On Jan 1, 2:37*am, Joe Sallustio > wrote:
> > rooms. A cooler room will probably happen in October.
>
> > We considered doing the u-Brew (beer) with the wine, and it's still an
> > option for the future, but even a small operation would require an
> > additional $30,000 for equipment. The combo (wine and beer) operations I
> > visited all seemed to have a fragrance of fermenting hops and to be honest
> > this turned me off the whole idea (I'm not a beer lover). Perhaps it was a
> > cleanliness issue, but it was not pleasant.
>
> As to the container question, it's 'carboy' and it refers to any
> liquid container bigger than a jug, say bigger than a gallon. *The
> plastic covered fermenter was probably a demijohn, they sell those in
> ~ 7 gallon (US) and 54 liter sizes, they come from Italy. *They can
> come with a spigot too so some people like that feature for racking.
> The larger ones are a little cumbersome but both are glass containers
> so are easy to clean. *The cover is 2 part and snaps together so can
> be cleaned also. *I never pick up mine full, too heavy, too dangerous.
>
> As to the smell of hops and fermenting beer, you have a point there
> but my winery/brewery is ventilated; all you would have to do there is
> wall off an area for beer and ventilate it to the outside if you
> didn't want the odor of beermaking mixed in with the odor of
> winemaking. *(My wife doesn't care for either so I added the
> ventilation.) * Ventilation is probably a good idea to begin with;
> here is an online reference for that:
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=vrq...pg=PA99&dq=fer...
>
> All you need to make beer from a kit is a 5 gallon pot and a stove to
> boil 2 gallons of concentrated 'wort' on for an hour; everything else
> used is identical to winemaking. *I make more wine than beer and
> interchange the equipment; some people feel that is a bad idea but I
> never understood that. I clean everything after use and have never had
> an issue. If something picked up an odor of wine or hops I could
> understand the concern but for whatever reason that is not happening
> to me.
>
> Ale yeast and wine yeast ferment at similar temperatures, only lager
> yeast requires reduced temperature. *I've never met an ale I didn't
> like.... *
>
> By the way, people down here like to make a wine for special
> occasions, weddings for example. *A means to make customized labels
> might be a good idea too.
>
> As to fancy bottles, google bellissima and see what comes up; that is
> a pretty common bottle for ice wines. *You may want to consider having
> a stock of regular 375 ml and 1.5 l bottles too, that gives your
> customers options for bottling that fits their consumption pattern.
>
> Your approach seems to be right on, I would not want to overextend
> early in a business either. *I'm just suggesting the $30K sounds way
> off for a brewing startup, I'm thinking a stove and pots are more like
> $1K and both have multiple uses.
>
> Joe

Some of my co-workers are homebrew beer nuts (pun intended) and they
use a turkey fryer burner and pot for the initial wort prep; I picked
one up for $30 at Target. At the other end, I made beer at a FoP with
stainless steel kettles and extensive plumbing, so I can see how $30K
can be easily invested.