From dreams to mash tuns

In our first article Technical Editor Luke Scott gave an overview of what's involved in setting up a brewery. This edition Mike Spencer and Doug Broughton from Penborn Technical Services get down to brass tacks - or should that be copper kettles - looking at the equipment you will need.

When planning your dream brewery it's very easy for your mind to leap from the decision to do it through to imagining your first brew in bottles and kegs, skipping the serious planning and big decisions that need to be made before you hop your first kettle. In setting up a brewery there is one ingredient more important than the finest malt or the freshest hops and that is planning.

If you're determined to build your own brewery, some serious thought, a little bit of reality check and some good advice at the beginning of your project will save you a lot of time and money and ensure your brewery has the chance to go from dreams to reality - and onto success.

Sizing the Brewery

A brewery is categorised by either the amount of beer it produces per year or the size (brewlength) of each brew produced in its brewhouse. A brewhouse is classified by its brewlength measured in hectolitres - with 1 hectolitre equalling 100 litres. Typical brewhouse sizes are 6, 12, 25 and 50hL - or 600, 1,200 litres etc. Up to 10-million litres per year can be produced with a 50hL brewhouse at high gravity!

Assuming that you will be doing 4 brews a week, a 6hL plant will produce 2,400 litres of beer a week, which is the equivalent of 300 cartons of beer or 50 kegs. These simple calculations will give you a rough basis for your planning.

Before considering equipment, think about how much beer you will want to produce in the first year and your long-term volume targets. Consider the number of brews you are comfortable brewing per day and the cost of labour, as this will have an influence on the level of packaging automation.

The brewhouse is the most important component in the brewery and so investing in a good quality one really pays off. The brewhouse should be sized to meet your maximum envisaged yearly volume and
the maximum number of brews you wish to brew per day.

Consideration should be given to the number of vessels in the brewhouse (two, three, four or five) and the combination of vessels. For example, a small brewery might toss up between a mash/lauter tun
and kettle/whirlpool, or a mash/kettle/whirlpool and separate lauter tun for a two-vessel brewhouse.

Brewhouse suppliers will offer you a steam, gas-fired or electric brewhouse. Electricity is expensive and slow. Gas is common for brewhouses up to 15hL but be prepared for regular burner replacement and possible vessel damage. Steam is more expensive as you require a boiler and piping, but it provides better control for the brewer and therefore a better quality product. If you go with this option however, the steam will be useful elsewhere in your operation such as in sterilising kegs and other equipment.

If you are importing a brewhouse, make sure the supplier does a risk assessment for you, so that it complies with the relevant Australian standards. Simple issues such as the angle of stairs, kick-plates and other small details can easily be overlooked, and can be expensive to retrofit.

Water Treatment and Storage

Most micro-breweries in Australia do not treat the incoming water. However, if possible, the brewing liquor (water) should be filtered to remove chlorine and any particulate matter. A lot will depend on the quality of your water.

In breweries, water usage is measured as a ratio of water used (litres): beer brewed (litres) and can be anywhere from 15-plus for small breweries down to 2.1 litres for Fosters' Yatala Brewery.

Ensure your water supply pipeline is a decent diameter and that the flowrate and pressure are both adequate to meet your brewing requirements, otherwise you will require a water buffer storage tank to
be installed.

Fermentation and Storage

Traditionally, separate fermentation and storage vessels have been employed. In recent times, the introduction of unitanks has been the more cost-effective solution.

Vessel sizes are typically one, two, three or four-brew with 25 per cent headspace to allow for fob build-up during fermentation. A fermenter should be able to be filled in 24 hours.

Fermentation vessels and unitanks are jacketed to allow the refrigerant to cool the brew as required. Storage tanks can be jacketed or single-walled and kept in a coolroom.

In Australia, all pressure tanks must comply with the Australian design standard and be registered. Also ensure that pressure relief valves and anti-vacuum valves meet the appropriate standards.

Small breweries generally use hoses for beer transfer but if you can afford it, consider stainless steel pipework and ‘swing bends' as it will improve quality and reduce beer losses.

Consider a crash chiller to decrease the time taken to chill the beer down between fermentation and storage. The chiller can also be used to chill the beer to -1°C prior to filtration.

Packaging: Bottling and Kegging

Your selection of the most appropriate packaging equipment will be based on the amount to be packaged, the cost of labour, the quality you require and the funds you have available.

Bottling equipment in microbreweries ranges from a simple manual bottle filler up to an automated 20,000 bottle-per-hour bottling line, complete with depalletiser, bottle rinser/filler/crowner, labeller, basket-packer, case packer and palletiser.

Tunnel pasteurisers are generally not recommended these days as they are both energy and water hogs. Consideration should be given to sterile filtration or flash pasteurisation, and placing the filler in a cleanroom.

Ensure that your brewery supplier quotes accumulation tables as part of the conveyor work, it's important!

Be careful when choosing a keg machine. Some will not produce sterile kegs which means that your beer can become infected very quickly. A variety of keg machines are available, from simple one-head keg cleaning machines to automated multi-head keg cleaning and filling machines. If your brewery does not have steam, it is possible to clean and sterilise the kegs with a chemical. Remember that hoses are never sterile, so hard pipe your product tank to your keg machine and sterilise the whole circuit prior to filling kegs.

Utilities

Often not included in the quote for a brewery is the provision of utilities (steam generation and distribution, refrigeration, compressed air, utility water, CO2, electricity). To size the utilities correctly, detailed knowledge of the brewing, cellaring and packaging operations is required. Be careful accepting utilities manufactured overseas as they may not meet the Australian standards.

The compressed air system for a brewery should be dry and totally oil-free to avoid any contamination of the product with oil or oil odours.

Carbon dioxide can either be supplied in cylinders for smaller breweries or delivered in bulk to
a storage tank provided by the gas supplier.

The refrigeration plant needs to be flexible enough to meet future requirements and a skid-mounted system is the way to go. The boiler can also be a skid-mounted unit incorporating boiler water treatment equipment.

Electrical distribution is often overlooked when costing the brewery. Ensure the main supply is sized sufficiently to avoid costly modifications when new electrical loads are put on stream.

Brewery Design, Installation and Commissioning

The design and construction of a brewery is a specialist project and you would be wise to appoint a skilled project manager to oversee the design, installation and commissioning of the brewery, and the training. The cost of this service is typically 15 per cent of the project cost.

Also remember to allow for the tradesmen who will perform the physical, mechanical and electrical installation.

Other costs

Most equipment, apart from the utilities, will be sourced from overseas. Allowance should be made for Customs clearance, import duties and freight costs.

We would advise that you allow an additional amount as a contingency, ‘just in case ...'. This should be 10 per cent of the total cost of the project.

Second-hand equipment

Second-hand kit can be appealing from a purchase price perspective, but can quite often end up being more expensive than new kit when re-furbished, installed and commissioned. Take some advice from a brewery specialist before purchasing anything second-hand. There are always bargains to be had, but there are also lemons out there!

Equipment supplier selection

You are spending a lot of money. How do you choose the supplier(s) for your needs? Basically, you need to do a lot of research. Contact breweries who have used that supplier and find out what they think - would they use that supplier again? Does the supplier really understand what they are selling and do they have good technical knowledge and backup, or are they just salesmen? What is their background in breweries? Where is their equipment sourced and what is the cost and availability of spare parts? Does their equipment meet Australian standards?

Prices

With breweries, as with most things in life, you get what you pay for. Brewhouses range from $125,000 for a 6hL brewpub through to $250,000 for a 25hL brewery. This is for the brew house alone. Once you allow for the items above such as tanks, utilities, freight, design, installation and commissioning, you can triple the price for a working brewery. And then there's packaging! So, if you're serious about building a brewery, get some good advice.

Penborn Technical Services are brewers and brewery engineers. They design and construct breweries, supply equipment and offer a range of operations management and technical support services.
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Cowaramup Brewing Company

This issue Claire Parker, who together with husband Jeremy Good, founded the Cowaramup Brewery in October 2006, shares what they have learned.

We had been looking to start our own business, but what to do? Jeremy had long been a homebrewer with a passionfor beer and the ambition of owning his own pub, however the lifestyle and long hours with a young child did not have quite so much appeal to me.

However, at the end of 2001 when we married in the Margaret River region the guests included an American brewer and his wife who I had worked with at a microbrewery in Singapore. He speculated on the fantastic opportunity to build a microbrewery in such a beautiful and unique high tourism region. It seemed the perfect combination: Jeremy's passion of all things beer and my business degree. But how to put it into practice with very little money and even less experience?

This is what we have learned as a result of our experience.

Comprehensive Business Plan

The first thing we set out to do was a business plan - we had our business concept, a microbrewery with small café that would be family friendly. Next was to define the mission and values for the business.
The vision of CBC was to create a unique experience in relation to beer production and appreciation. Visitors would be able to learn about the brewing process and be educated in the appreciation of beer in much the same way wineries have succeeded in educating the general public in the appreciation of wine.
Our mission was to provide premium quality ales and lagers through the use of quality processes and ingredients. CBC would be committed to the Bavarian Beer Purity Law of 1516 and strive for excellence through innovation and quality at the same time respecting the rural environment in which it is located.

We also felt it was important to outline the core values which would determine the quality of our products and services, how we treat our staff and customers, the culture of our organisation and our environmental practices.

From there we felt it was important to conduct an overall market analysis looking at the tourism market in the south west region of WA, the beer market globally and in Australia, the microbrewing industry in Australia as well as current trends and changes in these markets. We looked at the various market segments as well as conducting a comprehensive analysis of our competitors.

As in most business plans we identified our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as well as what sort of business strategy would be used, a description of products and services proposed and a marketing and sales strategy for these products.

Finally the plan included an outline of the operation and company structure along with financials including projections for profit and loss and cash flow. (NB: There are numerous courses, articles, books and journals which can be used as a guide to develop a business plan as well as assistance from government agencies - avail yourself of them).

Budgeting

A proposed budget was formulated in conjunction with the business planning process. This can be very difficult in the event that you are a start up business and to be quite honest it often seems like you are pulling figures out of the air!

Our budget planning process was greatly enhanced by collaboration with other local breweries. Although other organisations in the same industry would traditionally be seen as competitors, the microbrewing sector in WA is small and very collaborative. CBC is indebted to Feral Brewery in the Swan Valley and Bootleg and Bush Shack in the South West for their assistance in providing a myriad of information and figures, which greatly assisted our budgeting process.

A number of other important information sources which assisted in developing possible sales figures included visitor numbers from the local visitor's centre as well as industry benchmarking figures.

Finance

What a nightmare is all we can say! Although we had many banks and financial institutions comment on the quality of our business plan we were unable to secure any business finance for our project. The project was fully funded through house mortgaging.

Planning Approval

We knew we had a great idea - the next step was to get the necessary approval from the local council which at first seemed to be quite a straight forward step. This could not have been further from the truth. The initial application seemed straightforward and was submitted with little effort or consideration on our part - mistake number one! Our planning approval was granted with 37 conditions attached. Some seemed reasonable however others were completely unreasonable and would have seriously affected the viability of the business as a whole.

The Shire imposed conditions including that we could not sell any alcohol other than which we produced on site. This would mean that we would be unable to sell wine with a meal. In addition one condition stated that alcohol could only be served with a meal. This meant that in a region renowned for its wine tourism we could not offer wine but perhaps more crucially it meant people could not taste our beer without having a meal.

We were also conditioned to grow hops! A number of other ridiculous conditions were also imposed and as a result we made an appeal through the then Town Planning Appeals Process.
The appeal process delayed the project significantly and was both intimidating and time consuming - the appeal took almost a year - the outcomes were in our favour and we truly believe the business would not have been viable with the original conditions.

Liquor Licensing

Liquor licensing proved to be another time consuming and money draining journey. The Liquor Licensing laws in Western Australia can be described as somewhat antiquated in comparison with the rest of the country.

To keep it short, to obtain our Special Facilities Liquor Licence it took 11 months, the engagement of a specialist Liquor Licensing Lawyer and in excess of $50,000, but we got there!

Building the Brewery

We were quite meticulous with the building design, lets face it we'd had almost 2 years of delays with various regulatory authorities and therefore time to spend on building design!

Once the building was complete we rolled into the fit out and installation stage. Many tradespeople were onsite including electricians, plumbers, cabinet makers, refrigeration engineers to name just a few. We used local tradespeople and for the electricians and plumbers it was the first brewery they had installed. Although there was a very steep learning curve all work was completed to the highest standard. It is probably worth mentioning that the brewery installation was an area in which we had seriously underestimated the costs and blew the budget big time!!

We have now been open 16 months with things going well. The process has been a long one and there were a couple of times when we almost gave up. The end result is very rewarding and we are now in the process of increasing our product range and progressing towards bottling. We received a gold medal in the Western Australian Tourism Awards in the New Business Development category and Jeremy received a bronze medal in 2007 for his pilsener at the Australian International Beer Awards and a silver this year for his Special Pale Ale. Now we just have to go for gold!

Cowaramup Brewing Company