Craft beers: Review and guides

How to start a microbrewery

birrificio
Written by EFW Staff

Essential equipment for a craft brewery

We’ve already talked in this article about some starting points to evaluate before opening a microbrewery; from the technical knowledge, to the writing of a business plan and the definition of the marketing strategy. But if, after all this, you are still thinking about how to concretely start a brewery and which equipment is needed, the issue has to be examined in depth.

First of all, it is necessary to find a suitable location, with all the proper licenses, that fits for the production of beer and food-safe products. The next step is the purchase or the rental of the equipment.

A microbrewery sells its beer to third parties, large retailers and specialized shops but it doesn’t serve it (unlike a Brewpub); thus, it has to survive, economically, just with its own production of beer. To ensure a profitable business, it is necessary to manage an amount of 1000 hectolitres per year that will be sold as kegs or bottled, in this way the business can be considered quite successful.

Required equipment to start a microbrewery

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The essential equipment and materials to start a brewery are:

  • Production system
  • Bottling line, if provided
  • Kegging system-keg washing system
  • Cold storage room
  • A warehouse for raw materials

The production system of a craft brewery

Malt Mill

In the process the malt grains are ground with a grain crusher, which can be small and manual or mechanized, based on the batch size. Grains shouldn’t be powdered but crushed roughly.

Hot Water Tank

During the brewing process it is necessary to use hot water (in the mashing and lautering phases), thus the tank is required to heat up and always keep the right water temperature.

Mash kettle/tun

The malt grains are boiled with hot water in the mash tun, a big metal pot that will heat the mix converting it into wort, thanks to the direct contact with heat or fire. The tun can be made of different metals, but it is better to use materials with a higher conductivity for a uniform thermal diffusion.

Wort lauter tun

Before boiling, the wort needs to be lautered to separate out the liquid to the spent grain: the hulls. During this stage sugar is extracted from the grain that is essential to activate the yeasts in the following phases.

There are two types of lauter tuns:

False bottom/”zapap” lauter tun: it consists in a perforated steel or plastic filter put on the bottom of a plastic vessel, higher than the tap. It can be built putting a perforated bottom bucket inside a bigger vessel.

Bazooka screen/manifold: on the bottom of the lauter tun a tube screen (steel, plastic or copper) is placed; it is connected to the tap of the bucket and characterised by holes and cuts to permit the filtering of the wort.

Boil tun/kettle

Once the wort is filtered it is brought to boil and cooked; thus, it is required a metal stockpot, better made of copper or steel which have a higher thermal conductivity, in contact with a direct source of heat. The pot needs to have a size of 50 litres to guarantee a 23 litres batch.

Chiller

After the boiling process and before the introduction of yeasts, the wort has to reach 20° degrees. The fastest and easiest way to do so is through the insertion of a cooling coil inside the wort stockpot.

The chiller is a copper coil where cold water flows and then removed once it comes out.

Fermenter

It is a plastic or stainless steel cylindrical vat where the wort starts its fermentation through the addition of yeasts. On the top of the fermenter there is an air lock, a device, like a valve, that allows carbon dioxide released during fermentation to escape, while not allowing air to enter. On the bottom there will be waste products to throw away (yeasts, impurities, etc.).

In addition to the ones with a cylindrical-conical shape, there are fermenters with a conical bottom to allow the collection and removal of all the sediments.

At the end, all you can do is bottle your beer or put it in the kegs, ready to be tapped.

 

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EFW Staff