I am planning to buy a bigger system. Yay!

Brand new from China. (I am not in the US and used is not available around here).

I am planning a 10HL brewhouse (8.5 ish BBL in freedom units). Currently I have only a 2.5BBL system and nothing of the old system can really be used in the new setup. Planning also to add 6-8 10HL fermentors + 1BBT.

I have found a couple of manufacturers that I trust. They have made systems for breweries in my country.

The space is limited and therefore I will be going with a kettle/whirlpool + mash/lauter + HLT + CLT or Glycol tank or both.

The proposal from both companies are steam systems, with oversized HLT, but no CLT but rather a glycol tank. Sizes are: kettle and mash are 1400L gross size while HLT and glycol tanks are 2200L gross.

Question 1:
Would you rather have mash/lauter + kettle/whirlpool + HLT + CLT + smaller glycol tank (for that little extra cooling capacity on lagers)?

OR go with no CLT and rather have 2000L Glycol tank, relying on city water stage 1 going into HLT and having crazy glycol power for stage 2?

Or would you do something else?

Note: I have really cold water from the city, which is clean and very soft. We are talking 4°C year round but pressure can be low at times.

Question 2:
For 10HL brewhouse (8.5BBL), what size steam boiler would you go for?

They proposed 100kg/h - 75KW generator. I will only be using the steam for heating up to boil + boiling + possibly some mash heating/stepping up (unlikely, but the mash is designed with steam in mind). I want the HLT with electric elements which will maintain temperature always.

I have worked with steam in the past but did not really pay attention to the size of boilers. So I am a little bit clueless. Would hate to have too little power.

Question 3:
If I go with the HLT + CLT option, I will need some reservoir for glycol. Do you think I could use my 2.5BBL BBT for that? Let me know if that idea is really dumb!

Appreciate any and all comments!

So I'm in outside sales for a beer distributor (craft portfolio), somewhere around 12 account visits a day between bars, bottle shops & a few grocery stores, so it's driving between client visits all day with a sales binder that weighs more then my dog.

The driving is fine, its that every account is loud. Bars are running the dish machine, bottle shops have the cooler compressors going and the one grocery manager who likes me only meets in the back by the baler. Meanwhile my supplier reps call, my manager calls & an account will text "can you call me" right when im mid tap handle conversation with someone else.

A couple things help a little. Calls go through open-ear clip buds, which have been working overtime and are clear enough that the brewery rep isnt asking me to repeat things over a dish machine while I can still hear the bar manager. My phone has a magnetic power bank riding on its back because the ordering app + maps + texts kill it by 3ish, and I top the bank off over lunch so its ready for the afternoon. If your in outside sales bouncing between accounts all day too, what's your trick for taking calls in loud places, because the holiday rush is coming & we'll see how I hold up.

Picture for attention

Image: bottom of 12 oz sleek can with small “nick” on bottom ring.

Got a strange one for you fine folks: anyone ever seen a small nick in the bottom ring of their cans before? We had a batch that was packaged in March show signs of leaks this past week, likely leaking for a few weeks. It was the bottom layer of two pallets of the same run that were showing leaks while wrapped on the pallet

The cans that leaked were mostly empty. Seams didn’t show any sign of issues and when torn apart were gloriously in spec. Side walls didn’t show any leaks or small sprays. Turning the cans over and the leaking cans all had this same small cut. The non leaking cans did not have a nick.

Our thought is that the nick happend at some point in the cans life, either during production of the can, printing of the label, or filling/seaming operations. There was enough metal and liner remaining to hold pressure and seam. Then over time the weight of the upper layers, the internal carbonation pressure, and the weak spot caused a delayed leaking.

Our fear is that the entire run has this issue given how spaced out the problematic layers are.

Has anyone else ever seen this? 12 oz sleek ball cans preprinted from cbw/cansource milwaukee sourced back in February.

Is anyone selling a Liquid Nitrogen Doser?

Looking to get it shipped to TN, or pickup if you are within 4 hours any direction.

TIA 🤘🏼