Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
I'm trying to decide what yeast i want to use for rye ipa.
The standard of US-05, and S-04 are what i normally use and have produced what i'm looking for in my other beers. I have i was thinking that US-56 or T-58 could be interesting. would the t-58 and the rye be too much? I plan on doing an extract with NB rye extract malt, w/specialty grains.
When people taste my beer and say you should open a brewery, I laugh. I know how to make beer. I do not know the first thing about running a brewery for profit.
So is that to say if you had an angel investor and all the startup capital you needed, you wouldn't love to brew for a living?
I wouldn't. In my head I would just walk around saying it's time to brew X beer, thinking up new recipes, brewing whatever I wanted and talking to people about how great the beer is. That's not anywhere near reality. It's a lot of cleaning, it's a lot of brewing the same thing over and over, it's people b****ing because you make too much "bland" beer in your normal line up and b****ing you don't make enough of the "good stuff" and fighting to get shelf space. The bigger you get the more you manage and the less you brew. It's manual labor work in an increasingly competitive market that generally is not that profitable. I've already investing a huge amount of time, work and capital into my current profession. No interest in moving into another field.
Everything I like about homebrewing is generally not present in commercial brewing. I like that I can brew when I want or not brew if I don't feel like it. I can brew whatever I want and I don't have to worry about whether I can sell it off. I don't have to appease other people. I can experiment as much as I like without restriction. Sure, it's getting easier to operate a profitable brewery on a small core line up and make everything else experimental beers because the demand is there but how many breweries like that come and go in a couple years? How many can scale that model up?
When people taste my beer and say you should open a brewery, I laugh. I know how to make beer. I do not know the first thing about running a brewery for profit.
There are plenty of unemployed pro brewers who will work for peanuts.
I know of at least one current pro brewer who got a combo of investors and bank funding for 100% of the startup cost. He had a fantastic business plan, and he knew exactly how to run a brewery.
Our bank called us last week to ask us to borrow $150k to make capital improvements, and offered to refinance our whole business loan amount to 3.5% if we did. So I don't think you can really blame the lending market for being tough.
Bottom line: Banks and investors are good judges of risk. If they don't want to loan you money, you must look like a huge risk.
If you want to send me a copy of your business plan, I'd be happy to give notes on it.
I started my brewery with 3 other partners and myself. We each put in equal amount of money and started very small. Brewed for a year to build a brand and a concept then approached a bank for a loan. Grew for a year and approached the bank for another loan. We started as a single bbl brewhouse and now have a 15 bbl brewhouse with 30 bbl tanks.
It's not easy. I worked 40+ hours/week for over a year for free, still make far less than I did working in the business world and still have a long way to go to grow my business. But it has been a lot of fun and a great challenge and I love it.
15 years brewing is the experience I had under my belt when I went commercial. I think that is one of the most important things you can have to open a brewery. You really need to know how to make good beer and you need to iron out a handful of recipes.
Only other thing I will warn you of is everyone and their brother is opening a brewery now and the market is getting tight. You will be a year or two out from getting a hop contract unless you stumble on some good fortune. And this industry is in unsustained growth right now, especially in certain parts of the country.
Hi everyone,
I have been home brewing for over 15 years and have been competing with great success for the last 4. I love it. I want to go pro but I am running into a capital fund issue. How does one raise the capital in such a tough lending market that we are in? By the way I have no money to put into the business at the end.
That's what I'm thinking. Is it possible that the higher gravity portion would sink to the bottom? That's where his came from and mine came from the top. You wouldn't think so though after a 90-minute boil.Only if you added water post chill and didn't stir adequately. Otherwise, sugar solutions (wort) will never separate once mixed. Put both hydrometers in the same wort and see if they read the same. Maybe one had some bubbles on it?
Were they chilled separately? If so, it's possible that one batch had more evaporation occur than the other. If not, one of the hydrometer readings is wrong.