Hello, new member looking for some advice!

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Lee Andre

New Member
Joined
May 27, 2019
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Location
Highlands, Scotland
Hi All,


I am just starting out in to my brewing journey having never brewed before and would like to start out with a set up that replicates a micro brewery in a small scale.

My intention is to grew in to a commercial brewery and would like to start out with a kit which is going to give me the practice in brewing that ultimately I will do on a commercial scale.

I have heard of the Grainfather system and the Klarstein system.

Would you have any advice on a good system that I should look at?

Many thanks in advance!
 
Welcome to the forum. Lots of people to help you here. May I start by asking: How many litres are you thinking about brewing and fermenting at the same time for initial set up. Budget?

I have grainfather and sparge kettle and fast ferment, that is small footprint set up with capacity to do about 37 litres brew in one go. I two ferment fridges in my garage with pid controllers so I can have two fast fermenters and stands going the same time (how many different beers do you want fermenting at the same time. Budget for that is easily £1000 You will need space for conditioning too kegs or bottles etc. ( I am only have one at the moment: the fast ferment but there are plans to expand that). I suggest you may want to consider simpler set up at first to find your feet on all grain before going into expensive times. You will earn more about beer that way.


The hardest think I have worked on is concerning and tweaking set up and efficiency of work flow. It makes a huge difference and I am still tweaking that now. For instance, vessels connecting via gravity is so easy if you can’t set up like that, lifting a full ferment if just 31 litres is heavy. Pumps use power and cost and have a bit of blocking in time. Viable but consider the extra tie and cost. Cleaning and Sanitising is a big element so focus on that first, having a good space and equipment to do that makes a big difference. All surmountable challenges but if you can thing about planning workflow and where things go to connect to each other in the process of brewing to sparging to fermenter to racking to kegs/bottles and conditioning you brews will be so much simpler. Are you considering a pressure vessel transfer? That sin other process that needs to be mapped out at the start to. Water supply to your brew space may be easy may be harder…depends on the space you are going to use. How far is that form your temp controlled fermenting place. Some people end up brewing in kitchen then have to carry the fermenting vessel to the cellar or somewhere else with temp controlled environment.
 
The GF type systems I think,may only be used in commercial set ups to test a recipe. For what I've seen at even the the smaller micro breweries they use a three vessel system of some sort and massive volumes compared to a home brew style set up. Also migrating what you could make on a GF to micro size would be a fresh start as you would have to crunch the numbers again. Also while brewing at home for yourself is fine...commercially it is a totally different ball game involving the council,health and safety and the tax man...
 
I would tend to suggest starting with kettle/mash tun combination also. Start up costs would be much lower. Also would give experience of liquid transfer and would give more experience of variables, what works and what doesnt etc. Would also give a closer representation of how a commercial brewery operates. Easier to scale up kettles and mash tuns than a grainfather (not entirely sure you could). Long story short a more traditional entry to brewing would give more hands on experience in my book. Also (although highly unlikely) you might find home brewing is not for you and you can easily repurpose the equipment rather than being stuck with a £600 item that just gathers dust.
 
Sensible advice from Clint and G.T. A Thermos mash tun and 10 lire stockpot on the cooker more closely miniaturises the stages seen in a brewery than an automated system like Grainfather does. That's not to say Grainfather et al don't work. Breadmaking machines work, but you wouldn't want to model a commercial bakery on one.
 
An Ankoù said:
Sensible advice from Clint and G.T. A Thermos mash tun and 10 lire stockpot on the cooker more closely miniaturises the stages seen in a brewery than an automated system like Grainfather does. That's not to say Grainfather et al don't work. Breadmaking machines work, but you wouldn't want to model a commercial bakery on one.
Click to expand...
Thank you for this very sage advice! makes a lot of sense!
 
Guybrush Threepwood said:
I would tend to suggest starting with kettle/mash tun combination also. Start up costs would be much lower. Also would give experience of liquid transfer and would give more experience of variables, what works and what doesnt etc. Would also give a closer representation of how a commercial brewery operates. Easier to scale up kettles and mash tuns than a grainfather (not entirely sure you could). Long story short a more traditional entry to brewing would give more hands on experience in my book. Also (although highly unlikely) you might find home brewing is not for you and you can easily repurpose the equipment rather than being stuck with a £600 item that just gathers dust.
Click to expand...
Thank you for this. I would prefer to go with something that I can translate in to a commercial enterprise at some point in the future.
I will star looking at stockists. Do you have any suppliers you would recommend?
 
Justin Dean said:
Welcome to the forum. Lots of people to help you here. May I start by asking: How many litres are you thinking about brewing and fermenting at the same time for initial set up. Budget?

I have grainfather and sparge kettle and fast ferment, that is small footprint set up with capacity to do about 37 litres brew in one go. I two ferment fridges in my garage with pid controllers so I can have two fast fermenters and stands going the same time (how many different beers do you want fermenting at the same time. Budget for that is easily £1000 You will need space for conditioning too kegs or bottles etc. ( I am only have one at the moment: the fast ferment but there are plans to expand that). I suggest you may want to consider simpler set up at first to find your feet on all grain before going into expensive times. You will earn more about beer that way.


The hardest think I have worked on is concerning and tweaking set up and efficiency of work flow. It makes a huge difference and I am still tweaking that now. For instance, vessels connecting via gravity is so easy if you can’t set up like that, lifting a full ferment if just 31 litres is heavy. Pumps use power and cost and have a bit of blocking in time. Viable but consider the extra tie and cost. Cleaning and Sanitising is a big element so focus on that first, having a good space and equipment to do that makes a big difference. All surmountable challenges but if you can thing about planning workflow and where things go to connect to each other in the process of brewing to sparging to fermenter to racking to kegs/bottles and conditioning you brews will be so much simpler. Are you considering a pressure vessel transfer? That sin other process that needs to be mapped out at the start to. Water supply to your brew space may be easy may be harder…depends on the space you are going to use. How far is that form your temp controlled fermenting place. Some people end up brewing in kitchen then have to carry the fermenting vessel to the cellar or somewhere else with temp controlled environment.
Click to expand...
Hello Justin, many thanks for the reply. I would be happy with 37 litres to start off with, as at this stage I want to experiment and brew in batches that if they go wrong, I am not wasting loads!
Would you have any suppliers you would recommend I look at?
 
My advise would be to forgo the brewing aspect for a while yet to focus on the realities of running a brewing business and what that is going to look like. Do you intend to do this from home? Is this to replace or supplement an income? The regulations for food prep are way more important to you when working from home and the implications to your mortgage, insurance and so on than finding a 30L stock pot. Replicating a commercial brewery? Like a brewery that makes enough beer to be able to support staff primary by delivering beer direct to trade? You need space, to consider 800-1000L capacity minimum. 2,000L+ better, or a radically different business model.

In 2012 there were something like 400 registered microbreweries. By 2015 there were almost 900. Today there are 1,400 if you count limited companies, over 2,000 if you count sole traders/partnerships. An average of 6 new beverage businesses open every month at the moment. It is not enough any more to made fair beer at a fair price and hope for the best, the market is EXTREMELY saturated.

I don't mean to be ... well just everybody has to have a dream right, but if you've never brewed before, what makes you feel particularly suited to starting and growing into a successful brewery? What are you going to do differently? A food business with a brewery? Small pack only? Hype social media and do exclusive low volume releases?

Like ingredient costs scale massively. Your price per batch will be so ridiculously high on a small kit that you'll be trying to sell beer well above the market rate. I don't know,
 
Lee Andre said:
Thank you for this. I would prefer to go with something that I can translate in to a commercial enterprise at some point in the future.
I will star looking at stockists. Do you have any suppliers you would recommend?
Click to expand...
I reckon
https://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/index.html

And


https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/

And finally

https://www.geterbrewed.com/

Are all good. Thats where I get most of my stuff. I think Get Er Brewed also supply micro brewery equipment so you can get to dream of what could be athumb..
 
My recommendation is to go on a bunch of brewery tours (that brew the styles you are interested in), ask questions about their systems. I expect you will find they are using three vessel systems some pumped some gravity. I have also seen some larger BIAB system popping up. Googling 3 barrel system (which is around the starting point for a commercial micro brewey) is something I would recommend.
 
First of all, brew some 25 litre beer batches at home mashing just crushed pale malt at around 66 deg C and use a single hop 10 gm for 60 mins, 10 gram for 30 mins, 30 gm for 20 mins and 50 gm for 10 mins. Once you brew a beer that you rate excellent, and a few friends rate it excellent, consider the next steps. You will need at least £10,000 to be able to brew 360 pints at a time, and to market and deliver these beers to customers. Cash flow will probably kill you, but the best of luck ! (check out the cost of 72 pint barrels )
 

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