Second, control heat safely.<\/strong> Your main options are steam, direct fire, and electric. Steam is gentle and even, which is why big breweries love it. Direct fire heats fast and responds quickly, great for small places but you can scorch your wort if you’re not paying attention. Electric is clean and easy to install, perfect for city spots without gas lines. Whatever you pick, you need temperature controls, pressure relief valves, and proper ventilation. No cutting corners here\u2014insurance inspectors will check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Third, make cleaning easy.<\/strong> Beer needs things stupidly clean. Your equipment should have CIP spray balls that actually hit every surface inside, enough slope so everything drains out, removable gaskets on all your tri-clamp fittings, and sanitary welds with no cracks or rough spots. Good design means cleaning takes an hour instead of a whole afternoon. Bad design means you’ll be taking pipes apart by hand after every single batch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Different sizes serve different markets. The gear that’s perfect for a 3.5 BBL nano brewpub would be totally wrong for a 20 BBL regional brewery. Here’s a quick breakdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1 to 3 BBL systems<\/strong>\u00a0are for nano brewpubs or pilot breweries. They don’t take up much space and make just enough beer for people drinking right there. A lot of breweries keep a tiny system like this even after they grow, using it for test batches and one-off releases. Plus it’s cheap enough for homebrewers to make the jump to selling beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5 BBL systems<\/strong> are where a lot of small commercial brewpubs start. Brew two or three times a week and you can keep a few taps pouring while also sending some kegs to local bars or restaurants. You can run it with one or two people, and the upfront cost won’t bankrupt you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 10 BBL systems<\/strong> show up all over the place in regional craft breweries. At this size you can brew four or five times a week and fill enough kegs or cans to actually do some real distribution. The math works out nicely\u2014you’re not brewing constantly just to keep up, but you’re also not paying for capacity you’ll never use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 20 BBL and up<\/strong> means you’re in commercial production for real. Besides the brewhouse and fermenters, you’ll need a deaerated water system, an automated canning or bottling line, some plan for wastewater, and a much more serious CIP setup. This is for breweries selling mostly packaged beer through distributors, not just pints over the counter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let’s run through each hot-side tank and what it actually does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Le mash tun<\/strong> is where you mix crushed grain with hot water and hold it at specific temperatures. During this rest, enzymes break starches down into sugars\u2014some fermentable, some not. Temperature control here is everything. Too hot and you kill your enzymes. Too cold and the conversion takes forever or just doesn’t finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Le lauter tun<\/strong> separates the liquid wort from the spent grain. The grain bed itself acts as a filter, so you need a false bottom or slotted screens that hold the grain back but let wort flow through. Good lautering takes patience. Rush it and you’ll stick your runoff or leave too much sugar behind in the grain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Le brew kettle<\/strong> brings the wort to a rolling boil. This sterilizes things, stops the enzymes from the mash, drives off weird volatile compounds, and lets you add hops at different times for bitterness, flavor, or aroma. A good vigorous boil also helps coagulate proteins, which makes your beer clearer and more stable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Le whirlpool<\/strong> spins the wort after boiling. The spinning motion pulls hot break material (coagulated proteins and polyphenols) into a cone in the center, leaving clearer wort to be cooled and sent to the fermenter. Some breweries skip a dedicated whirlpool and just do it right in the brew kettle, but that takes careful design and a little extra time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On small systems (3.5 BBL and under), people often combine the mash tun and lauter tun into one vessel. Same with the brew kettle and whirlpool. This saves money and reduces pumping steps, which is great when space is tight. But once you hit 10 BBL or larger, separate vessels are almost always better\u2014you get finer control over each step and you can start the next batch before the previous one is even finished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once your wort is cooled and you’ve added oxygen, it moves to the cold side of the brewery: fermentation and conditioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conical fermenters<\/strong> are the standard for a reason. The cone-shaped bottom collects yeast and trub, so you can easily harvest healthy yeast to use again or dump out sediment without losing beer. Most conicals also have cooling jackets (two or three zones on bigger tanks) hooked up to a glycol system. This lets you control fermentation temperature precisely, which you need to make clean, consistent beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unitanks<\/strong> do double duty\u2014fermentation and conditioning in the same tank. After fermentation finishes, you can crash the temperature, carbonate the beer, and even serve or package right from the same tank without transferring anything. Unitanks save space and labor, which is why they’re so popular in small and medium breweries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brite tanks<\/strong> (also called serving tanks or bright beer tanks) just store beer that’s already conditioned and carbonated. You don’t ferment in these. Instead, you transfer finished beer from a unitank or a regular fermenter into a brite tank, where it sits cold and carbonated until you’re ready to keg, can, or bottle. Brite tanks free up your fermenters for the next batch, which bumps up your overall capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When you’re planning your cold side, don’t just count tanks. Also think about your glycol piping layout, your CO\u2082 lines and pressure relief, sample valves, dry-hop ports, and cleaning ports for every single tank. Miss any of those details and you’ll be kicking yourself later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How you heat your brewhouse affects energy costs, beer flavor, and even what regulations you have to follow. Here’s the real deal on the three main options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chauffage \u00e0 la vapeur<\/strong> uses a boiler to make steam, which then goes through a jacket around the tank or a heat exchanger inside. Steam transfers heat evenly and gently, with almost no risk of scorching. That’s why pretty much every brewery at 15 BBL and larger uses steam. The downsides? In a lot of places you need a licensed boiler operator. You need regular boiler inspections. And you have to treat your feed water so scale doesn’t build up. Steam works great, but it comes with real responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Direct fire<\/strong> heats the bottom of the kettle with gas burners. The system is simple, responds fast, and costs less upfront than steam. A lot of small brewpubs start with direct fire because it works fine for 3.5 to 10 BBL systems. The main risk is scorching\u2014if you fire too hard or don’t stir enough, you can burn the wort and give your beer a gross burnt flavor that never goes away. Experienced brewers learn to manage it, but you have to pay attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Electric heating<\/strong> uses submerged heating elements or electric heating jackets. Installation is clean and straightforward, with no exhaust, no gas lines, and no boiler. Electric makes a ton of sense for city breweries in multi-tenant buildings where running gas lines would be expensive or impossible. The ongoing cost is usually higher than gas (depends on local rates), but the lower startup cost and simpler permitting can still make electric the right call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No matter which way you go, follow your local safety codes to the letter. You need over-temperature protection, pressure relief valves (even on direct-fire tanks), and regular inspections. Insurance companies take brewery safety seriously. Cut corners here and you might find out your claim gets denied after an accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How much automation do you actually need? Honest answer: it depends on your size, your staff, and how consistent you need to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Manual control<\/strong> means your brewers turn valves by hand, watch thermometers, and run timers on their phones. This works fine for 3.5 BBL and smaller systems used for R&D or teaching. It’s also totally fine for a nano brewpub where the brewer owns the place and shows up for every single batch. Downside is human error\u2014everyone eventually forgets to close a valve or misses a temperature target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Syst\u00e8mes semi-automatiques<\/strong> put temperature readings, level sensors, and pump controls on one panel. Some steps become one-touch operations: hit a button and a pump runs for a set time, or a valve opens automatically when the temperature hits the right point. Semi-auto cuts down on common mistakes without needing a full programming team. It’s a popular middle ground for 5 to 15 BBL breweries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fully automatic systems<\/strong> use a PLC and a touchscreen. You can store multiple recipes, and the system runs mash temperature steps, pump sequences, transfer timings, and even CIP cycles automatically. For 10 BBL and larger commercial breweries, full automation makes batch after batch come out the same and reduces dependence on any single person. If your head brewer takes a vacation, the system still brews the same beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But automation isn’t magic. It won’t fix bad recipes or cheap ingredients. And you need someone on staff who actually knows how to program and troubleshoot the thing. Automation is a tool\u2014a powerful one\u2014but it’s not a replacement for brewing knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cleaning and cooling aren’t exciting, but screw them up and your brewery will be a nightmare every single day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Syst\u00e8me CIP<\/strong> (clean-in-place) circulates caustic, acid, and hot water through your pipes and tanks without you having to take anything apart. A good CIP skid has a pump sized for the right flow and pressure, a heating element or steam coil to keep solutions hot, and tanks for storing and reusing cleaning chemicals. When you’re planning your CIP routine, pay close attention to weld quality (no cracks), low-point drains (so liquid doesn’t just sit there), and spray ball coverage (so every inside surface gets hit). Any dead leg or rough weld becomes a hiding spot for microbes, and once those get established, they’re a nightmare to fully get rid of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Le plate heat exchanger (PHE)<\/strong> is the unsung hero of wort cooling. Hot wort and chilled glycol or cold water flow through alternating stainless steel plates, and heat transfers through the plates. A properly sized PHE can drop wort from boiling down to fermentation temperature (around 68\u00b0F \/ 20\u00b0C) in one pass, in just a few minutes. But sizing matters: too few plates and you don’t cool fast enough, risking oxidation or contamination. Too many plates or channels that are too narrow and the PHE will clog with hop debris and protein. Lots of breweries use a hop strainer or whirlpool aggressively to keep solids out of the PHE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Good equipment design follows three simple rules: you have to be able to drain it, inspect it, and clean it. Every surface that touches wort or beer should be sanitary-grade stainless steel (usually 304 or 316), with no threads, no sharp corners, and no places where liquid just sits. If you can’t easily see it, reach it, or spray it, you can’t clean it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A complete craft beer production line needs more than just a brewhouse and fermenters. Here’s the other stuff you need to plan for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grain mill<\/strong>: Your mill cracks the malt kernel open but tries to keep the husk in one piece. The husk acts as a natural filter bed during lautering, so a bad crush (too fine) leads to stuck mashes and slow runoff. A good mill with adjustable roller gap is worth every penny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hot and cold liquor tanks (HLT and CLT)<\/strong> : The HLT holds hot water for mashing and cleaning. The CLT holds cold water for cooling or knockout. Getting the sizing right reduces waiting time\u2014if your HLT is too small, you’ll be heating water while your mash just sits there. Lots of breweries oversize their HLT on purpose so they can do back-to-back brews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keg washer and filler<\/strong>: For draft-focused brewpubs, a semi-automatic keg washer and filler makes kegging way faster. Even a simple two-head manual washer beats washing kegs by hand with a garden hose. If you plan to sell kegs to outside accounts, factor in the labor time for cleaning them\u2014it always takes longer than new brewers think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CO\u2082 management system<\/strong>: You need carbon dioxide for carbonating beer, padding fermentation tanks (to keep oxygen out), pushing beer between tanks, and counter-pressure filling kegs or cans. A bulk CO\u2082 tank (liquid, not gas) with a vaporizer gives you the pressure and volume you need. Small breweries sometimes use cylinder packs, but swapping cylinders all the time gets old really fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pumps and control panel<\/strong>: Different jobs need different pumps. A centrifugal pump for wort transfer, a diaphragm pump for trub and yeast, and a smaller pump for CIP recirculation. Your main control panel ties all the electrical stuff together\u2014pumps, valves, heaters, temperature sensors. Label everything clearly and keep spare fuses and contactors on hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From grain showing up at your loading dock to finished beer heading out the door, every piece of equipment should fit your process and your daily rhythm. Start with your yearly production target, how you plan to sell the beer (taproom vs. distribution), and your physical limits (floor space, ceiling height, drain locations, electrical service). Then match each component to those realities. Don’t just blindly chase “all imported” or “cheapest possible” or “what my buddy has.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The right brewing equipment feels natural to use, isn’t a pain to clean, and makes beer that tastes how you want it to\u2014batch after batch, week after week. Take your time. Ask for references. Go visit other breweries that run similar systems. Brew on a pilot system before you sign a PO if you can. A thoughtful equipment choice early on will pay off for the whole life of your brewery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n4. Picking by Size: 1 BBL to 20 BBL<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Taille du syst\u00e8me<\/th> Best For<\/th> Notes<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> 1\u20133 BBL<\/td> R&D, test batches, nano brewpub<\/td> On-site sales only; cheap to start; minimal staff<\/td><\/tr> 5 BBL<\/td> Small brewpub, local restaurant, microbrewery<\/td> A few draft accounts; brew 2\u20133 times a week<\/td><\/tr> 10 BBL<\/td> Regional distribution, multiple locations<\/td> Good efficiency; stable crew; can do canning<\/td><\/tr> 20 BBL<\/td> Big commercial production with packaging<\/td> Need full hot side, cold side, and packaging line<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n 5. Hot-Side Vessels<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Mat\u00e9riel](\"https:\/\/metobrew.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1000l-brewery-equipment-8.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n6. Fermentation and Cold-Side Tanks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
7. Comparing Heating Methods<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
8. Automation and Controls<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"control\"](\"https:\/\/metobrew.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/control.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n9. Cleaning and Cooling Systems<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
10. From Grain Mill to Filler: The Whole Setup<\/h2>\n\n\n\n