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Opening a brewery in Harrisburg, PA!

smokinghole

smokinghole

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So I haven’t been active on the forum. My wife gave birth to my daughter in 2017, I was busy with work as a head brewer, and on the side, trying to open a new brewery.

Here’s the press release. I’m not a big talker for interviews.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/articles.pennlive.com/food/index.ssf/2018/09/brewery_koda_lower_paxton.amp

Here’s our facebook: We should actually start putting posts up on the facebook starting next week it seems. My fermentors are showing up mid week for instance.

https://m.facebook.com/NewfangledBrewWorks/?tsid=0.1328641337642995&source=result



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smokinghole

smokinghole

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A bit anxious and excited. Getting down to where I need to make beer for opening and I have an empty building. Now is when everything goes wrong and equipment is delayed or something is wrong.

I’m eager to start brewing though.




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smokinghole

smokinghole

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Okay for the fellow brewing enthusiasts here's the skinny.

We went as American made as possible. My brewhouse is made in IL by Crawford Brewing Equipment. The fermentors and brite tank are from TX. The boiler, Columbia, is from two hours away from Pottstown, PA. The glycol chiller is also made two hours away in Telford at J&M Chillers. My kegs are made in Pottstown as well by American Keg. I have a condensate return setup coming from Shipco, they're in Shippensburg, PA.

So here's the specs.

Brewhouse is a steam 15bbl 3V, mash tun, custom sized lauter tun for average of 18bbl @ 15P into the FV. I customized the diameter for optimal grain bed depth at that size. My liquor tanks are 45bbl so I can comfortably do a double brew day and have plenty of CLT and plenty of HLT space for recapture. I will be running an RO filter to rectify the lack of consistent water. My source pulls from a river or well depending on the time of year. So my hardness can be high or average. The RO will give me a consistent starting point via a TDS blender setup and I can add mineral as needed to increase or decrease alkalinity.

My fermenters are 40bbl (w/25% head space) ASME pressure vessels with 4" of insulation, I have 4 on the way. The extra pressure capability will allow me to bung clean fermentations earlier which aids in yeast drop out and precarbing the beer before filtration and transfer to the BT. This should decrease my need of carb stone use and co2 consumption. The upper glycol jacket is split at 20bbl so I can brew half batches and not chill empty head space.

I have a three tank semi-automatic keg cleaner on the way, made in Tx. It'll wash every keg with caustic, acid and then do a sani rinse and CO2 purge. There's a 7.5hp rotary screw compressor on the way to keep up with air needs between the keg cleaner and a mobile canning unit (we plan to buy our own once we see some numbers).

I'm running pre-insulated Cool-fit glycol piping so I only have to do it once. I have the loop setup for 8 FVs and 2 BT total, I can put out some serious volume if needed with our setup.
 
smokinghole

smokinghole

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Well guys we’re open to the public. We started with soft open hours the Friday before Thanksgiving. It’s been a busy month or more for me. The whole building was relying on me getting the glycol running which in turn makes our beer cooler cold.



We had a nice crowd on Friday night. All 40 bar seats and all the tables seemed occupied.

I am far from done. My delayed brewhouse arrives this week. I have tanks to level and hook up to the glycol system, steam connections (welder is on this), and some other miscellaneous work to do yet.

I’m mostly loving every minute.


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ATL827

ATL827

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smokinghole said:


The brewhouse came this week. I’ve been really busy before and after it arrived. I need a couple days with an hour worth if downtime to burn a few. I’m burning both ends right now but it’ll all be worth it!


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This is awesome! Congrats on the successful launch. That's a huge accomplishment!

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