What's at the top of your wish list? Bill Owens, brewub owner: A 50-bbl brewhouse with a bottling and kegging system. "It would house a printing press and brewery and be located at the end of a road with peacocks wandering on the lawn. Friends and customers sit around picnic tables drinking imperial stout while people play bocce ball in the background" -- dressed in white, of course. Ralph Olivieri, home brewer: A complete brewing kitchen, "one with a sink, stove, scales, and a chiller for lagering." Dale Dean, home brewer: A "custom-made, 1Ú2-bbl, stainless steel, gravity-feed brewing system with a propane burner." Barring this, he'd like "either a top-loader freezer (for easier lagering) with an internal thermostat, or else a counterflow wort chiller." Don Barkley, microbrewery master brewer: "Coincidentally, we're in the process of upscaling our brewery. We're adding fermentation vessels to increase our batch production for 22 bbl to 50 bbl. We'll continue producing our bottle-conditioned ale, but the increased fermentation capacity will allow us to expand into other kinds of beer, such as lagers." Paddy Giffin, home brewer: A three-tiered system with a 10-gal capacity to facilitate increased experimentation with yeast cultures. Teri Fahrendorf, brewpub brewmaster: "A mash tun with a sloping floor so that leftover water and grain won't pool on the bottom of the tun after cleaning. Our current mash tun has a flat floor with two drain ports on the bottom of the tank. The weight of the mash causes the tun floor to bow slightly, and residual water and grain bits tend to remain in this concave area between the drains. It's very hard to get the unit completely clean, and any remaining grains can sour the next batch, so a slope-floor mash tun would be a real improvement." Return to article
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