Home Brewing and Breweries Structure

Shall We Try Making Beer At Home?

What would we need if we wanted to make beer at home?

Let's count the ingredients first, barley, water and hops. And brewer's yeast.

So what else do you need to be able to do it? We will wet the barley first, a bowl of water, we will dry it, the oven. A hand mill will need to break the malted barley. We'll boil it, so a stove and a pot of water. We will ferment, a second deep pan, strain, strainer, cool, refrigerator. Of course, we will also need a sink to wash everything after the process is finished.

Is that all? So easy, interesting(!) Yes, that's it. I forgot though, we also need carbon dioxide gas, but I guess we can collect it by setting up a mechanism in the deep pot where we ferment it. I think we can press carbon dioxide into the bottle with a simple air compressor.

Beer is a very healthy drink, it is natural, it will not do any harm unless you overdo it. I can even say that it is beneficial when I share a half-half bottle of beer with my lady like us, along with fish every two weeks.

Breweries:

Breweries are that simple, but because this simple process is done on such a large scale, you have to build a huge factory. Of course, bottling, boxing, packaging and storage of the beer produced is a separate business, and for this purpose, a giant filling facility and warehouse building and warehouse areas are needed. If the transportation is done with trucks, loading platforms, loading doors, large concrete parking areas for the maneuvering and parking of the trucks, long platforms where the wagons can approach, if it is done by train, maybe a railway that extends into the factory is required. When production and all these other facilities are taken into account, it becomes a huge factory.

The main raw material of the beer we are accustomed to is barley, but beer is also made from other grains, for example, there are beers used in rice or wheat.

The first process is the conversion of barley into malt. Don't ask what is malt now, it is very delicious fresh out of the oven, you can eat it like a crispy kernel. It is a long process to produce malt, in fact, a separate factory is established for this process. Many breweries use instant malt from malt mills.

The brewery that we once put so much effort into in Moscow is now closed, I was very sorry when I heard that, there were so many memories and so much effort spent. People are sad. Efes probably profited from this business, I know that a long time ago, it transferred all its factories in Russia to Miller and became a partner of Miller worldwide. Efes brand beer is still produced and sold in markets, but it is no longer the same as before. It used to be the dominant brand of the market.

Anyway, back to our topic. We had set up the brewery right next to the existing malt mill. Together they became one facility.

Malt Factory:

The process of malt mills is also very simple. Barley brought by train in special wagons is taken to barley silos by conveyor via a bunker set up under the railway. The facility has giant barley silos because you have to pick up and store the barley during the harvest season, it is needed all year round, you will use it gradually as needed.

The barley is taken from the silos to the germination pools in the factory, I don't know how long it takes, maybe 10-15 days, when the barley soaked in the pools starts to sprout, it is taken to the ovens and saved. This dried sprouted barley is now called malt. It is cleaned from the sprouts in the mill and stored in silos as malt. Due to the high capacity of the malt factory, the produced malt is also sold to other breweries. From the silos to the malt train track, it is transported by a special pipe. The pipe is connected to an air compressor, is transported with compressed air through the pipe to the train track, loaded on wagons and off to other breweries. I worked with the German engineer who made this special pipe, we installed the steel system carrying the pipe, I was interested in transporting grain by air.

In the meantime, a few silos were connected to the brewery we established, and they were first sifted in the high mill building we built, cleaned from their shells, and then crushed and transferred to the giant boilers in the boiling facility with special conveyors.

By the way, mill buildings are very special, grain dust is explosive, the slightest spark blows up. Therefore, special precautions are taken on the walls and panels, and if there is an explosion, the panels have movable connections so that they can absorb and reduce the impact of the explosion.

Boiling cauldrons were heated by superheated steam from the city. For this purpose, first of all, a steam and hot water city connection building was established in the factory. Next to it are transformers for electricity needs. The steam supply building also housed the boiler room, where hot water from the city was pumped into the factory for heating. In fact, each of them are huge facilities.

Although there were water lines coming from the city, the water supply was provided from the deep artesian wells that were opened later in the factory. Of course, necessary water softening was done by passing it through a giant water treatment plant.

There are pipe bridges established between the in-plant facilities, and all kinds of liquids are transferred to the required facility with the stainless steel pipes on these bridges.

Boiling Boilers:

Yes, I remember where we were. We are still in the boiling stage, we are in big boiling pots. The boiling building is a two-story building, upstairs we leave holes in the floor for stainless steel boilers on the floor. The upper part of the boilers and their lids with a glass eye can be reached from this floor. The lower floor, on the other hand, is filled with steel frames carrying the boilers and beer pipes connecting the boilers between them, steam pipes, electrical cables, motors and pumps. There is no place to lay your head on this floor. Giant mixers inside the cauldrons mix the crushed malt from the mill and the hops added to the cauldrons while they are cooking. The boiling plant is quite hot. It has special ventilation.

After the first process, namely cooking, the cooked watery malt soup is transferred to giant settling pots. Here, the mixture, which is cooled on the one hand, is purified from the pulp that settles on the bottom.

The resulting pulp is actually a good animal feed. In Turkey, the farmers were lining up, but in Russia they were giving away money for some reason. There were pipe mouths where the pulp was discharged to the trucks coming outside the building. This place smells very bad in the factory, the water of the pulp that runs out gives off a bad smell over time. It must be constantly cleaned.

The malt water, which is free of residual pulp, is transferred to the fermentation tanks by adding yeast to it for the next step.

At this stage, we will wait a bit, the fermentation takes up to 20 days. On the other hand, carbon dioxide gas comes out of the tanks. This gas goes to the carbon dioxide storage facility we have set up next to water softening through pipes and is compressed with a compressor and stored as a liquid. At the same time, they were buying carbon dioxide from outside with tubes, so the collected gas was not enough.

Fermentation:

Fermentation and some other stages also require cooling, so we established a facility with cooling compressors next to the carbon dioxide facility.

Again, chilled water pipes extending to the tanks with pipes and hot water pipes coming from the heating center and fermentation tanks were kept at the desired fermentation temperature. Pipes and tanks are covered with special insulation.

Now our beer is ready, it is transferred from the fermentation tanks to the tanks in the beer filtration building. In this building there is primarily a tap under the large tank to which it is transferred. From this tap, the laboratory staff, who keep the processes under control at every stage, takes unfiltered samples for the production tests for the last time. This faucet was my favorite part of the factory. I like unfiltered beer to this day. It is both unfiltered and not yet pasteurized. The taste is excellent.

Yes, the beer that has also passed through the filter is ready for refilling. It is transferred from the large filtered beer tanks to the filling plant by pipe bridge.

Filling Plant:

There are belt systems installed from conveyors in the filling facility. Filling machines at one end and packaging at the other. In between, pasteurization machine and various control stages. The filling machine is very special and very fast. It both fills and presses carbon dioxide into it, and also closes the lid. All kinds of fillings are made in the filling building, there are bottled beer lines, keg filling line for bars, pet bottles, small draft beer, lots of tapes. The bottles on the bands, on which soap bubbles spill, collide with each other, and there is a pleasant clinking noise, the sound of production. I loved listening.

In the past, beer bottles were collected from the city, washed in a huge washing machine, sterilized and refilled. Of course, there was a broken one, there was one in a different form, the machine could not clean it enough, it was both a waste of time and sending the defective bottles out of the factory by breaking them in the glass crushing plant, and it was expensive because of the lining. When Şişecam factories were established, they started to bring new bottles directly from the factory and put an end to the old bottle filling business.

Everything in the factory is automated, controlled from the control rooms untouched by computers, with computers. Only laboratory controls and periodic washing of the facilities, ceramic-coated floors are done by hand, the rest is just observation. Repair as needed. Even the washing of boilers, tanks, pipes is automatic, with computers. Even packing and palletizing is done with robot arms.

Production of Different Brands in the Same Factory:

Different brands of beer were coming out of the factory, some brands have their own production here instead of establishing their own factory, or because it is more profitable to produce different types of beer due to marketing methods, the company also has different brands. Since there are 20 giant fermentation tanks, it is possible to produce twenty different brands of beer at the same time. Before each boiling, they produce that brand by making the necessary adjustments according to the taste of each brand. Necessary adjustments are made in the filling facilities, and the desired brand of beer can be produced by changing all of them from the bottle to the brand paper that is pasted on the cap.

Beer, which was loaded on pallets at the end of the warehouse building, was either taken to the directly docked trucks or wagons or to be stored in the warehouse building if it had to be stored for the time being. Since the warehouse building was not sufficient, we also established additional warehouse facilities on the land purchased later. Or it was taken there.

The last thing I can talk about is the sewage treatment plant. In particular, the stainless tanks that are cleaned with acidic water for hygiene at every stage, and the water coming out of the ceramic-coated floors of the facilities that are cleaned with special chemicals, first enters the biological treatment and then is released into the city and the sewerage.

Yes, we are completing the factory with a small number of engineers and expert staff who carry out the process in this entire factory, as well as a huge marketing and advertising army, and the administrative building where the accounting and directorate work.

Conclusion:

With this simple production process, breweries are considered to be among the most complex. There are no mills and boils in wineries. There is no fermentation part in fruit juice factories. There is no filter part in the carbonated beverage part. There is no fermentation and filter part in canning factories, but there is boiling. Many similar factories.

Yes, it's time to say goodbye to the factory. It is no longer possible to enter the facility without permission after saying goodbye to the security guards who ensure the security of the perimeter fence and the guards at the main entrance and exiting the door.

Although this situation leaves a deep ache in people, I am used to it now that this is the case in every building and facility we build.

Just like all my other civil engineer friends, I am sailing for the next job with the pride and pleasant memories of having built a beautiful facility again. As usual, I leave the completed project behind and focus on the next project.

It's that easy to make beer.

Love and regards from Moscow.