Frankenbrew Challenge 2022

Build a Brewery for $20,000??

I think most people know by now that I made a video back in 1995 called Frankenbrew. Build a Micro-Brewery for $20,000.

Those were the days when you could enter your IPA in the Great American Beer Festival and there were only 45 total entries! If only we could build a brewing system for $20,000. It must have been so easy back then.

Well, let’s take the challenge and see if you still can do it for $20,000.

First off, $20,000 in 1995 equals $37,248 with inflation and probably more as the calculator I found online most likely doesn’t reflect the current inflation rate. So that’s the budget I will work with. Also, this needs to be a real brewery capable of making great beer. I am going to go 7 BBL, as that will produce a decent amount of beer for the labor required, and you can actually make money with this size system. OK, here goes.

Brew Kettle. If you can find a used one, that is your best bet. I also would go with a direct fire, rather than electric or steam. A new kettle from Forgeworks is about $13,500 and you need a burner as well, which will be about $968.

Mash Tun. No doubt I would go with a dairy tank. You will need to make a false bottom, but that is just a length of copper pipe with slits cut in the bottom. A quick search on eBay and I found this one for $900. Add $50 for the copper false bottom.

Hot Liquor Tank. Here I just need a stainless steel tank to temporarily hold hot water for sparge. This tank I will position so the outlet is just higher than the top of the mash tun and I can gravity feed the water for sparge without needing another pump. Here is one I found for $800.

Fermenters. I still love the Letina Tanks. The Z-1000-C is the one you want. It costs $3,895, and you should add about $300 per tank for spray ball and racking arm. I would suggest two, but to begin with you could go with only one, producing 7 BBL’s per week. At $5 a pint that equates to $8,750 per week in pint sales, which in my book is pretty good for just brewing once. However you would be happier with two.

Another alternative is to use a dairy process tank. I have used them and they work great, you just need the space as most you find are 6 ft. by 3 ft and about 4 ft high. They already have glycol jackets, are insulated and have lids. Here is one for $600.

Serving Tanks. You need three to start, which theoretically would give you 6 beers on tap. Once a tank is about halfway empty, you keg off the rest and put a different beer into the tank. This way you can have 6 different beer styles with just 3 serving tanks. Look for used as these can be expensive. You start with three, but you want to size your cold room to fit more, so as you find a deal, you can keep adding to your collection. You can’t have enough of these. I found 2 on Probrewer.com for only $1,000 each of a kind I often find used. They would work well.

Pump. A basic sanitary pump of 1 HP on a cart should be all you need for transfers and keg cleaning. I was shocked when I did a search on eBay and found this one for only $380. At that price I’d be hard pressed not to at least try it. My question however before I bought one would be, where can I buy replacement seals?

Heat Exchanger. I like to go with a new heat exchanger to save me from tearing one apart and replacing the gaskets. CPE Systems has a good selection but size depends on the temperature of the water coming into your brewery in the summer. It needs to be below 70 F. If you are in a location where you can’t do that, then you need a cold liquor tank, which is another discussion, or a two stage heat exchanger with glycol to chill the water coming in. This one I added the link on is $3,400, which is a good ballpark price.

Glycol Chiller. Since we are on the subject of glycol, for this system you only need a glycol line chiller for your fermenters. I recommend the 3/4 HP UBC system that Foxx Equipment sells for about $1,900. We use one and it has no problem handling three 7 BBL fermenters.

Mill. You won’t use one in your Frankenbrew system. You will order your grain pre-milled and paddle it into the strike water in your mash tun. It will cost you an extra 5 cents per pound to get it delivered this way. Once you are up and running and making money, you can start saving for a mill, auger and grist hydrator, but for now, this is how you will do it.

Miscellaneous. We have gone through your major equipment, but next you need Hot Transfer Hose, Cold Transfer Hose, Hydrometers, Temperature Controllers, Paddle, Shovel, Wash-down Hose and Nozzle, Spare Clamps, Tees, 90’s, Gaskets, Pressure Relief valves and various odds and ends. This covers 99% however, so let’s see how we did.

Looks like we are ok with a couple thousand saved. There will be no problem spending that money. Of course this is just your brewing equipment. There is a lot more to opening a brewery than just this, but I believe this makes the project at least reachable for most potential brewery owners. I go into a lot more detail in the book The Affordable Brewery, but you get the picture.

Speaking of books, I have changed the distribution of mine to get them away from Amazon, or as I like to call it, The Empire. They will now just be available on the web site of my printer and of course ebooks as well. I hope you understand, but I spend a lot of time writing them and I make $2 and Amazon makes about $7. I’d rather sell less. Here are their links.

Brewery Operations Manual - A written version of our Immersion Course

Colorado Boy SOP - The way we do everything to make beer

The Affordable Brewery - An in depth look at how to build an affordable brewery