The 22 Pieces of Equipment Needed to Start a Brewery

The idea of starting your brewery sounds exciting. Not only will you have your own business based on something you love, but you also have the chance to create a product that will make thousands happy. It can be daunting for those without a deep understanding of the equipment needed to start a brewery (i.e. quite a few of us)!

Putting plans into action can be tricky; knowing where to start or what to buy first can present real challenges for people who want to get their project off the ground.

A great way to understand the costs and equipment needed to start a brewery is to have a no-nonsense, plain-speaking checklist with everything you'll need to be written down for you.

All the Equipment Needed to Start a Brewery

A Mash System

If your goal is to produce a thousand litres of beer per batch, you will need a mash system. To develop your system, you'll need:

• A mash tank
• Electric steam generator
• Lauter Tun
• Wort pump
• Malt mill machine
• Plate heat exchanger
• Fermentation

Beer fermentation is one of the longer processes of the beer making procedure - it can take around two weeks to properly ferment your brew, though this may differ depending on the quantity you want to produce. Whilst it's something you need to do later in the process, this in no way means you can afford to leave it until you need the equipment; it's vital to have the fermentation system ready and waiting. A typical fermentation system includes...

• A cooling pump
• Fermentation tank
• Equipment for adding yeast

Cooling System

Cooling is important if you're serious about a) preventing bacteria growth or b) brewing and storing beer to any scale. A cooling system has two main components...

• A large liquid tank
• Refrigeration machine
  
  

Filters

If you're serious about making the best quality beer, the following are required to make the best filter system.

• Filter pump
• Filter Diamite tank
  
  

Controls

This is quite complicated and could put some start-ups off, but fear not, there are three main components to the controls:

• A control set up for your refrigerator
• Programmable Logic Controller
• A master control board to stop all productions so you can prevent any accidents
  
  

Cleaning & Sanitation

To repeat your brewing process, you're going to want to make sure that you're equipment is squeaky clean before you brew again. Your beer will taste awful and be unsafe to drink without proper sanitation.

• A large tank to house the sterilising solution
• An alkali liquor tank
• A washing pump
  
  

Bottling/Kegging Station

So, you've brewed your beer, sterilised your tanks and are ready to taste it and, if you're in the mood for sharing, sell it! You'll need a pump to transfer your beer to kegs, or if you're planning on putting your beer into bottles, you'll need a bottling plant.

Some of you may consider canning your beer. This is not only cheaper and means your product is easier to store. Canned beer is trendy - craft breweries, big and small, are putting their brews into cans. One specialist beer distributor said that the sale of canned beer increased by 250%!

So You Know The Equipment Needed To Start A Brewery, Now Here Is How You Can Acquire It...

If you're considering finance for your brewery start-up but have been put off in the past because of the clunky processes of traditional finance firms, then why not give us a call? Love Finance can get you approved in seconds, thanks to our unique technology. We're about getting your business up and running, not dragging you down with form after form.