Casey's Beer

There are quite a few things to report.

1. The brewing plant has been paid for in full. Dismantling will start on January 15. It is in Wisconnsin and will be shipped out of Chicago.

2. A six head Meheen Merlin bottle filler has been ordered and paid for. It has been built and is waiting to be freighted to Oregon. It is the one in the foreground, and ready to be shipped.

3. A labeller to match the filler has been ordered and a deposit paid. It is a pressure sensitive labeller for adhesive labels. It includes an air-knife to dry the bottles before labelling. Filling cold beer into warmish bottles creates condensation. There is also an ink-jet printer for applying best before dates to the bottles.

4. Both the filler and labeller will be freighted to Oregon where they’ll be put in a 20 foot container for shipping to Sydney along with a diatomaceous earth filter and a clean-in-place cart.

5. The brewery was supplied with a packaged steam boiler (generator), but it could not be converted for use in Australia. This was expected, appartently it is unusual to find a boiler that can be. A Simons VS 610 120 kWatt packaged boiler has been ordered and a deposit paid. The Simons boilers are manufactured locally.

The last week or so have been quite busy. With the new equipment the rush has been to have everything ordered and firm by December 31st to qualify for the Federal government’s 50% investment allowance.

There is still new equipment to buy, but the filler, labeller and boiler are the most costly ones. Other equipment to buy includes a carton sealer, possibly a carton erector, conveyors, and an air compressor or two – the brewhouses valves are pneumatically operated, and both the filler and carton sealer will need compressed air. Some of this equipment can be had second hand.

There’s no point trying to buy the rest of packaging equipment now to qualify for the allowance. I still need to work out how the packaging line will actually run. It will be a matter of suck it and see. I hope to lease some euipment first to play around with.

Have also been prowling around for premises, but of course all the real estate agents are off until the eleventh.

It’s off to do another day with Matt Donelan at the St Peters brewery tomorrow. It has settled into a routine of every second Monday, although we will drop a week with the Christmas and New Year break. I am indebted to Matt for taking me on like this. I am learning a lot, both directly and indirectly by absorption. The experience will be invaluable.

I am still waiting on the final invoice for the equipment, plus a few other bits and pieces which will come in the containers. Final transport details need to be arranged. The brewey is in the backblocks of northern Wisconsin. It seems likely that it will not be until the new year when the gear ships. It will sail out of Chicago.

I have just bought the 15 barrel Bohemian brewery. It is a monobloc skid mounted system with steam jacketed kettle and combination mash tun and hot liquor tank. It has four 15 barrel jacketed cylindro-conical fermenters and six single skin conditioning tanks plus a whole lot of other bits and pieces.

There are still a couple of extras to be finalised and the shipping to be organised. It will be loaded into two 40 foot containers and trucked to Chicago for shipping. It will arrive in about 3 months time.

Andrew has checked out another two breweries. Both were nice systems, a DME in Colorado and a Specific Mechanical in Portland. But, both require some building work to get them out which the owners think the buyer should pay for. And both owners are being inflexible about the price. The owner of the Specific Mechanical equipment has gone broke and no doubt wants as much cash as possible to pay out the remains of the business. However, a deficit of realism may be a contributing factor to having gone broke.

There is a fourth set of equipment, conveniently in Portland, that has popped up. It is a 15 barrel direct fired brewhouse only – it would require tanks. It was originally installed in Japan, then sold back to a brewery in Oregon or Wahsington. That brewery was bought out by another brewery and apparently has sat unused for the last 3 or so years. Andrew inspects it tomorrow, Monday US time.

Andrew has looked at the first set of brewing plant and did a water brew on it. On paper this is the stongest contender. It is a 15 barrel Bohemian system with some very nice extras and refinements. The grist conveyor is apparently quite nifty. There are a couple of minor flaws. One of the fermenters has had part of the cooling jacket on the cone removed, and the glass window on the mash tun has a crack – but it does not leak. Overall it measures up to the description of the equipment and its condition.

Today, or Friday US time, Andrew has gone to Colorado to check out a DME system. He should report back on that later today.

This is the brewhouse. It is skid mounted which will make installation easy.

This is the inside of the mash tun, minus the false bottom, with the stirrer.

This is the mash tun from the side showing the grain out chute and the false bottom removed. The hot liquor tank is beneath the mash tun.

I had a message from Andrew a short time ago. He had arrived in Los Angeles and was about to board a plane for Minneapolis.

The first set of equipment is located nearby. This one is the strongest contender. You know how you get a feeling about something, both Andrew and I feel that this is the one I’ll buy – assuming the condition of the equipment matches the descriptions and photos. There are plenty of tanks, plus a yeast propogator and a labeller. The only thing missing is a filter, but that can be part of the haggling later. The history is good, the brewery is moving to larger premises and installing larger plant. They will have some time pressure on them to conclude a deal.

After that Andrew flies to Denver then a 200 mile drive to check out a 15 barrel DME system. And from there to Portland for the third system from the brewery which went broke.

It is now getting exciting.

Went out to the airport last night for some final discussions with Andrew Larsen before he flew off to the USA for me. He has three sets of used brewing euipment lined up to inspect. He will brew on at least two of them, one comes from a brewery which has gone broke so it may not be possible to brew on it. There is also a fourth set of equipment to inspect as a back-up if the other three don’t measure up.

All sets of equipment include brewhouse, fermentation and conditioning vessels, mill, hoses, fittings, pumps, glycol chiller and steam boiler. There are also other miscellaneous bits and pieces.

Andrew should finish the inpsections of the first three by Saturday afternoon US time. I’ll get reports on each set of equipment and an overall summary with Andrew’s recommendations. I will then deciede which set of equipment to buy. Andrew has already haggled over price and inventory on some of the equipment. This should all happen Sunday evening/Monday morning Sydney time.