BrewingHow small-batch becomes big-batch beer

Ever wonder how an idea for a recipe becomes a beer that makes it to our taps? From small-batch to big-batch there are a lot of steps between.

At First Street Brewing Co. we start our idea process with a suggestion, which turns into research (a lot of research) and then it becomes a small-batch brew; 10 gallons to be exact.

We’ll test the small batch to see if it meets our high expectations. If our testing is a success, then it’s time to start brewing the large-batch version. Which turns out to be much less hands-on than the small-batch process. Thanks Alpha Brewing Operations! *Insert flashback to grinding grains by hand in our garage.*

A lot of ingredient conversion occurs between 10 gallons and 465 gallons; it’s not just scaling by 46.5 times. We have to take into account the strength of each ingredient being used and how it will play with the other ingredients. Cooking temps, boil times and secondary ingredient additions are all a factor when we start to scale-up these recipes.

Whether it’s what hop blend makes it into our double dry hopped (DDH) Haze Stings IPA, how many Thai lime leaves that you can find in our East Side Wheat, or how many pounds (that’s right, pounds) of Populace Coffee that’s in our Popular Blonde, scaling ingredients isn’t necessarily a one-to-one ratio.

It takes a lot of math, knowing conversion rates of our hops, some pretty wicked record keeping and trial-and-error. We always hope the errors end up in our favor *knock on ALL of the wood.* 

Once recipes are converted and upscaled for our 15-barrel system it’s time to schedule and brew. We’ve got a pretty exciting test batch of what could be a delicious winter warmer for the upcoming season. So here’s hoping that our conversion rates are correct and the spices agree with them. Let’s just say it could be golden…