Help - Suggestions on how to brew larger quantities

[Chanderjeet Rai]

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for letting me in on the great forum. I searched and read a few threads but need a bit more advice on our situation.

We have been brewing about 65 liters at a time and then use a speidel fermenter. After that we fill up 3 corney kegs and then carbonate them. Once ready we would move to sankey kegs. All in all a very MacGywer'd process.

We use Brewtools 80L system.

We now have some serious inquiries coming in.

We want to move away from this process we have now. What do you think can be done to make it better efficient and at the same time provide us a way to increase our output allow us to have 200 liters at our disposal at any time ready to deliver.


How would you do it?

 

[kh54s10]

I would look at a different method of kegging. Transferring twice is not a good idea.

To have 200 liters on your 80L system you need to brew 2.5 times more often or you will need some new equipment.

Not much else to say.

 

[Chanderjeet Rai]

What would you recommend that we do? We also don't like the idea of transferring twice. But we haven't had any other ideas.

In our next brew day, we would like to brew twice. So each brew is 80L. So end of the day we end up with 160L. Now, we will have them separate fermenters but what we would like is that once the fermentation is done, we transfer them to some sort of container that can take the entire volume and that we carbonate it / chill it in that container. So that once it is ready to consume, we straightaway transfer to sankey kegs.

What in your knowledge will allow us to achieve this? Is this correct way of doing this even ?

Thanks.

 

[bracconiere]

so your trying to figure out how to carbonate ~50 gals of beer, with out having to use 10 corny kegs?

edit: if so, they sell 50 gal plastic drums, with somewhat air tight lids. might be able to hold 10-12psi of pressure...do it like the bottle boy's and add priming sugar? not sure how you'd transfer though...

edit #2: https://www.ebay.com/i/253115071756?chn=ps on the fly carbonation like a soda fountain?

 

[Chanderjeet Rai]

Yes, I think. It was fairly easy with grainfather, we had all our equipment figured out but with this new one, we are facing new questions every time we brew

So, yes, I will try again to be clear...

We would like to brew 2 x 80L batches in a day. We already have two 120L spiedel fermenters. We put the wort of each brew in each of these fermenter and then pitch in yeast.


With grainfather, we would've at this time moved the beer to a corny and chill it and pressure carbonate it and get it ready to use.


The process described in the above sentence is what we are trying to figure out. We want to know what is the best way to store this 160L of beer, chill it, carbonate it and then just have it ready as and when needed.


Would it be a job for brite tank?

 

[kh54s10]

I would say that you need more kegging capacity. Ferment in the Spiedels or other fermenters then transfer once to kegs. If you need more, you need more. I would not insert another step in between.

 

[bracconiere]

i just scanned this, but i think at 50 gals a day your more in need of this...

https://discussions.probrewer.com/showthread.php?10959-Keg-vs-Tank-Dispense

most people here would think my 10 gal batches are big....

 

[MaxStout]

This sounds like a throughput issue. You intend to scale up to having 200L "ready to deliver," but how quickly will you need to replenish that? If you are delivering 200L in a shorter time frame than it takes you to go from grain to packaging, you will need a system than can produce more than that volume in order to keep the "pipeline" full, and lots of storage capacity. OTOH, if 200L won't move as fast, then a smaller system may be able to keep inventory topped off at 200L. Maybe a 2 or 3 Bbl system will do? This is getting way beyond the hobbyist level, though there may be some pro brewers on this forum who can help you scale up, or steer you to more relevant sources of info.

As others have noted, you'll need lots of kegs.

 

[bracconiere]

This is getting way beyond the hobbyist level, though there may be some pro brewers on this forum who can help you scale up,.

lol, or even the casual alcoholic's! i brew 10 gals a week, and it keeps me in beer....