Cleaning an FV, caustic is done. Do you burst rinse hot or cold to rinse?

I’ve always gone back and forth on this

Current brewhouse HLT is massive, so there’s enough hot to even to a pasteurising cycle of hot water post caustic before PAA.

This fermenter cone was extra comical for me today

I saw bubblegum pink, and I couldn't unsee it

Now I wanna brew a bubblegum beer

Never heard of them and I’m receiving emails showing $33/bag for base malt. Site seems a little sketch to be honest.

We are having some issues hitting out KO temp. With it being hot this year out city water is pretty warm (around 24.6c) so we picked up a Mueller Accu-therm and put them in-line to create a two stage. Old HX is city water and the Mueller is glycol (set point -4c). Unfortunately we are only able to hit about 18c if we run it really slow.

So we are struggling to figure out how to bring this down and possibly speed it up.

Both HX have been cleaned backwards and forwards, both ports, with both acid and caustic cycles.

Both have been disassembled and plates have been checked.

Did a leak check and no leaks.

My air compressor went out so I’m using a smaller one temporarily. Now when my can lift goes up the can stays spinning for upwards of 45 seconds until the seamers finally decide to close and it just destroys my cans. My can lift pressure set point is set at 60 PSI and my gauge is reading 58.7PSI when the can lift is up. With this brief description would anyone have some advice?

Hi friends, we currently use a grainfather g70 in our shop for RTDS, to make syrups and boil water. Our sight glass seal has gone bad and I cannot find this ANYWHERE online. It’s sold out everywhere and I’m stuck now, completely stopping production. I’m not having any luck getting through to them either, so if anyone has any advice where to find this, or how to fix it for now until we can get the right part, please HELP!

Pourware has shuttered unexpectedly. I placed an order for a second location that is opening soon (weeks) and I am getting radio silence. Other than grandstand, sahm and some of the bigger spots, who are your favorite glass suppliers?

We started using Brew Ninja and this is my first time using it. It does not natively support serving tanks and decrement inventory from them. Our rep gave us one work around and its trash. they honestly seem a little clueless.

Who else is using it with serving tanks and how are you handling it?

Hi all,

I've not been brewing on this kit for long enough to get a feel for how well the whirlpool performs so I want to try and establish some baseline numbers and go from there.

Is there a way of calculating the inlet velocity for the whirlpool so I can make sure I'm not exceeding the point where I'm actually doing more harm than good by going too fast?

Thanks in advance!

I'm using a Stout brewing system where wort recirculates around the outside of the HLT to heat the mash.

I'm having trouble raising the mash temperature from 65°C to 75°C.
HLT temperature: 83°C
Wort returning to the mash tun: 78°C
After 90 minutes of recirculation, the mash only reached 72°C.

My questions:

Is it a problem to recirculate the mash for over an hour at these temperatures?
Is there a risk of increased tannin extraction or astringency?
For those using a similar HERMS system, what HLT temperature do you use, and how long does it typically take to raise the mash temperature by 10°C?

I'd appreciate hearing about your experience.

Hello there!

I'm a homebrewer, academic teacher, and professionally I work on implementing AI systems (and no, I don't mean just asking ChatGPT to generate IPA recipes).

I've always been curious about where these two worlds actually meet. So, together with my co-authors, I went through 188 scientific papers to see what's already being done with AI in brewing, what actually works, and where there's still potential for real-world applications.

Turns out there's quite a bit going on, especially around fermentation monitoring, quality control, and process optimization. But there's also a pretty big gap between academic research and what actually makes sense in a working brewery. ;)

One thing I firmly believe is that AI will never replace the brewer. As we put it in the paper:

AI should not be understood as a substitute for brewing knowledge. Its practical role is to transform process, laboratory, visual, sensory, and production data into information that can support brewers, technologists, and quality-control staff.

If anyone's curious, here's the open-access reviewed paper: https://doi.org/10.3390/beverages12100118

Interactive list of all publications is also available: https://krzysztofrewak.github.io/ai4brewing/

I'd love to hear from people actually working in breweries. Are you using any AI or machine learning tools? Or have you come across problems where you think they could genuinely help?

Hi everyone,

I'm curious how other breweries handle dry hopping.

What temperature do you dry hop at, how long do you leave the hops in, and what’s your usual process from adding hops to transferring the beer?

I'd love to hear your procedures. Thanks!

Rice lager dryhopped with Alora and an imperial stout aged on sugar maple spirals. Tis the season!

Hi everyone,

I'm currently reviewing our CIP and sanitizing procedures at a commercial brewery. We have 8 fermentation tanks (FVs) and 5 bright beer tanks (BBTs), with a production target of around 10 batches per month.

Currently, we perform a full CIP, including caustic cleaning, rinsing, and PAA sanitizing, immediately after emptying each tank.

However, I'm considering separating the cleaning and sanitizing steps depending on when the tank will be used next.

For example:

• If the tank will be used the next day: Perform caustic CIP, rinse, and sanitize after emptying, then keep it closed until use.
• If the tank won't be used for another 7 days: Perform caustic CIP and rinse immediately after emptying, then leave it clean and properly closed. Sanitize with PAA on the day of use or the day before.

My thinking is that sanitizing a tank a week before its next use may not provide much benefit, assuming the tank has been properly cleaned and stored.

I'd like to know how other commercial breweries manage this.

1. Do you sanitize tanks immediately after CIP, or just before the next use?
2. How long do you normally leave a cleaned but unsanitized tank before using it?
3. If a cleaned tank has been sitting empty for a week, do you repeat the entire CIP cycle or just sanitize it before use?
4. Do you follow different procedures for FVs and BBTs?

I'm particularly interested in real-world practices and any microbiological or quality control considerations.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience!

Our brewery is looking to set up a 1 BBL pilot setup for RND. Our budgets is 15 k €. These are the two main options we are considering: picking available offerings from different manufacturers and piecing it all together or having all the equipment made from a single company.

The pics above is an offering from YoLong Industries, a brewtech firm out of China. I contacted them because I saw someone else use one of their systems and they were satisfied with it.

Second option is just buying what I hear that you guys reccomend here on Reddit:
Blichmann 1 BBL Electric HERMS
Brewmonster 105 liter double walled unitank (2-3)
BrewBuilt™ IceMaster Max 2 Glycol Chiller

It’s my first time doing this so I’d like you guys to weigh in on this if you can help.

Anyone have a good contact for a person or firm that could draft our process schematics? Boiler steam fired Deutsche 5 barrel system and glycol chiller. Purchased second hand. I know this won’t be “cheap” and we’re not looking for that. We need plans.

We have an old RePack labeller that uses a oil impregnated felt disc as a clutch. Does anyone know where to find one or what kind of oil might be used for that?

Repack got bought by someone else and they no longer offer that part.

Looking for some feedback on what style of Double IPA sells these days. I know the literal market that I’m in greatly influences this, but for now, let’s try to leave that out of it.

We’re going to start selling 19.2s of a Double IPA soon and for multiple reasons, I’d like to do something in the WC/NW vein. Clear, clean, low color, 70ish IBUs, C hops (probably not solely, but piney/dank), 9%… but I’m not sure if that beer sells these days. Especially in the 19.2 format.

What say you, brewing community?

So we are a two man team in a 10bbl brewery. I come from several breweries that are 7bbl or less (not my full time gig) and another from much bigger production breweries. Super great combo honestly! I learn a lot, he may learn a little of Jerry rigging from me. I’m used to the upscale homebrewing mentality of (okay, this has a 90% chance of working, but let’s go for it), while he is dialing in things to a ml in a 10bbl brewhouse. I have 13 years of part time experience and he has 10 of full time. I know the tried and true methods and wanting to branch out to the unknown (with reason), he is a little stuck in his ways (potentially ego oriented after state level wins). Pretty interesting combo of people put together, all for the better honestly, but working together has been difficult as we have different backgrounds. He has a certificate as a master brewer, and I have learned from screwing up and fixing things. My ideas are normally squashed as I never got a certificate and less awards for my beer. The head is awesome, and deeply respect his experience, and I’m absolutely okay with being an assistant with a full time job (yes, I like brewing that much), just wanting advice on how I approach this. Thanks all!

I'm wondering what you guys are using for your ordering system, and if you have time to share your ordering pipeline.

I'm looking to improve our incoming orders from bars/liquor stores etc for a small brewery.

ATM I'm seeing a lot of friction at the place I'm at, I'd like to maybe have a Google form trigger an email and it triggers QuickBooks for an invoice.. I'm not really sure, I feel like I'm going in circles and would love to hear what others are having success with.

Some how the star wheel became misaligned. When I loosen it to align it then tighten the bolt back it no longer cycles. Basically it is either too tight or too loose. I hope that makes sense. Can anyone tell me where I’m messing up?

The owner of the brewery I work for wants to buy horizontal lager tanks to use as serving tanks. I have no experience with that, and no breweries around me do either. He wants to use them for all of our beers, not just lagers. Does anyone use them as serving tanks, or would you advise against it?

Hi everyone! I was wondering if anyone has recommendations or techniques to keep haze in suspension in a hefeweizen.

I understand they're meant to be served young/fresh and not sit around for yeast to drop out. That's usually fine because we tend to only make them in small batches, but our distributor is really pushing us to supply some for a few accounts next spring. I worry that they won't move as fast and the appearance will suffer.

I've tried storing them upside-down, with no real luck. I'm considering using a new yeast strain, but obv not confident that will make a difference. Right now we're using OYL-021.

Any suggestions?

I try Special B and it's so good, toast/caramel/biscuit flavours, I love it

Specifically from a brewery in the Brittany region of France.

If so, I’d love to be able to ask you a few questions.

Santé!