Brewing at a Brewery

[Jag75]

There is a place in the town that serves craft beer and food . I've taken my beer down for him to try . After a few bottles of him trying different beers I've brewed he asked if I'd be interested in helping him with a batch . I was more then happy to help. It was really cool . We did 1 barrel of Irish Red. I had a blast learning on the big system. He usually does it by himself and said he is usually spent by the end. I helped wash lids, hoses, false bottoms, connectors ect.... I think he really liked the help and believe i will be helping him more in the future .

 

[wepeeler]

That's awesome! I'm hoping to get asked to help with a batch at my local brewery, but I might just have to up the ante and ask for myself. I think it would be amazing to witness/help and can only help me produce better beer.

 

[pigroaster]

Did you pick up any pearl info or was the experience something you expected only larger scale? Thanks for sharing....

There is a place in the town that serves craft beer and food . I've taken my beer down for him to try . After a few bottles of him trying different beers I've brewed he asked if I'd be interested in helping him with a batch . I was more then happy to help. It was really cool . We did 1 barrel of Irish Red. I had a blast learning on the big system. He usually does it by himself and said he is usually spent by the end. I helped wash lids, hoses, false bottoms, connectors ect.... I think he really liked the help and believe i will be helping him more in the future .

 

[kh54s10]

Free labor is always good.

I think it would be a fun thing to do occasionally, especially if I got some of the product.

 

[Jag75]

Did you pick up any pearl info or was the experience something you expected only larger scale? Thanks for sharing....

It's pretty much the same just at a larger scale . I've never worked with tri clamp stuff before . The hoses between HLT and MT were stiff and heavy. I was in awe of how fast we pumped stuff over . We heated 30+gallons to a boil in 40 minutes. It takes me 1 hr for 6.5 gallons at home. I think it was good to have experience in homebrewing because he would tell me what we were gonna do and I could understand. I went in like I knew nothing and did the stuff the way he does it . However there was a issue with cleaning the fermenter . The hose was plugged with fall out and yeast . And wouldn't really drain . So I took initiative to close the valve take the hose off set and blow hot water through it , then we dumped through the bottom valve more and got the last bit out. Then we were in business again. So things we have to do at home to overcome issues or make things easier can be used on the larger scale. I told him I change out my faucet nozzle to accommodate hoses so I can run super hot water through before a soak in pbw. He liked the idea and think hes getting something like that to use . I told him I'm not looking at getting any pay, im just looking to get experience and more knowledge that will help me with my future decisions.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

Fun stuff. I have become friends with a head brewer at a nearby brewery and I've gotten to know the owners as well. I shared some homebrew with them (big BA stout) and one of the owners said it would be cool if I did a collab with the brewer. I kinda doubt it will ever come to fruition, but it would be cool.

 

[Spartan1979]

I've brewed at two local brewpubs and once at the AB Research Brewery in St. Louis. I'm glad I don't do it for a living. The system at AB was pretty much completely automated. All we did was push a button to start it and add hops.

 

[6Tap]

Fun stuff. I have become friends with a head brewer at a nearby brewery and I've gotten to know the owners as well. I shared some homebrew with them (big BA stout) and one of the owners said it would be cool if I did a collab with the brewer. I kinda doubt it will ever come to fruition, but it would be cool.

I asked a local brewery if I could help out so I could learn more about the process and was told, “sorry can’t have you do that for insurance reasons”.

I then asked the head brewer if I could pay him to come to my house and watch my process brewing a batch of beer to see if there are any changes I need to make.
Head brewer said, “sorry but my days are busy brewing at work and homebrewing on the weekends”.

However, he then told me if you would like to bring in your Homebrew for me to taste I would be glad to give you comments. Honest comments? Yes. After 3 revisions and comments back from him on my WC IPA I was able
to dial it in for a gold ribbon at a HB competition. My persistence payed off.

I’ve found the head brewers comments to be very valuable and
have a different perspective than the comments I get back from Homebrew competitions.

 

[verboten]

I help out at the brewery pretty often, it’s a 7 barrel system there.

 

[bigdawg86]

I got a chance to help with a brew session at Refuge Brewery on their 5BBL SSBrewtech system. It was alot of fun and it's always to see the similarities and differences of brewing on the pro level. The main thing I learned from that day is that right now it's all about the flameout / whirlpool hops.

 

[Sadu]

I've done 3 brewdays at commercial breweries. Ranging between 300L and 1200L. Plus done some good in-depth tours on bigger breweries.

It's far more interesting to work on the smaller ones, because everything is hands-on. It's really not that different to homebrewing, but a few things I noticed.

• Lautering / sparging is a massive thing for commercial brewers, which takes forever and causes considerable stress.
• Cleaning seems to take a considerable amount more time, since you have to pump the caustic everywhere and you can't just grab a pot and give it a scrub.
• Kegging at the commercial scale sucks as much as bottling at the homebrew scale. Hard to beat having one keg that matches your batch size.
• CO2 at commercial scale must be insanely cheap, as they don't give a lot of thought to conservation thereof. At the bigger breweries they harvest and repackage CO2 from the fermentors.
• They seem generally cool about you just asking for a brewday, but you have to have something to offer them so that it's a 2-way arrangement. Ie be prepared to clean the mash tuns and the pleb jobs and don't be offended if the brewer needs to multitask some paperwork instead of talking to you.

 

[Jag75]

Yeah I think the one here was perfect . It was bigger then your homebrew set up but not overly big . Imo it's the kind I could see myself doing after I retire in 6 yrs . I dont think I'd like to do it on a massive scale. I know hes gonna sell it and fully retire in 5 years . I plan on moving out of the state but who knows a lot can change in that time.

 

[kh54s10]

Yeah I think the one here was perfect . It was bigger then your homebrew set up but not overly big . Imo it's the kind I could see myself doing after I retire in 6 yrs . I dont think I'd like to do it on a massive scale. I know hes gonna sell it and fully retire in 5 years . I plan on moving out of the state but who knows a lot can change in that time.

Over the years I have read quite a few comments from homebrewers who went commercial. "The hobby turned into work, and I no longer homebrew.." If you don't want to spend about half of your time cleaning stuff, you will have to be large enough that you can hire people to do the "grunt work".

 

[Dgallo]

I’ve personally brewed a few times on a 2 bbl 3 kettle system. Same exact thing as home brewing however vessels are much less manageable and take a great deal of effort to dump grain and clean. I’ve been present for a brew day on a 30 bbl system at Brown’s Brewing Co. in Albany, NY and again it’s the same as home brewing however, with it being this size there was so much automation. The process is all the same though.

 

[Jag75]

I think theres a fine balance in size of a brewery . For instance the Black n Gold I helped at isnt huge . He has 1 10bbl unitank. 1 10bb HLT , the MT, BK , 1bbl ssfermenter , Bright tank , glycol chiller . Hes gonna get a bigger chiller for the Unitank . Hes brewed by himself for years with this set up. It's more intimate if you will. It's a cool place on a main street in town . His wife cooks and they have 1 waitress . So his overhead is minimal. He can brew then sit out front of his business and have a cold one and visit with the locals . Imo it's perfect. I wouldn't want to be running a massive brewery or work in one . I like the middle ground where it's more hands on.

One cool thing is he has someone come in and take the grain for FFA animals

 

[Sadu]

One cool thing is he has someone come in and take the grain for FFA animals

I don't know what a FFA animal is, but I found it interesting how different breweries get rid of their grain.

The little 300L / 2bbl brewery I brewed at got me to wheelbarrow it across the field for the ducks and geese to rip into.
Most places have a local farmer who comes to collect. Must be a sweet deal for them.

To put it in perspective, a sack of kibbled maize feed is about half the price of a sack of malt where I live. Not sure if they are comparable, and of course the spent malt is a perishable item once it leaves the mash tun, but that's still a good saving if you can get it free from a brewery. Even at the homebrew scale it's still a good saving if you have a few chickens.

 

[Dgallo]

I don't know what a FFA animal is, but I found it interesting how different breweries get rid of their grain.

The little 300L / 2bbl brewery I brewed at got me to wheelbarrow it across the field for the ducks and geese to rip into.
Most places have a local farmer who comes to collect. Must be a sweet deal for them.

To put it in perspective, a sack of kibbled maize feed is about half the price of a sack of malt where I live. Not sure if they are comparable, and of course the spent malt is a perishable item once it leaves the mash tun, but that's still a good saving if you can get it free from a brewery. Even at the homebrew scale it's still a good saving if you have a few chickens.

Place I help out does that too and has a farm. But they also have a girl that does soaps and body scrubs buy sons off him.

 

[Jag75]

FFA is a program ( future farmers of America) that kids raise animals and sell them at the county fairs . I usually give my spent grain to family who have chickens , ducks, turkeys, goats .