Beer Forum

Lars Larson was discussing his brewhouse (0:28:50 on the 02-16-12 Firestone and Trumer Special), and how he had multiple sized fermenters, and would fill one such with four brews... My question is: How is this done, logistically speaking?

How do pros manage preparing and holding multiple worts for fermentation without risking contaminating bugs settling in?

Haven't listened to the episode, but I know a number of people with larger fermenters than their brewhouse. I don't know anyone doing 4 batches into one, but I do know people who regularly do 3 into 1. Two batches on one day and the third the next morning. Only the first batch gets oxygen and yeast.

For the last two years, Lagunitas has had a 80 barrel brewhouse with 10 300 bbl fermentors and 6 500 bbl fermentors (pictured in the foreground). 9 batches a day, 7 days a week. They're now in the process of installing a 250 bbl brewhouse allowing a tripling of capacity. That string of 500 bbl fermentors will just continue the the right.

bingbong wrote:Lars Larson was discussing his brewhouse (0:28:50 on the 02-16-12 Firestone and Trumer Special), and how he had multiple sized fermenters, and would fill one such with four brews... My question is: How is this done, logistically speaking?

How do pros manage preparing and holding multiple worts for fermentation without risking contaminating bugs settling in?

In my buddy's brewery, we did a double batch into a fermenter over the course of two days. 30 barrel Unitank and a 15 barrel Brew system. Day 1, as much as we could get in out of the 15 bbl brew system. Pitched two pitchable packs of yeast (enough for 30 bbls). Day two. Brewed another as much as we could out of 15 bbls. Knocked out and chilled so the wort would hit the fermenting beer at exactly the temp at which it was fermenting. Took some careful tweaking of worth flow and cold liquor flow, but we hit it right on the head. By day 3, when we showed up at the brewery, it was going nuts (blow off city). Should have added some foam control even though we had left plenty of head space in the fermenter.

bingbong wrote:Lars Larson was discussing his brewhouse (0:28:50 on the 02-16-12 Firestone and Trumer Special), and how he had multiple sized fermenters, and would fill one such with four brews... My question is: How is this done, logistically speaking?

How do pros manage preparing and holding multiple worts for fermentation without risking contaminating bugs settling in?

They'll often have separate vessels/tanks for hot water, mashing, lautering, boiling, whirlpooling. Sometimes there will be an extra tank between lautering and boiling where wort is preheated from mash out temps to just under boiling. This way, the process is repeated every 2-3 hours depending on the step that takes the longest time in assembly line fashion rather than batch processing

I would guess that everything at Trumer is also hard plumbed in stainless, so much easier to clean/sanitize than flexible tubing and clamp connections.