Whether you’re trying to diversify your consumer base or just want to try your hand at something new, venturing beyond beer production is possible with BBS equipment.
Our team has 6 years of solid teamwork together and 10+ years of experience in manufacturing brewing equipment. We have designed brewhouse configurations for every type of brewery you can imagine, in every situation – including craft sodas, cocktail mixers, kombucha, and liquor.
Like every other project, we begin by meeting with the client to review each step of their process along with their own research to design a P&ID which could work for their process. During this time we also make recommendations to achieve production goals and offer advice on procedures to meet product specifications.
Then, we begin to design our solution around each step of their process. As we worked through the processes, we added equipment, components, or made modifications to the design of equipment.
Check out our beyond beer projects below!
Pao Drinks co
Based in Shanghai, Pao Drinks Co is a natural sparkling beverage brand infusing juice blends with real brewed teas and botanicals, which are versatile for both drinking on their own and as flavorful and complex mixers for cocktails. Fellow Austinite (John is also from Austin) Jacob Papermaster reached out to the BBS team to help design and manufacture a system to brew the tea and botanical concentrates to be used for blending into full batches before bottling.
Kettle
Although we labeled this as a kettle, it also includes aspects of a lauter tun and whirlpool. On top of being steam-jacketed for heating, we included a false bottom allowing for the filtration of their various ingredients and a side outlet for their removal. A whirlpool inlet and piping allow for mixing without the need for any agitators.
Storage Vessel
After leaving the kettle, the concentrate is pumped through an inline strainer to remove any large solids, then it is collected into a storage vessel to allow them time to store and get the next batch going. We also included load cells so they can accurately plan their blending.
Control Panel
We designed a work platform with an integrated control panel with a temperature controller, steam jacket switches, pump controls, and weight readout from the load cells. This enabled them easy access to the controls they needed as well as the equipment and components.
Taboocha
Locally brewed in Hong Kong, Taboocha brews Kombucha in a range of different flavors using many different teas. Their Kombucha is 100% vegan and ranges in types of base tea brewed, to multiple additions of fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices, botanicals, and a touch of traditional Chinese medicines.
From finding success in starting their business on a small scale, BBS helped them to boost their production of a single flavor of Kombucha from 10L to 500L per batch.
The Tea Steeper
The first step in their process was creating the base tea. In essence, they needed a large teapot where the tea would first steep in hot liquor and then sweetened with sugar. We called this the Tea Steeper.
We decided that a large insulated kettle vessel would suit their process needs. We bespoked an electric heated hot liquor tank—not only for heating the liquor used for the production of Kombucha but also for cleaning their fermentation and flavor addition/carbonation vessels around the brewery.
The kettle is insulated and uses the whirlpool aspect of a beer-brewing kettle, which allows the hot water to get more contact time with the tea leaves as it passes through the suspended tea bags. The tea bags are able to hang from the manway of the vessel and steep as the hot liquor spins in the kettle. This also proved very useful for mixing and dissolving the sugar into the finished tea, as it took only seconds for the sugar to dissolve in the hot tea.
Open-Top Fermentation Vessels
For the fermentation process, we designed fermentation vessels that are open-top as it is important for the fermentation process and allows for easily placing the SCOBY. We used the same side manways as we would do on a lauter tun at the bottom of the vessel, making SCOBY collection and redistribution efficient for the brewer. Designing the vessel with a glycol jacket allows for temperature control during fermentation. As these vessels were open-top, we also provided a removable lid that could be used for CIP purposes.
Flavor Infusion Vessel
For the flavor infusions, we provided a hop cannon, which we adequately named the flavor infusion vessel. As no hops are used (traditionally) in Kombucha, Taboocha plans to use this for adding purees to their fermented tea, recirculating the tea on herbs, spices, and other botanicals to get the desired flavor components into the finished product.
Brite Tank to Carbonate
Using brite tanks will allow Taboocha to carbonate lightly before packaging into their unique bottles and cans. This vessel can also be used for a holding vessel before packaging their Kombucha into kegs.
Alive Foods
Alive Food (AF) was the second Kombucha brewery in Hong Kong that BBS worked with. Although AF went with a slightly smaller system than our initial Kombucha brewery in terms of volume, the design requirements for this project’s equipment were very similar. They planned to brew half batches of tea into their fermentation vessels starting out, giving them the ability to brew double batches of 700L into their FVs when they were ready to ramp up production.
Following on from the successes of our first Kombucha brewery installation, we designed a similar system for the tea steeping required by Alive Food. Very little changed in the design elements of the equipment besides the volumes. A hot liquor tank provided the heated liquor for the tea steeping as well as CIP. As they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Brite Tanks
To enhance the flavor of their kombucha, AF purchased brite tanks for introducing fruit, botanicals, and other herbs and spices.
Filter
One difference with the Alive Foods system is they bought a filter to use for filtration of the Kombucha before packaging.
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From kombucha to beer, we can bring your craft beverage project to life.
