Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Day 13: It's Spelled BRITE Tank not BRIGHT Tank

What a day!

The notebook worked great today, thanks for asking! We started out kegging the Headplant Pale Ale, our first keg was finished exactly 3 minutes AFTER the distributor showed up for it. Talk about cutting it close. Here is some advice for those of you wanting to start breweries soon. Take your brew schedule seriously. No bar likes to be shorted beer because you didn't finish it in time; no distirbutor likes telling bars that they can't have beer that was ordered (because you didn't finish in time). So far, we have been cutting it close, but have made our distributor deadlines.

I've been impressed (and scared) of the brewing schedule we have at Lone Peak, surprisingly, ours is easy. We can only brew one beer at a time, we have eight fermenters, and two brite (bright) tanks. Steve was telling me today that at his old brewery they brewed EIGHT batches a day! They have a mash mixer, a lauther tun, two kettles, and a whirlpool; that amounts to 4 brews going at one time! Talk about complex.

So back on track, we kegged this morning. Then I was in charge of cleaning the brite (bright) tank while we prepared the Wit Beer for a transfer. Thanks to my notebook I knew what was going on, did most of the prep work myself (without asking for help) and was even a step ahead sometimes!

The distraction for the day (there always is one, tomorrow is distributor pickups) was the arrival of a new brite (bright) tank. The old 20 bbl brite (bright) tank we have didn't work, so its replacement arrived today. At noon the tank arrived... why the hell wasn't it on a flatbed so we could pick it from the side?


Much much later in the day (8 o'cock) here I am trying to shove it in the building. This was after two hours of maneuvering, metal work, and supporting with dolly's and pallet jacks.


And here is the final resting place (for tonight) we got it inside enough to close up the damn brewery, I left at 9 o'cock (not a typo). 14 hour days are fun!



I finished the night up in the hot tub at the condo, drinking a litre of the Headplant Pale and writing this. I'm excited to go to work tomorrow!!!

2 comments:

  1. Don't drop the computer in the hot tub! And poor Kelly - a beer widow already! I hope you gave her a litre too!

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  2. OK, that was me - not Colin. He must have left my computer signed in. Oops!

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