The Hess Brewery

We use a completely customized, hand built, four kettle, single tier brewery: Hot Liquor Tank (HLT), combo Mash and Lauter Tun (LT), a direct fire Boil Kettle (BK) and a separate Whirlpool vessel. Throughout the brew, wort movement is accomplished with three March pumps; an 805, 815 and custom built and modified Series 5.

Pumps and temperatures are monitored and digitally controlled (with analog back up) from a control panel, with automatic settings to control the temperatures of both the HLT and the Mash Tun, and to control the volume of the Mash Tun during sparge/lautering.

Milling the grist is accomplished with a table-mounted, motorized 3-roller Crankandstein mill with a 140# capacity stainless steel grain hopper. Doughing in is done manually, stirred in by hand. We can mill an entire hopper of grain in about 15 minutes.

All brewery hot water, including strike water for the Mash Tun and filling the HLT is handled by our Noritz tankless water heater. Using the Noritz, we can go from tap water to 45 gallons of ~165F strike water in the Mash Tun in just 20 minutes. Water adjustments for chloride to sulfate ratio and residual alkalinity, using brewing salts, are made in the MT and BK.

The HLT also includes an installed convoluted copper coil that is used for maintaining or raising the temperature of the Mash Tun as an indirect heat exchanger. Two wheeled stainless steel frames hold two kettles each: the HLT and MT on one, the BK and WP on the other. Our Mash Tun is able to be tipped back on a center pivot to dump the spent grains into an awaiting basin for disposal.

Our custom-fabricated 65 gallon kettles allows us to create batches that net out just 1.6 bbls of beer per batch. After the boil, wort is pumped into the Whirlpool through one of two tangentially ported side inlets. 55 gallons of wort can be pumped over in just 4 minutes. Final kettle hops are added at this point as appropriate. After settling out, wort is pumped through a plate chiller, oxygenated and into one of our awaiting 60 gallon conical fermenters, where the yeast is pitched in a temperature controlled environment.

The beer is kegged, carbonated and served.