Pro Brewing Equipment with John Blichmann – BeerSmith Podcast #270

John Blichmann joins me this week to discuss professional brewing equipment and many of the equipment options a new Craft brewer faces when setting up a brewery.

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Topics in This Week’s Episode (48:55)

• This week I welcome back John Blichmann. John is the President and founder of Blichmann Engineering, one of the premiere suppliers of home and professional brewing equipment. John is also an avid home brewer. We covered pressure fermentation with John and Chris White back in episode #163.
• We open with a discussion of some of John’s new products and also some details on pressure fermentation to create lagers at room temperature.
• Back in episode 199, John and I discussed some of the business aspects of planning and opening a brewery, so this week we’re focusing on many of the equipment choices to be made. We start with a discussion of the differences between home and pro brewing equipment.
• John explains how to properly size your brewing equipment and we talk about a calculator he has online to help you decide on how many fermenters and brite tanks are needed.
• We discuss the physical considerations of crushing and mashing large amounts of grain.
• John talks about the boilers and whirlpooling in a large system.
• We talk about how commercial breweries use double and split batches to make the most out of their fermenters and brewing system.
• John talks a bit about batch scheduling and handling multiple overlapping fermentations.
• We discuss tricks pro brewers use to get their beer into the bottle/keg as quickly as possible.
• John talks a bit about packaging options and how packaging fits into the overall business plan for a brewery.
• We discuss planning for future expansion and how you can help to future proof your brewery up front if it is successful.
• John gives his closing thoughts on craft brewing equipment.

Sponsors

• Thank you to our sponsor Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine for sponsoring this episode. I encourage you to subscribe to their great magazine!
• And also Anvil Brewing Equipment. Anvil is a new line of kettles, burners and accessories from John Blichmann at Blichmann Engineering. They make top quality brewing equipment built to last a lifetime.
• Also check out BeerSmith, BeerSmith Web, BeerSmith Mobile software and the new DVDs John Palmer and I filmed – How to Brew with Malt Extract and How to Brew All Grain are available now. You can subscribe to the BeerSmith newsletter for free to get some great articles on home brewing.

Thanks to John Blichmann for appearing on the show and also to you for listening!
iTunes Announcements: I launched a new video channel for the BeerSmith podcast on iTunes, so subscribe now! At the moment it will only feature the new widescreen episodes (#75 and up). Older episodes are available on my revamped Youtube channel. Also all of my audio episodes are on iTunes now – so grab the older episodes if you missed any.

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