To start, we have been working with Potamus Press in Temecula on our logo design, its still a work in progress, however we are getting closer to something we really like. The big news here, is, we were offered some graphic design help from a rather large company that has worked with Stone Brewery and Hangar 24, to name a few. We are saving the details on this for later. But for now, we have sent them the below logo for critiquing and alteration (as they see fit). We are VERY excited to see what they suggest!
Our permits are moving along, although at a snails pace. We applied for a construction permit last week, but were told that we can't get one until our CUP (Conditional Use Permit) is approved. The confusing part here is that we only need the CUP to operate the tasting room, not the brewery itself (And its the brewery side of things we need to start constructing). We were at the City Hall last Thursday negotiating a resolution to this "hang-up". We expect by Monday or Tuesday to have this issue resolved so we can build some walls and connect some pipe.
The ABC license went off without a hitch. They were most pleasurable to work with and everything was near seamless. Biggest problem (and the only one) was the plans we submitted to them weren't in the correct format; we changed formats, resubmitted, and all was well. They instructed us to call them two weeks before we open for an inspection of the premises. After that, we are 100% approved.
TTB is still "in-the-works". What this means is we have submitted it and haven't heard a thing since. Lets hope that no news is good news!
The brewing equipment and brewhouse fabrication is coming along nicely. Our mill was delivered last week and its a big blue beast--we are super anxious to use it!!!!
Our auger arrived, too. The black circle on the left is the cork-screw-auger-thing-a-ma-jig that installs into the PVC piping (slightly visible on the left of the below picture). The auger installs onto the bottom of the mill and carries the milled grain upwards to our grist hopper. The grist hopper sits above our mash tun and holds the milled grain until we are ready to brew.
The false bottom was a very interested piece of the puzzle. The false bottom is basically a big coffee filter that keeps the grain suspended a few inches above the bottom of the tank. This allows us to rinse the sugars with "sparge water" while leaving the grain behind.
We called around for a few weeks gathering information and getting pricing. We wanted to use perforated screen, but everyone told us it wouldn't work. They said it would crush under the load, but recommended a product called Wedgewire; its reportedly very strong, it does the job quite well, and it runs $3000 per sheet--the final product after fabrication would cost upwards of $6,000--for us, that's an expensive coffee filter.
We knew the guys at Aftershock Brewery in Temecula were using perforated screen so we went down there and got some great tips from the owner/operator/nicest guy around, Marvin. He recommended some parts and off we went to build it.
Our neighbor Dave from Terra Dynamics drew up the design--based of our rough explanation of what it should look like--on his CAD system, and after a few days of labor came to us with the final product (pictured below); it seems to be bullet proof! Each "pie" shaped section easily holds 400lbs (we tested it) and there are eight of these sections. We estimated 2000lbs of force on a huge batch of Strong Ale, so, at 3200lbs of theoretical capacity, we should be more than okay.
Last, but not least is our HERMS coil. HERMS is an acronym for Heat Exchange Recirculated Mash System. It goes into the hot liquor tank and during the brew day we pump the liquid from the mash through it in order to maintain temperature. For some reason haven't snapped a picture of it, yet, but we assure you, it is very cool.
[PICTURE COMING SOON]
That's the latest from Electric City Brewery, and we need to get back to work, so until the next interesting topic, Cheers!
