Experiences with Sungood Machinery?

[TheUselessNoob]

I've seen a couple of people on this forum mention having purchased conicals or other hardware through Sungood machinery and am hoping that they might be willing to share their experiences. Currently in the market for a half-barrel jacketed unitank and been in contact with Gavin from Sungood. Responses are quick and informative and example drawing sent through seems decent, but still have concerns.

Main concerns are:
- Quality of product (material, welds, polish), of particular concern is welding on the 1.5mm inner jacket, as doing a clean job TIG welding such thin stainless is pretty impressive.
- What was the after sales support like? If on arrival there were issues, either shoddy workmanship or shipping damage, how was the process of resolving? I'm not picky on cosmetic issues, so scrapes and dents on the outer finish aren't a concern, but thinking about larger issues, not maintaining pressure, imperfect seals, etc.

Appreciate any input people are able to provide.

Also, on a vaguely related note: anyone have opinions on stainless blow-off tubes? I had been planning on just using a hose and swapping out for a spunding valve when appropriate, but would be interested in hearing about any advantages of such.

 

[augiedoggy]

I have purchased a bunch of 3bbl and 3.5bbl tanks from him over the last few years.. They are one of the manufacturers for stout equipment as well so if youve seen the welds on the stout nanobrewing equipment in this size range you you can use those for reference. To me the quality has been very good the inside of my 3.5bbl dual jacketed conicals is a polished mirror finish unlike the brushed finish on the outside. I got the sight "glass" option on my unitaks which is a hose like my "stout" brand brites also use which I have no doubt were made by the same company that supplies sungood which Is actually a deli equipment company according to the name plates welded to the tanks. The only issues we had were the fact that we had to wire money to china as they dont like to use alibaba due to high fees(like every other company on there ive dealt with so far but one) also make sure you get a customs agent set up and get esimates for both shipping to your loacation and customs fees... None of this was excessive and the price of the equipment with all this was still much much less than going through middlemen companies here in the states.

the equipment did come with the assesories needed as well I asked to be quoted on my brewing tanks without heating elements, chiller or pumps as that along with the control panel I sourced elswhere. As far as the stainless pipe blow offs, as far as I see them its a plus since I can simply close the butterfly valve and has the spunding valve already attached also if for some reason I need to pressurize the tank further, it will be easier to do without swapping more hardware. We are still currently using plastic conicals until our renovations are done and we have the space to use the 3 pictured unitanks.

 

[SanPancho]

Have seen tanks from SunGood up close and quite a few pros use them and are happy. They’ve establishEd a good name for themselves, so pricing is a bit higher than others but still on the good side of the value equation. Our guy did the same tanks at 2 bar rating for a little less than SunGood, but we didn’t request the fancy mirror finish on interior that SunGood does. And he’s not as well known. No reason to believe you won’t be happy.
my concern for you is that there are costs associated with importing stuff that go beyond shipping alone. You’ll need a bond, a customs clearing agent, and a trucker to pick up from the port and bring to you. And some of the fees involved are set fees, which aren’t much spread across 20 or 30k of gear but will add up on a 1200 tank by itself. That’s why the Middlemen predominate on homebrew level. plus president Drupmf hiked tariffs long ago so you could be looking at an extra 10% onto the price, if still in effect.

 

[augiedoggy]

I'll share my experiences with what I bought.
The three 3.5 bbl dual zone jacketed conical unitanks with site glasses and hardware like racking arms, cip ball, valves and spunding valves, came to about 11k with customs and shipping fees or about 3,700 shipped to our building each.... Now we dont know what the exact same 3.5bbl conical would have cost from stout but the smaller cheaper 3bbl version of this conical is 4,259 + another $300-400 for the "unitank kit" that has more fittings and the carb stone and spunding valve + tax and shipping through them. So likely somewhere around $5500 each shipped? Now being that the 3bbl is 700 more than the 2bbl the 3.5 is likely at least $400 more so than the 3bbl that puts one 3.5 with the same extras just shy of 6k shipped roughly vs 3,700
So its still a value at this size if you dont mind dealing direct and dealing with a customs agent yourself.. We paid somewhere between 7500 and 8k for the 3 3bbl brewing tanks and hardware shipped with customs fees as well but that was 3 years or so ago. When you get into the 1bbl and smaller stuff, as San Pancho mentioned the advantage starts to disappear and where folks decide to order larger orders or pallets to resell since its all cheaper in bulk. When you factor in that these places often get a decent bulk discount for being a distributor of sorts the fact is the markups are pretty high IMO. and if you want to buy them through yet another vendor like brewmation who gets them from stout? Well I would expect you would pay even more but thats just a guess because prices are unavailable online
Also I dont want to imply that everything stout sell if from sungood. this is just not the case. they use multiple manufacturers. And there is something to be said for having a stateside rep to deal with if you have issues or questions and im sure they are very helpful... You just need to decide if its worth the money youll save if you buy direct. In our case, even with our tiny 3bbl nano system with no control panel, pumps hoses or chiller, we still saved well over 10 grand for the exact same product and it is what it is right? Its no more an american product if you buy it through an American vendor than it would be if you delt with china yourself. In some cases though, you do have an american company that does all the engineering/development and design work. I honestly dont know if this is the case here but judging by the variety of equipment sungood sells I dont think it necessarily is.. I do know I ordered both my brewing tanks and my conicals to custom design specs I gave Gavin. For example we ordered the 3.5bbl unitanks to be 36" in diameter. I also specified where I wanted my posrts in all my tanks and how many in some cases.

 

[augiedoggy]

heres a pic of the inside of one of our tanks..

 

[TheUselessNoob]

Appreciate the input from both of you.

Nice to hear that the quality seems relatively high. Also really love seeing shiny pictures of equipment.

Regarding ordering from a middle man vs ordering direct I might have entertained the option of ordering through a middle man, but up here in Canada there aren't really any options. Also importation in Canada is relatively simple and and brewery machinery appears to be tariff free, so I will likely just be paying HST; regardless I have a good relations with some freight forwarders through work and will likely just go through one of them to simplify the process.

Thanks again for your input.

 

[augiedoggy]

The tariffs in the states vary and only apply to some types of brewery equipment.. Theres a lot of misinformation about them online it seems.