Details to be paid attention to when purchasing craft beer equipment (reproduced)

In recent years, the popularity of craft beer has led some homebrews to commercialize successfully. The commercial approach must go through specialized equipment to ensure stable quality and stable output. The development of craft brewing equipment has been in China for more than 10 years. There have been peaks and downturns. After the cliff-like downturn in 2000, it gradually recovered in 2003. If it were not for the impact of the US financial crisis in 2007 and 2008, the market would recover even more be quick. The situation in 2015 was similar to that in 1999. In 1999, there were hundreds of craft beer equipment manufacturers all over the country, and there were more than 40 in Jinan alone. This year, many pharmaceutical manufacturers, tank processing companies, and beverage and dairy companies began to transform into the craft beer industry. Jinan also quickly recovered from a dozen manufacturers to 30 beer equipment factories, and there are more than 30 beer equipment factories in Shanghai, Ningbo, Wenzhou and other places. For equipment manufacturers, the barriers to entry in this market are very low. A salesperson can start a company by finding an OEM manufacturer, and a production team leader can also start a factory by finding a foreign trade company. Of course, there are too many shoddy products.

The market conditions have improved and many participants have joined. This market must be very exciting and bloody. For equipment purchase customers, a set of equipment ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands is not a small investment. If you encounter quality problems and the manufacturer has no after-sales service, you will be heartbroken, and it is too late to regret , that sentence is always so sharp: you get what you pay for! But can small manufacturers do well? The answer is definitely no. You need to investigate the strength of the manufacturer and the processing of the equipment by yourself, and take a look at the thickness and material of the plate ( 201, 304) is it selling mutton with a dog's head; check whether the sheet metal is knocked out by a manual hammer or a machine sheet metal; check whether the welding of the pipeline is filled with argon shielded welding, whether it is consistent inside and outside without welding slag welding tumor; check the factory Whether the sanitation is qualified, it is said that foreign companies inspecting OEMs only look at whether the factory's bathrooms are qualified, because details determine everything!

The following introduces the details

1. Saccharification configuration

a. At present, the craft brewing equipment in hotel bars mainly uses two space-saving devices, one for mash filtration and one for boiling and spinning. If the budget is a little bit, it is recommended to add three devices: add a hot water pot to facilitate washing. The ratio of the hot water pot is 60% of the volume of the mash pot. If the budget is okay, it is recommended that the hot water pot in the three vessels be directly changed into a boiling pot, so that the boiling pot can be used as both hot water and boiling, and it is easy to brew 2-3 pots of wine a day.

b. If your budget can meet it, it is recommended to add a hop adding filter tank, which can not only filter the hops to prevent the blockage of the heat exchanger, but also add hot hops to improve the hop aroma of the fermentation liquid. At present, hot adding tanks for hops are popular in Europe and the United States.

c. Domestic craft brewing equipment filter tanks are almost all cone-bottomed, which is convenient to process and low in cost, but the wort yield is also low. The best design is flat-bottomed (the price is slightly expensive, and the local tyrants can do whatever they want). It is because the speed of the lauter tank is fast, but the wort yield is higher. At the same time, it is equipped with an easy-to-detach sieve plate. After each brewing, the sieve plate is taken out and rinsed to dry. Brewers in Europe and the United States often remove and wash the grille, because there is a place under the grille that is easy to hide dirt, which is usually invisible, and bacteria will breed in half a day in summer, causing it to stink. Domestic brewers basically don't know how to disassemble and wash, because some manufacturers design it inconvenient to disassemble, so they just soak it in water, which is a lazy way!

d. It is very necessary to spray the waste washing coil in the filter tank. Most manufacturers do not equip it. This needs to be added. When washing the waste with hot water, it is convenient and safe to spray directly through the pump and the waste washing coil. If there is no spray plate It can only be cleaned manually, and it is very troublesome to spray and wash the waste with a hose, not to mention the danger.

e. The heating method of the boiling pot is very important. It is the best choice for steam heating. The steam heating surface is uniform, and the color of the wort will not be too dark. If the electric heating tube is heated, it will be a lot of trouble. First, the electric heating tube is easy to burn. Not easy to clean. European and American customers like direct heating with natural gas, which is also very good and energy-saving! Because the natural gas supply pipelines in hotel bars are considered for civilian use in China, the gas supply volume and air pressure are low, and it is generally difficult to meet the use of natural gas burners.

2. Fermentation tank

a. If you are a local tyrant, please feel free to add side manholes or upper manholes, mechanical pressure regulators, breathing valves, sampling valves, laser welding jackets, hop dry spouts, etc. If the budget is limited, at least the manufacturer needs to add a dry hop spout and a sampling valve.

b. The most important thing is the material and thickness of the plate. The use pressure of the fermenter exceeds 1bar, which should belong to the category of pressure vessels. The service life of the fermenter. The thickness of the inner tank of equipment above 500L should not be less than 3 mm (the effective thickness after polishing is 2.7 mm), the thickness of the ice water jacket is 1.5 mm, and the thickness of the outer bag is 1.5 mm-2 mm. I heard some friends say that after one year, the fermentation tank leaked ice water or wine. In fact, the manufacturer did not use steel plates of sufficient thickness, or the welding workers were too poor, and the welding oxidation was serious.

3. Refrigerator

The contribution of the refrigerator is far greater than that of the boiler. The preservation of all craft beer is inseparable from low temperature, especially lager beer needs low temperature. Once there is a problem with refrigeration, the temperature of all beer will rise, which will seriously affect the quality of beer. Therefore, the after-sales service of the manufacturer is required to be timely. It is best to have offices in various places, and they can arrive within 4 hours, otherwise everything will be too late. If you are rich, it is recommended to buy 2 refrigerators and one for backup!

4. Boiler

Boilers are currently standard products with relatively stable quality. It is recommended to choose a big brand. At the same time, the use of boilers must be equipped with softened water equipment. Otherwise, the scale in the boiler will be full in a few months, which will seriously affect safety. (Reposted from CHINA craft beer)