Brewhouse upgrade helps Florida brewer aim for the stars

Spacecraft are no longer launched in Cape Canaveral, but a brewer in the region is still aiming for the stars. Starting life as a tiny microbrewery, the Florida Beer Company has become the largest craft brewery in the state.

In its first year, the micro-brewery output about 1200 hL, producing two beers and an apple cider. Jim Massoni bought the microbrewery in 2003 after it got into financial difficulties and within two years the Florida Beer Company took over several other microbreweries. From there, the company’s output grew by more than 50% each year, reaching around 34,000 hL in 2011.

Massoni upgraded the brewing facility, investing in bottling kit, marketing, sales and distribution, and purchased an additional warehouse.

The old brewery featured a 36 hL brewhouse of American design, a Kosme filler and labeller rated at 3600 bottles/h, plus a kegging line accounting for about half the total output. The bottling operation involved a lot of manual work. Empty bottles were depalletised by hand, while the fulls were also packed in sixpacks and American boxes, and manually palletised.

Massoni installed 25 new cylindro-conical fermentation and storage tanks, each holding 270 hL, which provide an annual capacity of 78,000 hL. There are already plans for upsizing to 40 tanks for what will then be an annual capacity of 144,000 hL. For the filling operations, the firm currently uses the Kosme bottling line with a capacity of 42,000 hL and the kegging line from the old brewery. There are also plans to invest in a new bottling line.

At the heart of the new brewery is the CombiCube B brewhouse. Breweries with a brew size of 40 to 105 hL of cast wort had previously not been able to use Steinecker’s technology, as the customised systems above this rating were not amenable to use in the lower output range.

However, Steinecker wanted to offer the right technology for the brewery, so the firm’s creative minds set out to modify the large-scale concepts to suit a downsized output category.

The compactly dimensioned frame construction, with specially tailored vessel sizes, is extremely economical on space: the entire brewhouse has a footprint of less than 100 m².

The individual processes involved in wort preparation are grouped together for enhanced convenience and can be handled by a single operator, whose task is simplified by the higher-order Botec process control system.

“What I found particularly interesting was the compact frame construction, which enables it to be prefabricated in the factory, making for shorter installation and commissioning times,” Massoni said. “The CombiCube also scored highly with its modularised design, which means it’s very easy to upsize its capacity. The small footprint, the quality of the craftsmanship and modern, energy-efficient Stromboli boiling technology, and not least Steinecker’s excellent reputation, were additional, very attractive arguments.”

The CombiCube B brewhouse at the Florida Beer Company comprises three vessels for 104 hL of hot wort: a mash-wort copper featuring Stromboli, a lauter tun and a whirlpool. The brewery produces four brews a day in an infusion mash process. A Variomill wet mill supplies the malt grist.

“The CombiCube B now offers us a capacity of well over 100,000 hL,” said Massoni. “With an additional mash tun, we could very easily triple the number of brews a day, for three times the annual output. It took only four months from placing the order before the CombiCube B was delivered, which was pretty fast compared to a traditional-type brewhouse.”

Massoni still sees plenty of scope for expanding his beer sales. Florida is the USA’s third-biggest market for beer, but for a long time consumption of craft beers lagged behind the levels in other states. Now, the growth rate for craft beer consumption in Florida exceeds that in all other states of the USA.

“Here in the Sunshine State we have a lot of tourists. And more and more people are turning away from mass taste and asking for local food, local fish, local beer. When the big breweries lose 1%, the craft breweries gain many times that,” Massoni said.

In the summer of 2012, the Florida Beer Company produced its first brew in its new CombiCube B. With the capacity now available, the craft brewery is finally able to meet the soaring levels of demand. “We’re extremely confident for our beers and our market,” Massoni said.