Brewing B33r!

[alkalinetaupehat]

I'm designing a small-scale (5 to 50 gallons) brewery as a class project; right now I'm in the research stage and was wondering if ATOT has any good links to information on brewing beer. I'm looking at the processes, ingredients, and things which make good breweries become great, and as always I appreciate the help.

 

[scott916]

PM homebrewerdude.

 

[h8red]

PM homebrewerdude.

LOL, I was thinking the same thing

 

[SearchMaster]

While obviously not brewery-scale, 50 gallons is a pretty big operation.

You've asked a pretty broad question similar to "hey, where do I go to learn about cars?"...what type of beer do you want to brew?

 

[vi edit]

I like the setup my local brew-pub has. He's one of about half a dozen brewers in the US that lets you make your own brew at his place. You set up a time to brew and come in. If you know what you are doing he'll let you do everything any make just about anything you want.

If you don't know what you are doing and have a particular style of beer that you want to do, he'll walk you through the process of what types and amounts of various grains to use. Help you with the timings of when to add this, how long to boil, ect. When your brewing is done he'll do the rest of work adding the yeast and letting it ferment in his own cellar. When it's time to bottle he has you come back in and hooks your beer up to the beer gun and you bottle away.

6 cases of beer run around $120-$160 depending on style and Alcohol %.

It's a really nice arrangement. You have fresh ingredients available and just about type you want. Your house doesn't smell like fermented grains. And you get some awesome microbrew quality for a little over a $1.00 a bottle.

 

[Glitchny]

this should help

 

[alkalinetaupehat]

While obviously not brewery-scale, 50 gallons is a pretty big operation.

You've asked a pretty broad question similar to "hey, where do I go to learn about cars?"...what type of beer do you want to brew?

I'm sorry the post was so broad, obviously I'm just getting started here and I didn't want to talk out of my ass about something I don't know. The project requires hops and grains, which I can guess doesn't narrow things too much. After some reading on ales and lagers, I'm leaning towards an ale since then we don't have to factor in storage containers and temperature control as much.

 

[TallBill]

I like the setup my local brew-pub has. He's one of about half a dozen brewers in the US that lets you make your own brew at his place. You set up a time to brew and come in. If you know what you are doing he'll let you do everything any make just about anything you want.

If you don't know what you are doing and have a particular style of beer that you want to do, he'll walk you through the process of what types and amounts of various grains to use. Help you with the timings of when to add this, how long to boil, ect. When your brewing is done he'll do the rest of work adding the yeast and letting it ferment in his own cellar. When it's time to bottle he has you come back in and hooks your beer up to the beer gun and you bottle away.

6 cases of beer run around $120-$160 depending on style and Alcohol %.

It's a really nice arrangement. You have fresh ingredients available and just about type you want. Your house doesn't smell like fermented grains. And you get some awesome microbrew quality for a little over a $1.00 a bottle.

Man, I'd love to do something like that. Where do you live again?

 

[AntiFreze]

I'm sorry the post was so broad, obviously I'm just getting started here and I didn't want to talk out of my ass about something I don't know. The project requires hops and grains, which I can guess doesn't narrow things too much. After some reading on ales and lagers, I'm leaning towards an ale since then we don't have to factor in storage containers and temperature control as much.

Brewing Ingredients:
Water
Yeast
Hops
Grain

Brewing Equipment:
Mash tun, lauter tun, brew kettle, whirlpool, cold water tank, hot water tank, wort collecting tank, fermenting and conditioning uni-tanks, brigh-beer tanks, control systems, wort cooling & aeration system, steam generator, cooling unit, cip-station, platform & piping , beer-filters, and yeast propogation

Then you also need cleaning equipment and supplies.

And you need the space to hold all this, and a state license to brew the beer, and another one to distribute/sell.

Also a bottling line/kegging system.

 

[vi edit]

Man, I'd love to do something like that. Where do you live again?

Peoria, IL

http://www.rhodellbrewery.com/