

If so, I had not given that any thought at all. I appreciate that gem of insight. Any quantification of that wasted beer would be great.

Greg

Greg
I can’t qualify what the savings would be as we went from carboys (we had 17 at one time) to 42 gallon conicals. But just think about cleaning 8 carboys vs one conical.
The other thing larger batches allow you to do is to produce a more consistent product batch to batch. Again think about brewing 8 separate 5 gallon batches to equal one 42 gallon conical worth.
Maybe someone out there can share with us their experience going from barrels to conicals with real numbers and real facts, I just don’t have them.
Drawing off the trub helps improve the beer. Its like going to a secondary and getting all the trub out of your beer. Most of our beer is high end stuff that ferments for 3 weeks and that’s a long time to have your beer setting on a pile of dead yeast.
I love your out of the box thinking it’s refreshing. Keep pushing your ideas around on HBT and I will continue to follow your thread.

CoryMathews said:

I just brewed my first batch at my nano weekend before last. We are using two 110gallon plastic conicals. (http://www.ntotank.com/110gafudrcob.html) Shipped to my door they were about $900. Then I added wheels for another $50 each. You could ferment about 2.5bbl in each. If you were to brew every day you could put two days worth of brewing into 1 fermenter. So it is still not as cheap as 55gal drums but you get the conical advantage. Here is a video of the equipment we are using which may be of interest to you. http://lazybeachbrewing.com/equipment-tour/ I can give more specifics if you want them.

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After all the back and forth, I'm thinking you went a great way. If I'm thinking of treating the plastic drums as a "good for 50 uses, then replace" part of the process, then I could consider plastic conicals the same way.

They don't cost much more and from what I read elsewhere conicals condition/clarify the beer faster. I guess that's because you can pull off the yeast cake every few days?

For other 1 barrel only brewers following along, here's a 60 gallon tank:

http://www.plastic-mart.com/product/5793/60-gallon-cone-tank-58-degree-cone-in0060-24

I do have partners, so we will need to jointly decide on the size we buy.

Are you planning to add a port on the side of the cone to let you get a sample without having to open the top?

You mentioned cooling it by running water from a CLT through an immersion coil. My guess is the water should be fermentation room temperature water, not near 32. That way you could just have a more or less unregulated flow. With cold water you would need to setup a regulator. Not too hard, but it's one more thing to go wrong.

We plan to add the sample port very soon. It is terrible not being able to check the batches progress.

The immersion chilling we are planning is something along these lines. [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_E6al8IF34&index=20&list=PLA26BAD8222533B9B[/ame]

As someone who ferments in 55 gallon plastic drums, might I also suggest considering top cropping your yeast. One of the biggest assets of a conical is the ability to get a valve/your racking cane in the perfect spot to avoid trub.

With a 55 gallon drum, not only do you not have that ability (your margin of error as far as where to locate a valve is a lot smaller, and they're not transparent so there's a little bit of guesswork, not to mention it'll vary from beer to beer enough that - unless you have one fermenter dedicated to one variety of beer and never used for another - you just won't be able to place it properly), but you have an easily removable top that's still at torso level or so. Assuming you're doing a barrel or a barrel and change in each of these, you'll likely have too much headroom to set up an automatic yeast-harvesting blow off tube system of sorts, but a simple scrape of a liter or so of foam krausen slurry off the top of your brew at around 36 hours should net you enough to pitch right in to a similarly sized second batch with no rest.

Better for the yeast, better for the beer, faster harvesting times, and then you don't have to worry about diving head first in to a 55 gallon barrel under sanitized conditions to somehow scoop up enough trub/yeast crap that you'll have to subsequently wash to pitch in to a new batch.

gregfreemyer said:

assume I could just get a stainless drum:

http://www.bubbasbarrels.com/40-gallon-closed-head-drum-new

I would need to get some good plugs to fill the bung holes and hold the pressure, but that doesn't seem too hard. Then if I add some ports for CO2 injection, kegging and bottling connections I can package straight from the brite tank.

I assume one brite tank would be good until I get to double batching in one day.

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I didnt read all the other thread pages, but if it hasnt been mentioned before- dont kill yourself over assumptions. standard shipping barrels, stainless or otherwise, should never be pressurized.

10-20 PSI over dozens of square feet of surface area is a huge amount of energy that regular shipping barrels are not built to withstand. anything more than a few single psi in a 55gal drum is rather dangerous, and increasingly so as you displace liquid with gas.

Get a pressure-rated vessel if you want to pressurize it.

gregfreemyer........."Where" in Georgia are you located?

Stealthcruiser said:

gregfreemyer........."Where" in Georgia are you located?

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I'm in the Cumberland area, future home of the Braves!

My partners are further north. there are already several micros in Atlanta, so we may look a little farther out. Or Tenn/NC. It seems finding a distribution solution is the hardest part of doing a true nano in Georgia. Tenn for instance lets brewers distribute themselves in the county they brew in. So a nano in the same county as Chattanooga could distribute throughout the city. (Or so I understand it.)