Brewery Questions


Y

Yannis

Active Member
Hi all,


Inspired by some discussions in the forum and after doing some research on breweries and seeing photos of old breweries in CA i came up with a few questions.

I was wondering if a brewery with a main brewery/bottling building at about the size of Walthers champion packing house or the red wing milling kit (or even the walthers brewery kit) would be out of place in combination with some grain silos (like the ones in the medusa cement kit) for storing grain / malted grain.

I am considering using one of these kits with some silos that i have (which were destined for a cement plant...) for a brewery that has a track for outbound reefers with beer (1 or 2 tracks with 3-4 spots each) in front of the main buildings and a track for grain unloading (1 track with 2-3 spots for hoppers) covered in front of the silos and maybe a spot for corn syrup unloading.

So,
1. Would the size of the said buildings (red wing milling or champion packing or the actual brewery kit) be large enough to justify the silos? (after reading Kalmbach's relevant industries along the tracks book i am leaning towards yes but with some hesitation).

2. Architecturally, based on the numerous real world and ho scale examples, i think i must go towards brick construction and ditch the red-wing mill kit idea. Here i would welcome your opinions. I got the red-wing and the champion kits so far which i am considering as candidates. I am also considering the Walthers brewery as well as some kibri factories (39814 comes to mind) that could be kitbashed to something resembling a brewery in SoCal.

3. Out of curiosity could the silos be away from the main buildings and actually having the loading tracks between the silos and the brewery building? Most examples i have seen are linear, ie silos next to main building(s).

Many thanks in advance for your help and time.

Yannis
 
Hey Yannis,

I'm also going to build a brewery but for now, I'm still doing my research. Most of my research is done on google earth and image searches. It does give lots of info on layout size, types of buildings used, track location, etc.

What era are you modeling?

There are 2 breweries in my area. One building is 2 stories high but very spread out and the older one is about 7-8 stories high which probably has the silos inside the building. (not sure)

Can't be of much help, but if you could update us on your build, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
 
Most breweries did not store grain on site in silos. As soon as the barley arrived is was sent to the malting floor. Malting floors occupied most of the space within the brewery building. Adjunct grains, wheat, rice, corn, rye, etc., were used in (relatively) small quantities, usually arriving bagged and stored stacked.

Not the answer you wanted to hear, but since its your brewery, being far from the barley fields, and needing to store grain from unit trains, ............
 
Kevin is correct about breweries not storing grain on site unless they are the size of the Coors brewery in Golden CO. I think Champion Packing would make a great brewery. You would have to brick-up the cattle loading door on the third floor though. I used the DPM Whitewater Brewery for mine and added standard DPM modular walls to each side to make it larger. Champion Packing is a very similar building, just has more windows. For unloading grain and corn syrup, I would consider using either DPM modular walls for an almost matching brick structure or use some Pikestuff parts to make a more modern "added" covered unloading facility. Add some pipework to the main building and you are set.

Willie
 
Lloyd, i am modelling the mid sixties, north San Diego area. I will definitely keep you posted with the progress.

Kevin, many thanks for the reply. Your answer is most welcome since i started this thread in order to make sure / correct my plans if needed. So if silos are not appropriate, then silos will not be used. I just got the idea of silos from reading around about breweries. Having said that, i only saw silos (in real breweries) only in very big facilities that would cover the better part of the layout. The lack of silos though raises a question as of where the grain gets unloaded? Covered bay leading to the main building? Corn syrup something similar using pipes? The examples / track plans i saw had tracks leading to silos for grain unloading and other tracks leading to the bottling building (adjacent/same building as the main building) for loading beer etc.

Willie, many thanks for the input! I am seriously considering kit-bashing two champion packing kits (doing the mods you mentioned in the cattle doors) in order to have a larger brewery (instead of getting the walthers brewery). I am looking forward to seeing any photos of your brewery if you got any available. Design-wise i was aiming at something looking like the Heljan brewery or the mission brewery (without the mission style architecture...)
 
On my previous layout I used the champion meat packing plant as my part of my brewery and the DPM Terra Surplus Window Warehouse as the bottling plant. The cattle chutes that come with the packing plant were repurposed for moving product from one building to the other via conveyor (and piping for the liquids). Finished product could leave by either truck or rail. A culet hopper would stop by every so often to collect broken glass. Rather than silos for storing my grain, all grain deliveries came in box cars, pre-packaged, and moved on pallets into the brewery.

It's a fun industry to model. Good luck with your research, and have fun modeling!
 
Adam thank you very much for the input! I originally thought to kitbash 2 champion kits (i got one now) in order to have a larger brewery, now i am leaning towards using the backwalls of the one kit as front-wall expansions (bottling plant) and replacing the missing pieces for the back walls with brick pattern styrene sheet in order to save some funds. I guess that would be a better idea than to waste another kit for doing a job that could use existing styrene sheets. Resulting brewery around 80cm long.

Trackwise i am thinking of two tracks for the siding, roughly 3ft each. I have to decide how many spots in front of the main building for unloading grain/syrup and how many spots in front of the bottling plant for loading beer and broken glasses and for unloading bottles/cans/crates etc. Since traffic for outgoing beer is much more than incoming grain loads i guess i should lean towards having more spots for cars in front of the bottling facility.

Would it make sense to have lets say 2 rows of boxcars and the back row gets loaded first while using metal plates to load through reefers/boxcars that are spotted in the front row track? (using the first boxcar/reefer as a bridge essentially)
 
just something else for your thoughts Yannis , but remember that all the grains that go in must also come out so a track with some gons at the opposite end of the building or a large truck loading station would also be appropriate . Looking forward to seeing this come together.
 
Hey Jim, thanks for the heads up. I presume you mean the spent grain right? Should the gons (gondola cars?) loading with spent grain be on the same spot as the grain unloading? (or at the end of the building ie after the bottling plant?)

I am thinking as a sequence for spots and the corresponding building structure (in linear fashion) Corn syrup unloading (1 spot, using some sort of loading rack which will lead to the main building where the tanks will be via appropriate piping) / Grain unloading (1 or 2 spots) / Bottling plant spots (3 spots). Imagine this times two since i will have two parallel siding tracks. Having said that, i fail to see how the grain spot would work for the outside track (i guess it wont).
 
Yannis , unfortunately I don't know enough about large brewery operations to answer that with any authority . My thinking would say that no , they would not make it down as far as the bottling line . I would guess that they would be removed close to where they go in as adding grains to water is the second step in brewing and once used they are of no further use to the brewer in a brewing context. I was just throwing that idea out to you to give you another form of traffic.
 
Jim, makes perfect sense to have the loading of spent grain close to grain unloading. Now i have to look into powering options for the plant. The rest is more or less planned in mockup.

Thanks again, i appreciate the help.
 
Well now you've got me wondering how they ship out the spent grain!
I know it's used for dog treats and cattle feed, but now I've learned it can be used to make bread as well.
I hauled into brewery's and malt houses for years but never thought about where it goes from there.
Is it dried before hand or shipped out as wet mash? I'll do some digging.
 
Rico, i i will look into that as well. I just found out today about tower breweries and that powering could be also oil and not just coal especially after WW2. So i could use oil-tank cars and some oil storage tanks for the power plant that heats the boiler, possibly on the same spur for spotting corn syrup tank cars. Seeing some photos in a book about breweries and operations i am still wondering if a few small silos would look out of place for malted grain unloading/storage. The brewery building with bottling facilities that i am aiming for (w/o silos etc so far) is measuring at 2.5-3ft give or take.
 
I would not think it is dried , by that time it is basically a waste product and drying would cost money . I know , around here ( Micro - Breweries ) the grains are given away to anyone that will pick them up . They are dumped into truck beds and used for all types of animal feed and compost material just to name a few uses.
Yannis , where does the corn syrup come into play?
 
While every brewery had its own preferred layout, an understanding of the process might help. There are 3 basic processes within a brewery.

Malting: when the barley arrives and is unloaded, it is transferred to the malting room(s). There the grain is spread in a layer on the floor, moistened, stirred, and allowed to sprout. The grain is stirred (turned) daily until the malting master determines it is ready. It is then transferred to the drying room. (At this point, some breweries will perform further processing, heating the grain to higher temperatures, to create "specialty" malts; crystal, roast barley, etc. for different styles of beer.)

Brewing: the malted barley and any other ingredients determined by the style of beer and the brew master are placed in large tanks or kettles where water is added and the grain is processed to extract the sugars and other fermentables. Once this process is complete, the "wort" is drawn off and the spent grains are disposed of. The spent grain is usually sold as animal feed. Yeast is added to the wort and the brew is allowed to ferment, how long depends on the style and brew master. (skipping some other steps that occur in the fermentation area.)

Bottling: the finished beer is delivered to the bottling line. Bottles have previously arrived, usually in box cars, and have been washed. Once the beer is bottled and boxed, it is ready for shipment. The beer is also kegged, for sale as "draft" beer. Kegs are reusable and returned to the brewery when empty, this usually by truck.

The loading of spent grain was usually done away from the unloading of fresh grain. Hope this helps in your design work.
 
If you use the Googly Earth or maps, there is a brewery at

45.257036, -66.095874

It's a mashup of 100 year old buildings and new ones.
The single track along the backside of the building is used for liquid and solid deliveries, tank cars and covered hoppers. Finished product goes out the far end, actually is trucked to a transload warehouse about a mile away, where some is loaded on railcars.
 
Jim, i read about the corn syrup as an optional added product to the brewing process (it is not necessary or anything, i just though of the added bonus of tank cars arriving, you can easily skip having it altogether).

I am reading a lot the kalmbach's book on industries along the tracks about breweries. Lots of good info there (which is where i got this idea about silos for grain).

Kevin, many thanks for the precious info there! Small question, would the grain unloading door have a specific positioning in relation with the multi-storey part of the building where the brewing occurs?

I was thinking the following positioning, from left to right facing the building:
4-storey (or 5-6 storeys if i add on the roof the small extension building of the champion packing) building (champion packing) with 1-2 spots for raw materials unloading (grain, etc), this will be the main brewing building.
2 storey extension building (2 ft long) which will be the bottling plant with 3 spots (two tracks resulting in six cars spotted in two rows of 3) (including washing of bottles etc).
Thinks i am considering to add to the facility grounds: Oil tank for fueling the power plant possibly with its own spur for fuel unloading. Small silos for grain storage (if it is not overwhelming the rest of the plant).

Truck bays on on one of the two remaining sides of the bottling plant.

PS. I just saw your post CN, very nice brewery there, lots of silos there (but is is also 5-6 times bigger than what i am building). Thanks for the post!
 
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A brewery the size of what you describe in post #13 is probably large enough to have some silos for grain. As far as the spent grain, it could go out of the building via an auger driven overhead pipeline from the brewery building to a track on the far side of your unloading tracks. Very similar to loading grain at a grain elevator. I don't know if there is a 1:1 ratio of incoming grain versus outgoing spent grain; perhaps Kevin might know.

Kevin - Your input is very helpful as Yannis said. While my unfinished brewery is smaller than the one Yannis is planning, some of your insights will enable me to make a little more sense when it comes to switching.

Willie
 
Another nice, HUGE brewery (Coors)
39°45'47.12" N 105°12'45.34" W

View attachment 56822

They a few switchers
The building on the right is a coal unloading which feeds the conveyor.
The building in the middle, on the right side of the building there's parked tankers
The right building is for hoppers.

Here's the aerial view

View attachment 56823
 
Willie, thanks for the info there. With respect to the "far side of my unloading tracks", do you mean lets say somewhere after the loading spots on the tracks for loading trucks/railcars? The auger system would make for some interesting added pipework on the roof! Thanks for this! Thinking about attaching a few small silos (similar to the medusa cement but less ie 4 or 6 instead of 8) and paint them as beer cans, just before the main brewing building (by doing this though, i cannot think of what cars to spot in front of the brewing building, since the grain car would be spotted in front of the silos now... hm, maybe spot more reefers for loading beer.). I ll design something and post it to see what i mean.

Lloyd, impressive facility there, it makes a layout on its own! Thanks for posting it!

Thanks again!
 
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