Big Kettle Brewing

Beer Republic Brewing, LLC

Big Kettle Brewing – Contract Brewing Partners

Facilities and System Information

·       Minimum Batch Size – 50 BBL

·       Product Range – NA and Low alcohol table beers to 10%+ Strong Ales and Doppelbocks.  Hard Seltzers, Ciders, Non-Alcoholic Seltzers and Sodas. Nitrogenated beers and drinks.

·       Fermentation batch sizes available: 50 BBL, 150 BBL, 200 BBL

Brewhouse and Cellar –

The Brewhouse is a four vessel Sprinkman / Krones system built in the USA from American stainless steel.  Piping, valves pumps, gearboxes and instrumentation are provided by Krones. Process design is a joint effort between Krones and the founders of Beer Republic, with many features unique in the Craft Beer industry.  The Brewhouse and Cellar are automated with the highest technology available in the industry (not just the Craft Beer Industry, the beer industry).  The system is a new, premier solution offered by Rockwell Automation and developed by McRae Integration, called FactoryTalk Brew.  It is a system developed specifically for the next generation of major breweries in the world and Big Kettle is the first installation of this system in a craft brewery anywhere in the U.S. (Anheuser-Busch has recently commissioned five of these systems in Europe, South America and China and is working on implementation for the first system of theirs in the U.S. for their large breweries).  The system controls everything from incoming raw material inventory and automated grain handling (from bulk silos, “supersack” unloaders and standard bagged malt), to all brewhouse operations and cellar operations, with an interface to the lab for QA data entry into the batch records. The system will eventually integrate all of filtration, packaging and warehouse management.  A custom engineered, fully automated Brewhouse hop dosing system and an automated, recipe driven brew water mineral adjustment system will be implemented in late 2020.

The Brewhouse has the capability of brewing up to 8 brews in a 24 hour period with a crew of two per shift.  It is designed specifically for contract brewing with an emphasis on more complex lager brewing processes and maximum hop utilization. It also has a very high level of instrumentation to provide more thorough batch information and better product consistency (nearly 2 miles of instrumentation and network field wiring went into this system).  Even our CIP system for the brewhouse and cellar is fully automated for process validation and quality assurance with CIP records included in production batch records and reports available to our contract clients for each batch we produce for them.

The Cellar controls incorporate the ability for lab technicians to directly enter data for each beer in each fermentation vessel or bright tank and provide closed loop temperature program automation tied to the results of the lab data collected.

We have designed and built the brewery physical plant (boiler, glycol chiller system, compressed air and CO2 and filtered process water) with rapid expansion in mind

Clarification and Packaging –

The Bright Tank and Packaging area incorporate filtration and clarification by use of centrifuge or two stage plate and frame depth filtration.  CO2 adjustment is possible and, if water addition is needed, deaerated sterile water is available for specialty drinks, such as hard seltzers.  Additional filtration options are also available as is batch pasteurization.

A state of the art GEA Diafiltration system will be added in mid-2020 for producing NA beers.

Packaging is available for cans and draught kegs.

The can line is built around a CFT 32 head filler with 6 head seamer capable of speeds of 300 cans per minute for 12 oz. cans and claims the lowest DO and TPO levels in the business.  We can do 12 oz., 16 oz. and 19.2 oz. in 211 cans and 10 oz. sleek and slim cans that use a standard 202 lid.  We can sleeve label bright cans in-line with our top of the line Tri-Pack sleeve labeler or fill preprinted or pre-labeled cans.  We can provide full wrap cartoning and tray packing or Pak-Tek in trays or loose cans on trays using a new servo-driven flexible high speed cartoner and tray former by Design Machine and Manufacturing.  Cases can then be shrink wrapped and palletized.

The keg line is a KHS Innokeg CombiKeg Carousel system that cleans the outside of each keg, CIP cleans the inside (both acid and caustic in one cleaning cycle), sanitizes with peracetic acid or steam and fills by weight at 60 kegs per hour.  We can fill 1/6, ¼ (tall and short) and ½ BBL, as well as 20, 30 and 50 Liter and one way kegs.  Here is a link to a KHS video of how the system works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgL9V6MD9sU

Lab Services and Support –

·       We can provide lab services for both the products we produce and for our clients in-house products

·       Complete lab with capabilities for DO and TPO analysis, can tear-down and video inspection, ABV, ATP, Haze and PCR

·       Raw Material Analysis

·       Full Brewing, Cellar, CIP and Packaging sampling and data records

·       Microbiological testing

·       DNA-based Spoilage Agent testing

·       Sensory Evaluation services

·       Food Safety and Plant Audits Available

Warehousing and Cold Storage –

·       Over 3200 square feet of drive-in cold storage,

·       Over 6500 square feet of can and keg storage

·       Over 6000 square feet of raw material storage with freezer hop storage.