How to Brew Beer in a Microbrewery
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- Опубліковано 22 лют 2024
- Today's video will show you every step in the beer making process you need to know up to pitching the yeast. Michael also implements a new base malt going from Rahr 2-Row to Crisp Best Ale malt instead. The bottom of the mash tun has also been switched from the slatted bottom back to the conical dome, and the efficiency results are SIGNIFICANT.
Be sure to take the time to leave a comment if you have any questions, or would like a video to made on a specific beer related subject.
Cheers! - Розваги
I appreciate that this is not cut within an inch of it's life. As a homebrewer, I want to hear a head brewer talk about their process.
Thank you I sincerely appreciate it! If I wasn't clear about anything just let me know and I'd be happy to go into more depth.
This is one of the best microbrewery videos ive watched. Easy to follow through the process, listenable, hit on key steps to YOUR process.
Thanks a lot man. I really appreciate that! Makes taking the time worth it.
100% agree on this, I love how you show each step in the process and explain what and why you do it. Thank you!
No worries! Happy to share my experience
one of the best out of millions of videos on youtube about brewing because your setup is close to a homebrewers, and you are so open and patient about explaining your whole process........that just so nice............some breweries with fancy gear know nothing about brewing.........cheers man.......great video Mike.....
Thanks man I sincerely appreciate that. Yeah, we're pretty bare bones. I'd love to get a mash in setup with motor but we're going 9 years strong.
@@michaelbrews yeah a bit of automation may help, especially an agigator in the mash tun may prevent the physical workout, the mash was very thick in this video.......but it's an awesome setup, I liked the idea of the grant and the hop filter is such a help, specially to trap the hop gunk........cheers
you put a lot of work in making great beer Mike.......it's very inspiring........god bless you
Thanks dude you too
Very informative and enlightening. Amazed at the procedure and how each step is crucial toward the next… the science behind all of this makes one appreciate drinking a good beer even more so!
Thanks Tim! Having to explain everything I was doing out loud definitely reinforced that for me as well haha.
As a homebrewer and beer nerd, this was dope
I really appreciate that man. Like I've said this was a bear to make. You don't realize how much you zoom around until you have to move cameras and hit record haha.
Great Video, I love seeing people's process on different systems. Keep the videos coming man.
Thank you so much! Will do my best
Appreciate you taking the time to give an overview of your process and tips you've learned through experience. Super insightful!
Looking forward to the video on the cleaning process. Would love to learn more about your setup for maintaining fermentation temperatures too (e.g. glycol system)!
Thanks Mr. Damon really appreciate it. This video was an absolute bear to make and edit.
I think I have footage for the CIP process and yeah the glycol would be a great one! Thank you again!
Such a good video, great to see the brewing processes working at this scale.
More to come! Thanks man!
As a South Dakotan it is always great to see other South Dakotans making a name for themselves. I can’t wait to come back home and stop by your brewery. Great work!
Thanks man! Whereabouts South Dakota are you from?
@@michaelbrews originally from Yankton, but we spend a good bit of time in Madison.
Hell yeah man, I commanded the guard unit down in yankton. Loved it there! Super great fishing, camping, plus Ben's Brewing is excellent.
@@michaelbrews man what a small world! I’m excited to see where you go from here, keep at it brother!
Cheers!
Absolutely loving this video. I wish more breweries did similar videos. Thank you.
No worries, it was a huge undertaking so I get why they don't, but I also know it's what I wanted to see and know back in my early 20s as a new homebrewer then later looking to open a brewery.
Loved this video! Informative and interesting to watch. Would love to see the rest of the process with the dry hopping and all your thoughts about how much and so on. And finally a tasting video and your thoughts of the final product.
Appreciate it janerik. I already dry hopped and packed haha but it was 10 lbs. Big IPAs tend to get 2# per barrel after I cold crash and seal. Not 100% with this but feel it traps aroma and prevents refermentation that can occur with heavy dry hopping and creating diacytal.
Ive seen loads of brewing videos now but his one is possibly the most interesting. Thank you.
Thanks man, lol I hope it's more helpful than anything. I remember being a homebrewer just looking for this sort of thing. I've been pro since 2019 and I think we make a solid product.
@@michaelbrewsHelpful for sure. I'm only home brewing from kits (get my first 3 vessel system next week). The use of the grant was very helpful.
You beer is about to get exponentially better
Thank you so much for making this comprehensive video. As a veteran home brewer I really appreciate the craft and labor involved in the brewing process and especially to see it from a pro brewhouse perspective. If possible, could make a short video about fermentation and dry hopping? I am curious about pressure fermentation from a pro brewer perspective.
Hey no problem and thank you. I don't pressure ferment anything but we can talk dry hopping for sure.
Hey, thanks for taking the time to record and shoot this video. I'm not sure I'll ever get that big, but love how you took the time to do this. You had some great shots and explanation of everything
! Video is well made, cheers!
Thanks man sincerely appreciate it!
Loving the new content. This year I hope to make the jump from home home brewer to brewery and these are exactly what I need. Keep them coming.
Thanks man, any subject in particular you'd like? Payroll, pos, taxes, etc
Really enjoyed your video, and appreciate you sharing your day. I guess if I could ask anything, it's what step in what order would you take growing from an 8 gallon system to a 215 gallon system.
awesome content, can't believe you have only 800 subs, subscribed!
Thanks Stephen! I think we're that low because I got slammed with work and haven't been to post much this spring haha.
Great video, lots of useful tips along the way , keep up the good work
Thanks John! Hoping to get another one out soon. Been slammed with Burger Battle Month
Excelente vídeo! Processo muito bem detalhado. Parabéns ao amigo cervejeiro!
Agree with Beer Smith comment. on even bigger equipment is accurate.
For sure. Still so helpful
Great video, thank you! I was wondering about the efficiency and what the crush on the grain was? Even a small added 'fineness' would make a big difference, but it did not sound like you considered that much?
It's a great point but it is fine enough ran it through the small grain mill we have and didn't gain much. The bigger issue we have is a lack of effective agitation if the mash. That's why it her folks have a rotating set of chains, but again 20 bucks every 5 bbls doesn't hurt our bottom line.
without a hydrator for your mash, I would dump the grain a bit slower and stir in between bags, that'll definitely help with the doughballs
What we got and are doing buffs out. I appreciate the tip though! I stop halfway and make sure they're busted.
This is great content! Really appreciate it!
Thanks JR, I'll be sure to keep posting!
Mate that was Orgasmic how you showed everything was excellent THE BEST BREW DAY VIDEO EVER well done!!!!!!! Keep it up. Clean equipment next would be great.
Thanks Mort. Yeah we can do cleaning vid!
Love this channel. Only just found you recently and I'm enjoying every video. You brew just like me. We should do a transatlantic UA-cam collaboration :)
Lol always down for a collab
Nice and informative video. Would it be possible to apply underletting technique to the mash tun, or would there be issues? Could potentially be less work to just start dumping in the malt and then underlet with the strike water.
So I've actually down that before but the dough balls were about 5x worse than hitting from the top with the arm and paddle. I appreciate the suggestion though. Cheers!
Gotta do the follow up video to show us how it turns out! That is a must!
I have it on tap for sure so we will do a follow up and I can talk about the dry hopping schedule.
Great video man. Would love to see a cold side video and process of dry hoping. Also do you have link to the mechanical filter you use?
amzn.to/3Vfz6rk
That's the one we have. It's very basic but helps.
Great video, tons of info! Everyone has a different process but in the end we always end up with beer haha! I’d love to see the two different mash screens? That’s a beautiful setup. How often do you remove the boil elements and clean them? It cleaning/cip video will be awesome! Cheers thanks for the video it’s greatly appreciated
Kenny you said it best at everyone has a different process but end up with beer. As long as it doesnt taste like burnt rubber or bandaids I think you win as a homebrewer lol. I remove them once a quarter but they get a cip after every brew. I'll be sure to get a solid video on that subject out soon. I think I already recorded one a while back to be honest. Cheers!
These are great!!
When are you gonna post the cleaning video :)
Likely as soon as schools out and I have a server out front in the day
I really really like watching the long form videos! The detail is fascinating to me.
I'm only 4 hours away from you in Minnesota, perhaps I need to take a trip out to Watertown!
You ever do step mashing with hot water infusions?
On the small scale I have but it's very tough to do on our big system, and definitely stop by! I work days wed-sat.
Great video man you didn't hold back on tips and ingredients I watched the whole thing.
it was a great brew school for someone looking to get there foot into brewing bigger than on a grainfather.
awesome settup aswell who makes your equipment?
Glad you enjoyed it haha -- I applaud you sitting through the whole thing. That setup is stout kettles and tanks. The electrical is brewmation.
Great video. Love the detail. I'd be curious to know of the efficiency grain was due to the bottom plate or the grain. I find it hard to be believe the bottom plate alone would make that much of a difference, but what do I know. Also, I presume your grain is pre-crushed from your supplier?
Correct and it's actually always been a significant difference. Wasn't 10% before but still mattered.
great vid. Would love a real quick (or not) follow up to see the final beer and the final %
That's no problem, it's actually been on tap about a week. Ended up being 8.1% Super juicy with some dank overripe orange notes
This looks great! How much energy per unit of beer does this process consume?
Great question, couldn't tell ya. Sorry I don't have that data.
Nice video. How does your wort chiller work? Is it water based or maybe glycol? I didn’t see you hook any water up but maybe it’s already hooked up.
Ours is water based. Glycol would be sweet but was out of the founder's budget haha. Thank you and Cheers!
Awesome video! Kudos to you on doing everything manually! Couple questions. You stirred the mash 3x at 15min marks, then did the recirc with the grant for 30 min. So your doing 75min mashes? you always do 75min rather than 60min? When your sparging, do you have the sparge volume already measured out in the HLT? or do you just sparge until the kettle reaches preboil volume? At the knockout it was 68 degrees, you said you wanted to slow it down to get to 80 degrees, wouldn't slowing it down make the wort cooler? you running water or glycol through the other side of the chiller? couldn't really understand the reasoning of knocking out to 80 degrees. I get you can then knock it more with the chiller/glycol to finish it, but just seems easier to me to get it close to pitch right away. Either way, great video man, and thank you...
First off you sir are thorough lol 90 is the mash if you count recirc but I likely could shorten it. I sparge till I reach preboil volume -- no ph issues ever resulted. I slowed down the cold water not the wort. I am collecting runoff so I don't want to overflow that tank. The glycol can handle the last 12 degrees.
Think I answered them all. Cheers
@@michaelbrews Thank you for the response! Ahh thats what you meant when you said "you will run out of space to collect". Makes sense now. I didnt see the water hooked up on the chiller. At 1:27:02 you see the tri clamp that says "h20 in" and it looked capped. I figured just cuz its cold where you are currently it wasnt needed. But again, awesome video man. Really was a good look into the microbrewery side of things to us homebrewers who might want to step up later on. Its a very competitive industry now and not a lot of guys don't want to help potential future competition. Cheers! Im subscribed!
Thanks man, and I always view it as a community. Our town has about 24k and we are one of two breweries in town
Did I miss the part where you milled the malt? Or does it come milled?
Comes milled because are lacking the space and vents to mill in house.
Cool video, why don't you just set strike water higher to accommodate for the loss of heat when you mash in? And why don't you reuse that preheating water to refill your HLT? Also i think you said Gypsum is chalk, gypsum is calcium sulphate, chalk is calcium carbonate...
Two classes of chalks, calcium sulfate (gypsum) based normal chalks and calcium carbonate based dustless chalks are used in teaching institutions globally. The cost of dustless chalks is almost 10 times higher than normal chalks.
The HLT is already full from another process, and it is already set there to accommodate. It typically hits about 152 and ends at 150 F.
I was thinking you could pump it back into boil kettle temporarily, then after you mash in, pump into HLT for reuse later?
@JordanHexican not a bad idea but again all of those tanks are in use. HLT was filled from last batch and can't top up and the kettle needs to be empty to push wort over. It's a primitive system and not the greenest process but I will often use that runoff for cleaning if I have an open tank in need.
Are the grains already crushed in the bags? And why heat more water than necessary (ie dumping out already heated water) if you know you need an exact heated water for mash in?
Love from a home brewer in Sweden.
So the dumped heated water is used to heat the mash tun up so that we don't have as much heat loss at mash in.
And yes, we get our grain pre milled as we don't have the capacity for in house crushing and dust management.
Hope that answers your question! Cheers from South Dakota!
@@michaelbrewswhy don’t you just adjust your strike water to account for the heat loss.?
It is adjusted. Mashing in at 172 tends to hit 152 f on our system then loss to 150 f ish. Pretty much on target year round.
@@michaelbrews I mean adjust your strike water so that you don’t need to dump all that water. Thanks for vids!
Understood thanks drummonez!
Your mash tun has another port on top, why not use a vorlauf arm instead of the sparge arm to vorlauf so you don’t get all the holes clogged?
I can open the sparge arm to vorlouf as well until the mash bed establishes, but it's one less manual connection to disconnect and reconnect-- they're fairly hot at this point. Also I try to avoid tunneling on top with a focused flow.
Nice vid! Fellow brewer from France. Wondering when you did gravity readings OG? Did you finally measure mash efficiency? Cheers! 🍻
Yessir. Was anticipating 72% ended up with 82% lol. Been consistently hitting that since. Looks like mash tun bottom swap paid off.
@@michaelbrewsCool 😎Do you attribute all the gains to the mash tun change? What gap did mill your grain at? Sorry if you covered that, but I was trying to watch / listen during my brew day 😅
It's tun because we get base malt pre crushed. Sucks but it's a limitation we have. We ever upgrade to 15 or 10 bbl we will get a mill, auger, and hydrater. Gotta grow slow, intentionally, and organically
@@michaelbrews Apologies again, as I'm sure you covered that in your vid ... But thanks for the additional info 😊 Nevertheless that final OG is dope! Wish I was in the area to give it a try 🍻
Cheers!
how are you maintaining mash temp? grat video:)
On a stout tank system the mash tun isn't line or insulated, but when you get to that volume there is enough thermal mass that it holds its own temp fairly well. It typically only loses about 2 degrees over the hour mash as long as the lid is closed.
how long is your brew day just by yourself?
Typically 6 - 8 hrs depending on if I did prep or am counting it. I tend to get the recipe laid out the night before.
Digging the thumbnail! Nice Flannel, but where's the beard!?
Old photo. My beard goes away in about 5 days lol. Darn guards!
Maybe your efficiency sucks cuz you don’t crush your grain 😂 lol. Jk cheers for the quality video. This is a giant homebrew system.
Lol yep must be it. Honestly man it's more the limitation of the system itself. It's crazy basic and manual. If we had the chain rotation mash stirring along with the rims module hooked up it'd easily bump into the 90s, but I'm content with the 82% we get on this. At 5 bbls you lose about $20 a batch grainwise. It's much more significant at a large commercial scale.
I've never seen someone not crush their grain. thats absolutely wild to me. I cannot imagine the flavor of crushed vs uncrushed being the same.
Don't worry it's crushed. Mark is referring to us not crushing it ourselves in house so that we can control the process. Often milling from places like BSG is a bit inconsistent. But as long as the outcome is repeatable, it's acceptable at this scale.
@@michaelbrews I never knew you could get 55lb bags pre-crushed and sealed. I was curious about that step as well but there would be no way for you to be working in a commercial brewery and just NOT mill the grains.😀
@@scotteinuis4991 I think brulosophy has actually attempted to use non crushed grain in an experiment before -- brulosophy.com/2017/01/09/mind-the-gap-pt-2-the-impact-of-grain-crush-size-on-a-moderate-og-ale-exbeeriment-results/
PPE? You should be wearing a mask when handling that much malt flour surely? In Nano brewing I hold my breath and use an extractor fan. Even then it sets off my "particulate mater" sensor *upstairs!* Then again. I don't know how dangerous inhaling a load of malt flour is. It might be good for you!
It's going into a wet tank and I guess we've never seen or felt the effects. Our owner was in the grain elevator business for years, so I tend to trust him. Wearing a mask wouldn't hurt though so feel free to do so if that's what you feel is responsible.
In terms of energy... using a fill of hot water to heat a tank is INSANE! Find another way!
Already adjusted from folks commenting. It was an old SOP from the founder that went unquestioned.
@@michaelbrews Something like an IR heated sitting inside it would probably cost a tenth the electric bill.
Oooof. 153 gallons of water waste just to heat the mash tun. There's gotta be a better way, right?
Sure. Use less and experiment on the minimum needed.