BrewBot Upgrade

Mike and I get asked a lot about our BrewBots. The idea for the BrewBots rests solely with Mike. He was tired of cleaning 5 gallon carboys and our 7.5 gallon SS Brewtech Brew Buckets were too small for the larger batches we wanted to begin brewing, so he decided to look for something that could fit larger batches, be portable, and easy to clean. The BrewBots have had a few stages of development which has allowed us to upgrade them as our budget allowed. This was important to us as we were able to purchase 6 BrewBots for less than the price of one SS Brewtech 1 barrel Chronical. Before I go over the BrewBot transformation, I wanted to give an overview of our current fermenters and why we have a variety of them.

OUR FERMENTERS and Cold Side Equipment:

• 2 one barrel SS BREWTECH Chronicals: used for 20-40 gallon batches where we are using one yeast strain.
  
• 6 BrewBots made from Half Barrel Sanke Kegs: used for 10 gallon batches or 20 gallon batches that we want to split (i.e., use different yeast strains, add in fruit additions, use different hops for dryhopping, etc.).
  
• 4 SS Brewtech 7.5 Gallon BrewBuckets: we use these for experimental beers, especially fruit additions. 
  
• Glycol Chillers: we have 2 SS Brewtech glycol chillers that we use. One is solely for the Chronicals and the other is for the BrewBots.
  

Why so many fermenters?

We love options! With our current configuration, we have the ability to brew large batches and play around with yeast strains, hop additions, and adjuncts during fermentation. We can make 20 gallon batches of a Mexican lager and ferment 10 gallons to be a traditional Mexican lager and 10 gallons can turn into our Tijuana Facelift version with the addition of blood orange puree and a blend of 5 peppers. We can brew 30 gallons of Judge Hopner IPA and leave 15 gallons as the regular Judge Hopner and then the remaining 15 gallons can have different dry hops or fruit additions for a twist. Also, we have the capacity to make split boils due to having 2 sizes of boil pots in addition to our fermenters. We can mash 30 gallons of Judge Hopner wort and split the wort into 2 different boil kettles to play with new hop additions. This frees up time to experiment with our recipes while not having to brew multiple batches. We can get a variety of beers from a single wort and split the batches (either during the boil or fermentation). We love having this variety and the options to experiment while still getting the traditional beer we enjoy.

What is a BrewBot?

The premise for our BrewBots are similar to what a professional brewery uses for a yeast brink. Basically, our BrewBots are simply half barrel Sankey kegs that we use as fermenters. Mike came up with the idea to use the kegs to ferment in when he found brand new Sankey kegs on sale. If you are looking to create your own, the Sanke kegs are around $200 a piece. We had the Sanke post removed and a hole cut in the top with a 6 inch ferrule welded on. The 6 inch opening was just enough for us to squeeze our forearms into the keg to clean it after fermentation. 

BREWbot Phases

We built our BrewBots in stages over many years. These were the 3 phases of our BrewBot construction:
Stage 1: 
The first version of our BrewBot was simply the 6 inch ferrule that had a 6 inch to 2 inch reducer on top. The reducer fit a 2” tri clover blow off tube from NorCal Brewing Solutions. Because the kegs full of liquid are heavy, we placed each keg on a dolly purchased from Harbor Freight Tools to make it easier to move around. To push the liquid from the fermenter to 5 gallon corny kegs, we purchased a fermenter keg tee transfer kit from Norcal Brewing Solutions to push the liquid out of the fermenter. Finally, we purchased cooling jackets from Gotta Brew to keep the Sanke kegs cold and control fermentation temperatures.

Note: you will need the expansion link for the Sanke kegs, but you can use the cooling jacket without the expansion link with the SS Brewbucket.

Stage 2:
After using the fermenters for years, we recently added three 2 inch ferrules to each fermenter--one on the very bottom, and two in the front. These allowed us to push the C02 to the bottom and trub dump. We also purchased a 6 inch to 3 inch reducer so that we could use our 3 inch CIP ball when cleaning. We added legs and casters to each BrewBot so that each fermenter took up less floor space than with with Harbor Freight dolly. Butterfly valves were added. We also built a 3 inch dry hopper that can be used with all of our brew bots and our SS Chronicals.

Stage 3: 
In order to use the dry hopper with the BrewBots and limit oxygen exposure, Mike drilled holes into the side of the BrewBots and added thermowells. We used SS Brewtech weldless thermowells since neither of us know how to weld. Fortunately, we had an old keg lying around that was too damaged to fix, so we used that to practice our drilling. It worked out perfectly! We also added self-closing quick disconnects to our glycol hose lines to prevent leaking glychol and make moving the BrewBots easier when cleaning.  Now we have 6 fully finished BrewBots that allow us to have completely closed fermentation and transfer to kegs.
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The process of building our brewery is an ongoing one. We constantly tinker with our setup and try to perfect our system for our needs. The BrewBots are our favorite fermenters. We do like the convenience of our SS Brewtech Chronicals, but we find the BrewBots seem to be a bit more consistent, provide more flexibility, get colder, and hold more pressure. We can also repurpose these as yeast brinks if we ever expand our brewery into something more professional (our dream scenario!).

Cheers!
2JBC