Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Tough Holidays Schedule


The month of December began with a case of strep throat that knocked me out for almost 8 days (from the 10th til the 18th). As I finally got back on my feet, the holiday season began to kick in full force, making arrangement of meetings and discussions tough.
I contacted the TTB and the Health Department on the 18th, with discussions of both agencies stating that we needed to separate the production area from the tasting area.
So...onto our 7th re-layout of the brewery.
We have decided to rid the brewery of the curbing and install a half solid, half plexiglass enclosure for the brewhouse/fermenter area. This will allow us to easily incorporate the keg washing, bottling and other areas of the production in a controlled area. In the beginning we were quite reluctant to this change, but as we discussed it and arranged the tanks in the area and design that was proposed, we began to not only accept, but embraced this "new" design.
Back to the holiday schedule...we have our plans ready to be stamped by our engineer, but we are on hold until after the first of the year (actually the 4th), as our engineer's office is closed until that time. We have sent initial plans to both the Health Department and the TTB. We have left follow up messages and are still awaiting a response from both. This makes me think that both agencies are on hold until after the first of the year as well. So, with any luck, we will be able to get all plans stamped submitted and approved within the first two weeks of the new year.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Engineer

We received a very favorable quote from a Civil Engineer. He stated that he should have the engineering plans ready by this Friday. This would be great, as would then be able to submit our plans to both the city and health department early next week. The plans include securing the fermenter tanks to the floor, foundation plans to support a boiler and it's vent stack, glycol chiller and a grain silo. It will also include anchoring the posts for the swing gate that will be attached to the above mentioned foundation. A portion of the plan accounts for the walk-in cooler that we are going to install. It has dimensions of 27'L X 16'W X 12'H. The city requires any structure over ten feet high to have an engineering stamp on it. I guess this is because they don't want the walk-in to cave in on itself? With our relocation of the walk-in cooler, we will be able to secure to a foundation wall which will be nice.