Shadowing the head brewer for a day, Guardian Brewing Saugatuck, MI

It seems most homebrewers I know fantasize of going pro, brewing in a real commercial brewery. The fantasy centers around brewing on a large scale, professional system with giant mash tuns, boil kettles and fermenters. In the interest of education, my new friend, Kim Collins owner & head brewer at Guardian Brewing, graciously allowed me to indulge my fantasy…well sort of. She was nice enough to let me shadow her on a “typical” brew day, but wise enough not to let me touch anything. Today we are going to brew traditional, Irish Dry Stout for serving on St. Patrick’s Day weekend.

Guardian’s Brewhouse

Kim brews her beer at Guardian on their 10 barrel, direct fire micro brewhouse system (Premier Stainless Systems, Escondido, CA). The system consists of two 10-barrel fermenters, three 20-barrel fermenters, one 20-barrel hot liquor tank, and one 20-barrel brite tank. I’m thinking of asking for one of these brewhouses for Christmas (yeah, right).

The brew day actually started many days ago…

I arrived at the brewery at 9am, after receiving word the evening before that the yeast was properly prepared for brew day. Kim stressed that in actuality, brew day started a week earlier. Things like researching and putting together a recipe, growing / cropping the yeast, checking that the water system is ready to go…that everything in the brewhouse “looks and smells right”. “I don’t like surprises so I close the brewhouse (checking valves and switches) entirely before we begin. Brew day is always fun for me because it’s the culmination of a lot of work”.

Grinding Grains

Grains are ground in a small, separate room in the brewhouse. The grains are then piped to “Billie” the mash tun (all of the equipment vessels are named for women in the brewhouse) for mashing. Fortunately, the grains were ground the day before, so we can begin mashing.

Ready, Set, Mash!

Grains are pumped and stirred into “Billie”, with a mix of hot and cold water (188 degree & 61 degree, respectively). “Billie’s” internal rakes stir the grains and water while Kim closely monitors and adjusts the water mixture to reach the target mash temperature…it’s super manual. Kim likes that everything isn’t “totally decked out” (automated). “We push a lot of buttons, but by no means is it automated brewing”.

Kim climbs up to the central brewhouse platform to more closely monitor the mash-in. The mash rakes were a gift from Kim to herself. They eliminate and lot of physical labor required for properly stirring in the grains. “I want to be able to do this when I’m 75 so I’m excited about it”! Kim’s mash-tun continuously recycles the wort through the grain bed to extract the most sugar from the grains as possible.

Treating the water (adding mash salts)

Guardian’s water well source was terrible for making beer, so they had to install a RO (Reverse Osmosis) system. Because of this, the “stripped” water must be built up to the appropriate profile for the desired beer style. Like homebrewers, Kim consults water software to determine the variety and amounts of salts to add to the mash water. “I feel like water is a piece people forget to deal with. Starting with RO water and building from scratch is awesome. I think it makes a big difference (in their beer)”.

Lots of Measuring

Similar to homebrewing, taking measurements throughout the brewing process is critically important to commercial brewing as well. In addition to monitoring mash temps, and wort color/clarity, Kim monitored PH and gravity in similar ways, as I would, as a homebrewer. Kim shares, “Measuring is critically important not just for monitoring, but for collecting data so the process can be replicated”.

Cleaning out the mash-tun…multitasking is VERY important

Throughout the brew day, Kim rarely did just one thing at a time. She was multitasking continuously. Tasks ran the gamut from sanitizing equipment, checking on the yeast, taking measurements, cleaning, and preparing for the next step in the process. Guardian has a relationship with a local farmer to take their spent grains and use them as cattle feed. All of the local breweries seem to do this. Obviously it’s a great way to not only eliminate waste but to put it to good use.

The Boil, featuring “Tina” the boil kettle

After sparging (rinsing the grains), it’s off to “Tina” the boil kettle. Kim’s system makes use of pumps and valves to move the wort around. On first glance the valves look like a bewildering array of complicated plumbing. To aid herself initially and her assistant brewer, she added some labels to the valves. Kim closely monitors fill levels from above and through her sight glass as “Tina” fills. Kim takes some gravity and PH reads using the same tools I use as a homebrewer. When all of the wort is collected, “Tina” is set to boil temperature. When the boil begins, hops are added and we head over to the taproom for lunch. Kim treats me to Guardian’s excellent food along with some beer sampling…how sweet is that?!?

Off to “Chrissie” the fermenter…

After an hour of boiling, the wort is whirlpooled and cooled using a glycol heat exchanger. The whirlpooling concentrates the solids and hops to remove them from the wort prior to fermentation (see the photo below). Again, Kim closely monitors everything. The wort is cooled to the optimal temperature for this particular yeast strain, before its pumped to “Chrissie” the fermenter. “Chrissie” is a beautiful, 10-barrel, stainless steel conical fermenter (yes, I’m drooling over this). Inside “Chrissie” the yeast is waiting to begin fermentation, eventually transforming it into dry Irish Stout for St. Patrick’s Day.

Be nice to your yeast, care for it and talk to it?

As we all know, yeast is critically important to making great beer. Kim nurtures her yeast. Since she’s cropping her yeast (harvesting and reusing), she monitors it a bunch hoping it will give her the “yeast babies” she needs. She regularly talks to the yeast, assuring it she will take care of her “yeast babies”. Kim typically uses yeast for 5 generations before gathering new yeast.

Clean-up

The final hour or so, of the brew day, is for cleaning up. The mash-tun, boil kettle, plumbing and hoses have to be thoroughly flushed, scrubbed and sanitized.

Floors need to be swept and mopped. Various equipment around the brewhouse needs to be torn down, cleaned and sanitized. Not the most fun activity of the brew day, but of course very necessary.

What I learned and what surprised me

Firstly, the basic brewing process at a commercial brewery is the same as homebrewing. Of course, the scale of things is much larger, but the basics of grinding grains, mashing, sparging, boiling, cooling the wort and fermenting are the same.

The next thing that somewhat surprised me was to learn that Kim researches and design recipes much like myself and other homebrewers. She scours the internet, books and magazines researching the various beer styles she wants to brew. She doesn’t “lift” anyone’s recipes, but rather looks for commonalities across recipes to provide hints on what will make that beer great.

I was surprised to see Kim using many of the same tools I use as a homebrewer. We use the same measuring tools for testing gravity (refractometer) and use the same PH meter brand. Of course she has additional tools and sensors that are included as part of her commercial brewhouse.

Perhaps the most stunning revelation I had was discovering that Kim’s commercial brew day length was about the same as mine homebrewing. Of course the big difference is she brews 10 barrels of beer in the time it takes me to brew 5 gallons!

It was satisfying to learn that commercial brewers like Kim obsess over their beer as much as a homebrewers like myself does. She sweats the details and worries over each step in the process, driven by the desire to make the best beer possible.

Looking back on the brew day, I found that we shared a ton of information and learnings. I gained a great deal of insights into how to improve my processes and interesting new brewing aspects to consider in my homebrewing. I think Kim enjoyed sharing information regarding new brewing information and resources, brewhouse processes/techniques and trending beer styles. We had fun debating brewing “lore”, especially which ones we believe and which ones we don’t. Overall, we were a couple of “beer geeks”, “geeking-out” about brewing all day.

Finally, it was sobering to learn that actual brewing is a pretty small part of what takes place at a brewery. The realities of commercial brewing are that your typical workweek is made up of a ton of non-brewing activities. That worsens when you are also the owner, like Kim. The demands for her time are extensive. But brewing is always the best activity she has on her plate.

Thanks to Kim and her folks at Guardian Brewing for putting up with me all day. They are extremely nice and gracious people to visit with. If you are in the area, stop in and say “hello”. The food and beer are exceptional.

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