9 questions before opening a brewery

Micet Craft would like to share with you the questions we asked our customers about opening a brewery when we first chatted with them. The answers to these 9 questions provide us with the framework needed to understand the client’s project. Understanding and being able to answer these questions will be a good start for customers to start a brewery, and it will also improve the efficiency of our communication with customers. So, why don’t we share it? Of course, if you need help answering these questions, please feel free to contact us.
It does not matter if you cannot answer all the questions. In this case, we will ask questions on related topics during the first call with the customer and help you get answers. If you already have a venue, we will solve the problems one by one around this venue. Anyway, let’s start with the first question.

What type of brewery do you plan to open?

There are many types of breweries, from brewpubs to large commercial breweries. You can click on the “How to Build a Brewery” article to learn more about this topic. You need to fully understand the type of brewery you want to be, and you can prioritize several things, such as:

Large commercial brewery-the location is valued as much as the dollar brewpub. The equipment layout is crucial to the work process that saves money and labor costs. Depending on the location of your brewery and production volume requirements, you may need more automated processes (higher start-up costs). Because over time, automation will save more labor to help you expand production.
Nano breweries-localized brewing (500 liters brewing system or less capacity) is a growing trend in the craft beer market, and we will discuss this trend in a later article. When discussing localized brewing, space is usually the main focus. We will discuss the layout of the brewery equipment and the height of the ceiling. Determining the height of the ceiling can determine whether tanks can be stacked to save space. In this way, you can have more tables in your limited space and receive more customers.
Larger beer bar—In this case, the brewery requires brewery equipment in the range of 1,000 to 20,000 liters. Within this range, customers can consider packaging into cans or barrels before selling to customers. At this time, the client considers expansion and growth in a fixed position where space may become a problem.

In this question, the most important thing is what type of brewery you plan to call, lock your priorities for the brewery, and build it. Please note that in this issue, funding will be the biggest issue.

How big is your brewery space?

This question is indeed related to the above question because all the questions mentioned are intertwined. The size of the brewhouse will tell us many things. According to the experience of Micet Craft, for every additional 100 liters of brewhouse capacity, you need 10 square meters of space to place brewhouse equipment.
This is not static, but a good starting point. You do not need to determine the exact size now, but you need to know the approximate size or output. It should also be noted that when the scale becomes larger, the price does not increase logarithmically. For example, the price of a 1,000-liter brewhouse is not twice that of a 500-liter brewhouse.
The wages required to manufacture brewhouse equipment are always similar, you only need to pay for the additional raw materials. If your budget allows, please consider making it bigger at the beginning. Because in the long term, your craft beer business will grow over time.

How many tanks are needed?

You can use many types of tanks in the brewery. In our article on “Bright Tank VS Unitank: Which To Choose?“, we talked about other types of tanks. The jar takes up a lot of space, and a cooling system is also needed to adjust the temperature.
Knowing the number of tanks you need will let us know how much space is needed in the brewing area, as well as the size of the compressor and glycol tank required. In addition, the size of the tank is also the key content of the discussion. You deserve to have a hot liquid tank and a cold liquid tank of double size (twice the capacity of brewhouse equipment) to help you brew the best-selling products.

Number of brewhouse containers required

There are 4 main brewhouse containers, namely:

Mash mixer – Where your mix hot liquor, malt, and any adjuncts to get the brew started.
Lauter tun – Where the wort (sugar liquid) is separated from the solids of the mash and sent to the brew kettle.
Brew kettle – Where the wort is boiled and the hops added.
Whirlpool – Where precipitate solids (from the boil) and hop particles are separated from the hot wort and left behind. As the liquid goes via the heat exchanger to the fermentation vessel.

The brewery equipment manufacturer will configure the brewhouse in a variety of ways according to the brewing process and requirements of the customer. However, the following are the most common options:

2 vessel brewhouse—A combined mash/lauter tun and combined kettle/whirlpool. Generally used for smaller systems, where space is a premium or you’re on a smaller budget.
3 vessels brewhouse–You have two options here, combined mash/lauter with separate kettle and whirlpool or separate mash and lauter and combined kettle/whirlpool. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. I’m happy to discuss them if you’d like to get in contact.
4 vessel brewhouse–This is where you generally have a separate mash, lauter, kettle, and whirlpool. They can be a square formation or linear.

The advantage of a four-vessel system is you can perform multiple steps at the same time. This increases the number of turns (brews) you can do in one day. So, better for a larger commercial brewery.

What kind of beer do you plan to brew?

There are two main beer styles: ale and lager. Lager beer has a longer time in the jar than ale beer. This is because the fermentation temperature of lager beer is lower than that of ale beer, and the fermentation speed is slow. In most breweries, it will brew for 50 weeks each year, this time taking up public holidays.

If you need to make lager beer that needs to be stored in fermentation tanks for at least 4 weeks, you can brew 12.5 times in these tanks per year:

50 weeks / 4 weeks per brew = 12.5 brews per annum

If you make a lot of ales, they might have a 2-week turnaround time. Meaning you can brew 25 times a year into a tank:

50 weeks / 2 weeks per brew = 25 brews per annum

If you mainly produce ale, you can brew more beer in the same number of tanks. This is not a simple matter, but it shows our point: the style of beer you brew will affect your brewery settings.

Do you have space?

As we said at the beginning, opening a new brewery requires sufficient space. However, when most people come to contact us for the first time, there is no room. However, space can help you complete the brewery design and layout faster. You can submit the floor plan of the brewery to Micet Craft, and we will design the equipment layout according to your requirements.
In addition, you can discuss utility sockets with your contractor with the help of the equipment supplier. As we said in the first question, if you have a small brewing system and tank, you may be able to stack FV. Knowing the height of the building can let us know whether stacking fermenters is feasible. You can check the “Top 5 considerations for choosing a craft brewery location” article for more tips.

Which heating method do you choose?

If your brewhouse equipment has a capacity of 500 liters or less, then electricity maybe your best heating method. In your brewery, electric heating takes up less space than the other two heating methods and is the easiest and cheapest option. However, electric heating usually has the most expensive operating cost. In larger brewing systems, steam heating will be the first choice for brewers because it allows the brewer to better control the heating. However, in some places, steam heating is not allowed due to health and safety considerations. If you plan to brew in a remote area, direct fire heating may be your best choice because you can use propane gas.
We have completed an article on this topic, you can click on the “How to choose the brewhouse heating method?” article to learn more about heating methods.

Forecast sales and growth

This is a difficult question to answer. However, when you plan to build a brewery, it will be helpful to predict beer sales for the first year. Sales and the size of the brewery determine the amount of beer required per month.
In a brewery, brewing is only part of the job. Under normal circumstances, the brewer will spend 85% of his time cleaning the brewery equipment. This will have a certain impact on the amount of beer you brew.

Auxiliary equipment

We will ask you what auxiliary equipment you need. The auxiliary equipment that our customers usually need is the keg washing machine. In small breweries, we always recommend using a keg cleaning machine and filling the kegs manually. It is usually faster and easier to fill beer.
A slightly larger brewery may require a small bottling line for beer. These can be small-scale, low-cost technical solutions. However, low-cost solutions will shorten the shelf life and affect the flavor of the beer.
In large breweries, packaging is a major part of the business. The filling equipment they purchase needs to be thoroughly reviewed, and the main concern is the DO (dissolved oxygen) number. Because during packaging, there is always some oxygen going into the beer. Winemakers want this number to be kept at a low level and to extend the shelf life (ideally less than 25ppb). It is worthwhile to invest in good packaging lines and laboratory equipment to check your DO number.

This is the main problem that Micet Craft engineers need to understand when communicating with customers. With the answers to these questions, we can better handle the project and start planning the next step. We will provide a free turnkey solution, you only need to tell us your specific requirements, and our engineers will provide you with prices and lists in the shortest possible time.

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