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

[Bensiff]

What drove the decision to go with a 3bbl system instead of going larger?

Are you inline injecting CO2 and O2 on transfer? If so, how is that going?

 

[Cape Brewing]

What drove the decision to go with a 3bbl system instead of going larger? ?

The decision to go to a 3 bll was an easy one. We (myself and my two partners) decided when we started this that we were going to put in some money to launch it and then let the brewery grow on its own with as little additional investment as possible... by us, investors, or lenders. As of right now, we have $0 in debt (including credit cards) and we have no investors other than the three of us. So... 1) the brewery could afford it on its own

One of the biggest expenses we had, and I would imagine most breweries have, is getting the brewhouse set up. We had to install natural gas lines, plumbing inspections, electical inspections, etc. etc. It was a ton of time and cash. We could upgrade from 1.5 up to 3.0 without having to change much in the "brewhouse" at all so... 2) it was an easy jump

Lastly... and this is purely my own impression... which probably counts for nothing... but it feels like everyone needs to jump to a 20 bbl system as quickly as possible. I don't get that. Ok, I guess if it is going to be your full time job and you can handle that pressure... ok.. I guess that makes sense but for us, this isn't our full time job and we are trying to grow in a very measured way as to 1) keep the risk as low as possible and 2) keep it fun as long as possible.

Right now we have two accounts that have put us on permanantly. Between those two accounts and the bottle sales we do over 4 hours on a Saturday, we're selling all of the beer we can make. Deliveries are easy. Chasing down empty kegs are easy. Collecting payments is easy. Jumping up to a large brewhouse changes all of those dynamics VERY quickly...

It feels like we are heading towards a much larger system at some point but for the reasons above and the simple fact that we're just not in that much of a hurry... hell... we're having a blast with it... it didn't make sense to jump to a bigger system... yet.

Are you inline injecting CO2 and O2 on transfer? If so, how is that going?

No.. we're not doing any inline injecting. Once we rack to the fermenters, we are still using a basic air-stone with O2. Once racked to the brite, we have a carb stone built into it hooked up to CO2. It's working beautifully that way.

 

[Indytruks138]

How many times a week are you brewing? Just wondering your volume that you are able to completely clear through 2 accounts and on-site bottle sales.

 

[Cape Brewing]

We are brewing twice a week pretty religiously... so.. call it 90 gallons a week is what we are going through.

One account is a local bar that has two lines dedicated to our beer (one is our IPA and the other is our Burley Blonde... a 7.5% Blonde)
The other account is a bar in downtown Boston's Financial District that has given us on tap and they rotate our beers through.
... then it is fairly rare when we don't have a bit of a line of people at the tap room on Saturdays. We are only usually open 10-2 on Saturdays. That's it.

 

[Indytruks138]

Thanks man, I was just wondering how many bbls you were moving through those channels. 3 bbls a week through that is good!

 

[Cape Brewing]

... it's payin the bills

 

[Indytruks138]

... it's payin the bills

Did you consider going to a 6-7 bbl brite tank & fermenter so you can double batch brew?

 

[NewJersey]

think about being open more often for bottle sales, growler fills, etc
cartons site said they were open on monday and then i stopped there on the way home from the beach and they were close. VERY DISSAPOINTED
i would think the added profit would be nice. you have to make more $/gal selling it by the pint/bottle/growler than to the bars in kegs, right?
next time im in boston i'll look for you

 

[Cape Brewing]

Did you consider going to a 6-7 bbl brite tank & fermenter so you can double batch brew?

Not really..

We picked up 132 gal non-jacketed fermenters that we can coil, insulate and hook up to our glycol chiller for a fraction of what a 6-7 bbl jacketed fermenter would be (and once you got that big, you would have to go jacketed). Given the cost, we could go several 132 gal fermenters the way we did for the cost of one 6-7 bbl.... So again, the brewery could cover the cost on its own.

Plus... We have no desire to brew twice a day. That's too long of a day for us right now.

Not saying any of the above is the "right way" to do it. That is just how we decided to do it.

 

[Cape Brewing]

think about being open more often for bottle sales, growler fills, etc
cartons site said they were open on monday and then i stopped there on the way home from the beach and they were close. VERY DISSAPOINTED
i would think the added profit would be nice. you have to make more $/gal selling it by the pint/bottle/growler than to the bars in kegs, right?
next time im in boston i'll look for you

We can't... We don't have enough beer. We sell out as it is. We keep very regular tap room hours (Sat 10-2) and that is what we advertise. That is also all the beer we can make right now.

We are in the process of setting up our 3bbl system and hopefully suppy will increase to allow more bottling hours because you're right, profit on bottles/growlers is dramatically more than on the kegs.

 

[NewJersey]

ah, i see. nice problem to have though, right?
i only homebrew so, wth is a "bright tank"?
not familiar with commercial/large scale brewing yet, but would like to be

 

[Indytruks138]

Britetank is used to clear a beer and carbonate it. A lot of breweries are only carbonating in britetanks as they will filter or use gelatin finings to clear. Its just another tank that will hold pressure and has a carbonation stone in it, so you can carbonate quickly, depending on the method it can take between 3-4 hours and 5-6 days.

 

[TheMagicHatter]

Cape Brewing, this is a great thread. Finally made my way through all of it. Thank you for posting about your adventures in going pro. It was great to see the transformation from "I doubt this will be in any way profitable, to, we're upgrading. Everything is coming up aces for you, congrats!

I'm highly interested in this thread and the information contained within it because my bro-in-law is looking to start a brewery in Connecticut and came to me to see if I would be willing to in some way contribute to the operation. I don't know what his overall plan is as of right now, but it seems to revolve around the size of the building and determining the type and size of equipment we would use to brew. We would still continue working our day jobs, and it sounds like a nano would be the logical option to start given that we wouldn't have the time to devote to brewing larger batches.

One question I have is with regard to the taste of the beer after going from grain to glass in roughly 3 weeks. Why is there such a difference between bottle conditioned beers tasting green after only 3 weeks, yet in this situation the beer won't taste "green" with a tap system? I've never understood this. I've had bottled conditioned beers taste great, but after about a month in the bottle.

 

[Cape Brewing]

My very strong suspicion is simply pitching rates. We, and I am fairly certain that most other breweries, pitch their yeast at dramatically higher pitch rates than homebrewers. We typically pitch well above double the pitch rates that homebrewers do so there is a lot more yeast to do an easier job... and things clean up much quicker. We also force carb so there is no bottle conditioning lag time like you're talking about. If we bottle conditioned, we would have the same time frame on the back end as you do.

 

[MuddyCreek]

I'm assuming you are using your brite tank for conditioning and carbing all your beer which you then package into kegs.

That makes your brite tank your choke-point unless you keg directly from the fermenter and carb/condition there.

I'm thinking aloud more than asking questions. However if I'm completely wrong, please correct me.

Even if you increase your yeast usage, you don't find that additional conditioning time enhances the flavors of your beer? In three weeks I have no doubt the beer can be finished, it just seems it would be even better if your processes could allow even a couple weeks of conditioning time. (Although, I don't know what your rollout rate is on your beer, perhaps you have something of a surplus backlog that allows your filled kegs to sit for a bit, conditioning.)

Again, thinking out loud. When I do this at night my wife tells me to roll over.

 

[Calichusetts]

My buddy Sage brought some of your campout mild to my Labor Day party. Nicely done

 

[Cape Brewing]

I'm assuming you are using your brite tank for conditioning and carbing all your beer which you then package into kegs.

That makes your brite tank your choke-point unless you keg directly from the fermenter and carb/condition there.

I'm thinking aloud more than asking questions. However if I'm completely wrong, please correct me.

Even if you increase your yeast usage, you don't find that additional conditioning time enhances the flavors of your beer? In three weeks I have no doubt the beer can be finished, it just seems it would be even better if your processes could allow even a couple weeks of conditioning time. (Although, I don't know what your rollout rate is on your beer, perhaps you have something of a surplus backlog that allows your filled kegs to sit for a bit, conditioning.)

Again, thinking out loud. When I do this at night my wife tells me to roll over.

Yes we are using the brite to finish dropping clear and carbing but it's not a choke point. We only brew twice a week and since it only takes a couple of days to fully carb the way we're doing it, there is no choke point. As the brite empties, another beer is ready to go in.

I don't see that adding more conditioning time would do any good. The beers are done and finished before we keg them and on the rare occassion that a keg sits for any kind of length before tapping... it's not any better than the ones we tapped immediately.

All of that said... we're not simply churning every beer out three weeks on the dot. I said three weeks before as a generalization. The Mild? Hell... that's done in a week. Our Black Steam and IPA are more around a month. The Dunkel and Blonde... they're really at about three weeks.

I think waiting longer on the beers would do more harm than good as I think some of the flavors kicked off by the yeast (like in the Dunkel) or the hops (obviously the IPA) will begin to dull if it is just sitting.

We're working on a Cherry Smoked Baltic Porter now... that won't be a three week beer at all. That'll be a few months.

Try it next time you brew a "normal ABV" beer... something under 1070.... instead of pitching your normal pitch rate... triple it (except wheats... we underpitch intentionally to stress the yeast by design)

 

[Cape Brewing]

My buddy Sage brought some of your campout mild to my Labor Day party. Nicely done

Thank you very much.

It's too bad we've been out of the IPA for a while now (about two weeks), that tends to be our most popular (not shocking... everyone's IPA is their most popular).

 

[KeyWestBrewing]

I'd like to mention I asked you a while back about the whole pitching rate difference and I have to agree with you. I think the ideology of homebrewers and proper pitching rates are misconstrued. I pitch double what Beersmith recommends and not only do my beers finish up quicker but they taste cleaner too.

Glad to hear things are still on the up and up. Keep crankin em out!

 

[uatuba]

So do you think at some near point you will be turning a profit? Guessing you may already know this, but if you don't make a profit, in 3 of the next 5 years, then the IRS will consider the brewery as a hobby, so any deductions you make for equipment, etc will be disallowed.

I've seen some people run into this issue before (well they actually expected to make a profit) then get blindsided with a big tax bill when they don't make it. Not trying to be a downer, but just giving you a heads up.

Not sure if this has been addressed, but it's not true at all. The rule of thumb simply shifts the burden of proof to the business owner if a continual loss has been shown (in other words...you have to be able to prove that you are operating it as a for profit business).

 

[Cape Brewing]

either way... it's not a problem. We were profitable after appoximately two weeks in terms of monthly revenues vs. expenses and we'll make our entire out-of-pocket investment back this month (Oct).

Gotta get our azzes in gear and get our 3 bll equip set up.... should be in the next week.

 

[revelation]

That doubles your production, right? I am guessing that you would need additional accounts to handle the extra volume or do you envision the same accounts and growler sales will take all the demand?

 

[jro238]

Thanks for starting this thread (and actually continuing with it).

A great read

 

[Cape Brewing]

That doubles your production, right? I am guessing that you would need additional accounts to handle the extra volume or do you envision the same accounts and growler sales will take all the demand?

It would double our batch size but we're only brewing twice a week now... and our expectation is that will increase as well so we think our production will likely grow to about four times what it currently is.

Yes, we'll definitely need more accounts but we're not worried about that. Since our beer has been on the market (only about 7-8 months), we've had to turn down over 20 bars/restaurants that have come to us and asked if they could put our beers on tap. We also have a distributor who has reached out to us more than once and is basically waiting in the wings, waiting for us to give that a green light.

 

[revelation]

That is great.

 

[Cape Brewing]

That is great.

it's been pretty cool. We've been really lucky and we're really happy we tackled the whole thing the way we did. I think I said it earlier in this thread... i'm not saying we did things the "right" way... or a way folks need to do things, but for us personally, it feels like we have stumbled into the right choices so far. We'll see.

Getting our next jump in capacity and then production done is really exciting and it has the potential to make things turn from a "oh, that's cute... you guys are selling a couple kegs" situation into, "umm... this is serious stuff"... pretty quickly. We've just kind of held on for dear life and let the brewery do its own growing so far and it's been crazy.

 

[revelation]

How regularly are you able to supply Kinsale? What do you send them?

 

[Cape Brewing]

How regularly are you able to supply Kinsale? What do you send them?

It depends on what we have in stock. We are delivering between just two and as many as eight kegs at a whack (1/6th kegs) of any of our beers (it varies) depending on what we have available and what they happen to be in the mood for. We are making deliveries once a week for small orders and once every two weeks for larger ones. Then we go through quite a few kegs at our other account where they have our IPA and Blonde on their own taps full time.

 

[Jayslay]

Hey CapeBrewer,
Wanted to say a few things, first off, congratulations! I've just finished reading this whole thread after a few days, and it is fascinating for me. I'm a small time home brewer with big dreams, and hope next year to be accepted into the brewing program at a nearby college. Its the first of its kind in Western Canada, and just opened up this year for students. I've very excited for the learning in that course, and I thought I would ask you... how did you come about your brewing knowledge, equipment set-up skills and the like. Did you just learn by brewing over time (if my memory serves me you've been brewing for 20 years?)

I'm really excited for Bog Iron, and wish you guys the best of luck, success, fame and eventual **** flashes!
In Canada, Alberta specifically, we are restrained by regulations which destroys nano-brewing, forcing any brewhouse to have a 500,000L a year minimum capacity if you want to distribute. How have you found the transition from small nano to larger nano, and how hard do you think it would have been to jump up to having tanks that are 1000L straight from the get-go, as I would have to do...

 

[day_trippr]

2500 gallons a week?
Woof. That's a big bite to have to chew on Day 1.

Don't think Bog Iron is quite there yet...

Cheers!