[micsager]

hmmmmm.   

http://seattle.craigslist.org/skc/for/3387581635.html

[majorvices]

Pretty good deal. Especially considering you don't have to wait.

[euge]

Sounds like a good deal for new-unused. The expansion bug catching ya?

Worry about the non-jacketed fermenters though. I guess that isn't needed in your neck of the woods?

[garc_mall]

If I had $18,000 lying about, I would totally buy it.

Then again, I also have nowhere to put it.

[nateo]

Sounds a bit like a white elephant.

[scorpiusllc]

That is a pretty good price. I was just visiting a 3BBL brewery in Northern AZ using Stout Tanks (Granite Mountain Brewing in Prescott) and he has non-jacketed fermenters, not even in a walk in. He has not had any issues to date, but he said he runs the AC and will even wrap them in wet towels if they start going crazy. I guess you can get away with that with only 3BBLs. Glacier Tanks has some pricing similar to Stout on the 3BBL size, but not sure what the wait time is.

[majorvices]

I had unjacketed 3bbl tanks when we first started (plastic tanks at that) and we kept them in the cold room wrapped with heat wraps and insulation and we could keep the temp at whatever we needed.

Just remember, you'll need another 15-20 grand to build out your brewery (walk-in, build wet  area, run gas/plumbing/electric, etc.).

Then you'll need at least 10K in kegs to have enough cooperage to actually run a 3bbl brewery.

[euge]

Instead of the cooperage how about a small canning or bottling line? Not that I have any practical experience at all but from listening to JZ on BS it seems to me that a packaging brewery is the way to go and much more profitable. Then you have no kegs to clean or to worry about keeping track of.

[nateo]

Instead of the cooperage how about a small canning or bottling line? Not that I have any practical experience at all but from listening to JZ on BS it seems to me that a packaging brewery is the way to go and much more profitable. Then you have no kegs to clean or to worry about keeping track of.

If you're bottling, your per unit margin goes down pretty significantly. Glass is expensive, I imagine cans are cheaper, but you'd have to amortize the cost of the machinery, and I think canning lines are more expensive than bottling lines. So a packaging brewery would make sense if you can produce a large number of units. But if there's no slack in your production capacity, it doesn't make sense to divert production from a high margin product (beer on draft) toward a low margin product (bottles/cans).

[euge]

JZ calculated 1 cent profit per oz in the keg and 6 cents per oz in bottles.

[majorvices]

Our margins on bottled beer is significantly higher than on draft, but I can't imagine the labor involved on a part time operation if you had to bottle all of your beers.

You can get a semi manual set up (4 head filler, pneumatic capper, labeler) for about 15K. Bottles have a significant price break in bulk, as do labels.

[nateo]

Euge - are you talking about selling kegs wholesale to bars, or selling beer on draft in your taproom? I have a hard time believing JZ is making $4.32 profit on a six pack, and a hard time believing he's not making more than $20 profit per keg. But I have no idea how he's amortizing his expenses, or if he's only talking about variable costs, or which fixed costs he's including.

$0.06 * 72oz = $4.32 profit per 6-pack
$0.01 * 1984oz = $19.84 profit per keg

Keith - are you talking about selling in your own tap room, or wholesale kegs?

[euge]

I don't know nat- just what he said. I'm assuming it is net profit after deducting everything else.

[majorvices]

I don't have a tap room. All retail sales. Since we are technically not permitted to talk price on the forum I will refrain from giving the run down but profit on bottles is about twice as good as retail keg sales.

[micsager]

Sounds like a good deal for new-unused. The expansion bug catching ya?

Worry about the non-jacketed fermenters though. I guess that isn't needed in your neck of the woods?

There's no doubt we need a bigger system.  We're brewing 2-3 times a week, and saying no to new accounts.  I've got a line on some pots to triple our capacity for under a grand, so soon we'll be getting that.  And temperature control is important here.  Yearly temps range from 30-80 in the brewery.  And while that's very mild for most humans, not so much for those wonderful yeasties.