Ep 23 - Everything About Commissioning Beer - Edina Bálint

Commissioning is one of the most intense, stressful and rewarding aspects of brewery management. And it is a poorly covered subject, which this episode is going to end. 

In this blockbuster episode, Chris Lewington (host) and the amazing Edina Bálint (Commissioning brewer at SSV) discuss everything you need to know about commissioning. 

Topics we cover

• Project steps of a typical craft brewery turn-key project
• Where to get your tanks manufactured 
• Steps of Commissioning
• Who from the business should be involved in commissioning brews? 
• Safety and Training
• Is there any optimisation during commissioning?

By the end of the episode, you will be ready for your first commissioning. Good luck, and if you enjoy the episode, please share it with your brewing pals, colleagues and associates.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
00:32 The Importance of Commissioning
00:37 Chris's Major Project Experience
02:20 Call to Action for Listeners
03:05 Introduction to Brewing Trade
04:14 Guest Introduction: Edina Ballant
04:46 Edina's Brewing Journey
07:13 SSV and Commissioning Brewer Role
12:16 Turnkey Projects Explained
22:39 Commissioning Steps and Processes
32:59 The Mysterious Black Dust in Brewing Tanks
35:14 Challenges and Pressure in Brewery Projects
36:08 First Brew: Quality Specs and Commissioning
38:49 Training Brewers on New Equipment
42:02 Importance of SOPs and Customization
54:04 Optimisation and Efficiency in Brewing
59:43 Maintenance and Service Contracts
01:02:24 Final Thoughts and Reflections

🔗 Edina's LinkedIn

🔗 Chris' LinkedIn

🔁 Brewing Trade

🎵 Horacio Colombo

Transcript

0:14

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of the Modern Brewer podcast with me, your host, Chris Lewington. One of the joys of running this podcast is I get to reflect on my career, what went well, where I should have done better. And where a podcast episode would have seriously saved my ass. And this is exactly what brings us to this episode on commissioning. One of the major projects of my career was being accountable for the commissioning of the UK's most advanced craft brewery. A greenfield, 40 million pound site, capable of producing 250, 000 hectolitres a year. I want to be clear here, I Was far from did this alone. I had an outstanding group of brewers and people working together and everyone played a totally equal part in getting that over the line. It was a really fun, intense project to be a part of. I'd actually never done any commissioning in a brewery before in my life. and the weeks prior to our team being ready to take the accountability I found a surprising lack of resources online to help me understand what was at stake, what to expect, and ultimately how to deliver it successfully. So I'm bringing this episode to life, one I wish existed several years ago, can only hope this is coming to help you prepare for what is without a doubt the most stressful yet rewarding aspects of brewery management commissioning. You have to remember that far beyond ensuring everything is quote unquote working properly, you are accountable for the future of your brewery's production, its control, its limitations and successes. Do not take it lightly, and make sure you commit as much time as you can to it. And then I had 50 percent more. I hope this episode helps you now or in the future. And as always, if you have any questions, you can always reach out to me directly. My contact information is in the show notes as it always is. Now, I must ask you all the listeners to do me a huge favor. Most of you might know, some of you might not, but this podcast is far from my main job, and I don't always have the time. to invest into pushing the reach of this pod as well as it deserves. So I need a favor. Can you please share the pod with at least one of your brewing friends? Even if it's an acquaintance, just share it. If you've got a WhatsApp group or a forum, that's equally great as well. I mean, even if you hate the content, I'm just looking for the numbers here. Just kidding, but please, it would actually mean a lot to me and it would really help the momentum of this pod move forward. so yeah, if you could take a moment to share, that'd be really great. Now, one of my roles that does take up a lot of my time is I am co founder of Brewing Trade. For those who haven't seen it, what we've been up to is we've revolutionized the hop market by allowing for the first time ever in the UK and Europe, brewers to buy and sell hops directly from each other. Sellers are turning their hops into cash and at the same time buyers on, brewing trade are saving 25 percent on the hop cost compared to the spot market, meaning you have more cash left at the end of the month to put towards that lab equipment you've been dreaming of. All hops for sale are verified by us to ensure they are cold stored at the correct temperature and even if you did find an issue there's a 100 percent money back guarantee. Minimum order quantity is just five kilos and generally the hops are dispatched within 48 hours. So please check out BrewingTrade. com and as always a link will be in the show notes. So let's crack on with this episode on commissioning. With me today is Adina Ballant. Is Adina Ballant who is currently the commissioning brewer for UK based equipment and brewing manufacturers SSV. Adina is straight up class, super knowledgeable and has a super infectious personality. Welcome to the show, Adina. Hello, everyone. Hey, so Adina, why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners for those who don't already know who you are? So I have a Dina. Um, I've been in the brewing industry for about 12 years. I studied brewing and distilling in Budapest, Hungary. Uh, there is a food engineering university with brewing and distilling department there. If there's someone who didn't know, uh, the and the Over there. I made my I had my apprenticeship in the biggest brewery in Hungary called Ray hair. Um, which is used to be a part of some Miller now, Asahi. And I started my journey there as a microbiologist. Um, and I stuck with brewing since then. Um, I just decided to, um, Have a little adventure and I accepted the job in Scotland. So, um, at BrewDog. Uh, so I spent a few years there as well, um, uh, where I picked up a lot of technical knowledge and I joined to the brewing team over there. I sort of wanted to switch from quality to brewing just to have a bit of more hands on and to be able to call myself a brewer rather than a brewing scientist. And since then I just, um, uh, moved to magic rock and vocation. And now here I am at SSV as a commissioning brewer. Yeah, that's so cool. And Edina, why don't you just tell the listeners, because you have such a cool job where you're sat right now. So, I am at Blunt Rock Brewery's taproom at the minute because we just commissioned, uh, their new, uh, our second hand brew kit, uh, and successfully brewed three brews this week. So, uh, yes, here I am. And it's going to be a bit of a celebration tonight, I imagine, right? That's how all commissioning goes? Exactly. It's a very rockstar part of the industry. Just turn up, bash out the first few brews, have a bunch of beers and like jet off like a legend. Yes, exactly. Uh, yeah, we had a few pints yesterday and the day before as well on the first brews, but, um, uh, today there's going to be a little bit of a party. Sounds great. well first let's get this boring podcast out the way, Odina. maybe you could just tell the listeners a little bit about what a commissioning brewer does and, maybe a little bit about SSV themselves. I think everyone's probably familiar, but there's some listeners maybe not in the UK or Europe who might not know who SSV are, so just give us a bit of background on everything. Yeah, so SSV stands for Stainless Steel Vessels, uh, and we are based in Leeds and, um, uh, we are, uh, we really started out with tanks about 10 years ago selling tanks, stainless steel tanks for brewers, mainly brewers, uh, but not, uh, not for all. Um, uh, sometimes we work with, um, distilleries or, um, or cideries as well. And then after tanks, we started to, um, Um, sell and design, manufacture, uh, brew houses as well. And recently we moved to do turnkey projects, um, and CIP kits, um, yeast plans, uh, we also do all the softwares that's behind it. Uh, most of our kits are automated to a certain level, or there is a low, low different level of automation. Um, Yeah, and we also do like modifying brew houses to be automated. So manual brew houses, uh, that's not necessarily our brand. Uh, we are just turning it to be a little bit more efficient. Um, yes. And, uh, uh, that's what SSV is doing. I think our main market is in the UK. But we are trying to, we have a very cool project in France at the minute, uh, and an upcoming project in Helsinki as well. Uh, so we, we have a few, uh, a few plans for the European markets as well. Awesome. So what is your job entail? So my job is, um, Quite versatile. To be honest, I'm involved in most of the projects. Uh, uh, I am the only only commissioning brewer at the minute. Uh, and, um, uh, I'm involved and supporting the sales team to make sure we, uh, um, give the best technical advice and, uh, the best, um, uh, the most, uh, Suitable equipment for the customers. Um, I'm also, um, involved in the design phase. So once we want a project, uh, on the design phase, I'm just consulting with process engineers, uh, to make sure that the kit is built practically. So sort of giving the brewers, brewers lens, the brewers view into it, uh, just to make sure it's going to be, um, Um, just moved to work, uh, work on the kid. Um, and, um, obviously the installation and commissioning of all project and a little bit of the aftercare after that and, uh, training during the commissioning as well. Um, I do help with recipe development sometimes, or when we are upscaling. So very, very different depending on on what's needed. We do some consultancy as well. So people, those are not at the stage yet to to buy the equipment, but they just need a little bit of guidance on how to be more efficient or what what shall they do to get into that phase to be able to buy new tanks or a new kit or so. That's great. It's such a cool job. I'm very involved in lots of different projects. I mean, I imagine it's, it's like one of those jobs where everything is really interesting all the time because you've got new challenges every week, every two weeks, every month, um, new angles. I know you said you work with Cider as well, right? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ah, that's gonna be cool. Never worked in a cidery myself, so it would be a really fascinating thing to be a part of, I imagine. Yes, yeah, yeah. Um, yes, there's a lot of, a lot of different projects, uh, as well. Uh, so it's always learning and it's quite cool to brew and work with these cool brands like Verdun, they, uh, um, Timothy Taylor, Robinsons, Bluntruck as well now. And, uh, um, also bigger, bigger, uh, companies as well like Heineken and, um, Um, um, and Brewdog as well. We did, um, we did the Brewdog, uh, the small Brewdog kit in Brewdog Waterloo, for example. Nice. So it's, it's quite good to work with this big range, like from, from small, from smaller breweries. to large breweries and it's kind of interesting to see the different requirements as well. And the different KPIs, if there's KPIs, so kind of adjusting to small crock breweries as well. But, uh, bigger, bigger, bigger kits as well. Bigger breweries as well. That's awesome. I'm really looking forward to hearing your take on, the sort of, Time frame and the steps of a turnkey project. But for my own sanity, um, I actually was telling you this earlier, but I were, I helped the commissioning of a large brewery and I had no idea what the term turnkey meant until about halfway through the project and I was too afraid to ask anyone. so if you could just start off by explaining what a turnkey project is, and then you can just start talking us through your steps, that'd be amazing. Yes, the turnkey is, uh, technically providing a complete service. So you approach to us, I just want a brewery and then we just give the key and it's ready to go. It's just like buying a car, um, and then you are good to go. Get the key and go, good to go and drive away with it. It makes a lot of sense when you put it like that. Yeah. I mean, in my head, that's what turn key means. Uh, and I guess that's where it come from. I don't know. Uh, yeah. So basically, it not just involves, uh, brewhouse or tanks. But it also involves chillers, um, uh, steam boilers, all, um, also, um, compressors as well. So everything that you need to be able to start the brew. Uh, we have all the electricians, welders with it, we sort out everything. Uh, usually, breweries do do, uh, breweries they don't have, um, place like the active day approach us to do because it's quite stressful to, uh, to put everything all together. All the timings. There's a lot, a lot of going on and very difficult to navigate, um, the project. So obviously we had a lot of project engineers to manage a turnkey project. Um, and, uh, sometimes, uh, Smaller breweries. Those are upscaling. They usually have, uh, certain equipment that they want to take with them. Uh, and they probably have, um, some suppliers or like trusted, uh, um, um, Trusted people to do the voter treatment, for example, like local people, uh, that they want to go with it. So they don't go a full turnkey, but they just using us for brew house tanks on. We might get involved in steam steam generators as well. So in the project, um, depending on the size, but, um, We, uh, usually after the, um, drawings got signed, we are able to deliver the tongues in 20, 22 weeks. Um, The design phase though, before we actually sign the drawings, it could take a few weeks or months depending on the size of the project. If it's a smaller brewery, it could get done in a few weeks. It's a bigger one. It could take two, three months as well, just to go through all, um, all the P& ID, um, piping and instrumentation diagram. If someone doesn't know about it, because we just, another one. Yep. And, uh, so go, uh, we are going to all the P. N. I. D. or the layout, um, as well just to make sure everything fits. Um, uh, so after that, the manufacturing usually takes about 16 weeks, uh, and the delivery about 468 weeks. Recently, it's been taking a little bit longer just because of the, um, uh, Suez canal and the situation in Gaza. Um, so now the containers need to come, uh, come, um, uh, just cross, not crossing, like going around Africa. Uh, so that, that adds a quite, quite a few, like 10, they are two weeks at least to it. Uh, and after that, um, the installation and commissioning is about, um, Two, two weeks installation. Two weeks, uh, again, depends on the size. Two weeks, two weeks commissioning. I'm talking about, yeah, let's say maybe 20, 20, 30 hectolitre brew kits. Uh, we are able to install and commission in, in, uh, two, in a month or so. I've got a question for you, Dina, going back to manufacturing. So. I mean, of course you have the designs and stuff. Do you have one place that you get it manufactured? Do you manufacture it in the UK or elsewhere? So, uh, we have a manufacturer in China called Lihui. Uh, they are located in southern, uh, western China, uh, in Ningbo close to Shanghai. Uh, and we are getting all of the brew house equipments money manufactured there. Recently, actually, we just do a factory. We just did a factory acceptance test over there. So it was quite exciting to go out to China and see how tanks and brew houses is. Getting born, uh, and it was an interesting experience as well to see the culture and, uh, uh, and the factory. It's a big factory. Um, uh, they have about a thousand and, uh, 200 workers there. A lot of welders. They've been working together with other bigger companies like Heineken, Asahi and other European manufacturers, brewing and distilling manufacturers as well. Um, so, um, yeah, it was an interesting experience as well. They were like super organized. Um, and, um, um, um, what else? Yeah, you're probably going to cut this for that. Did you, did you find that the, cause there were quite a lot in the area, in the same area, right? There's a lot of factories all in the same area and producing tanks. What, what sort of landed SSV on, on Lahoy? Uh, I think, uh, we did have, uh, we did have a connection with them prior SSV. Got established and then they just have a discussion to, uh, make a little bit stronger relationship. So I think now we are, um, we are also dealing with European markets. So, for example, uh, now, um, we have a few customers. Those, um, Got Lihui kit or CIP kit or so, and they just contacting us to have, um, um, spare parts for that. Um, that's all. Yeah, that's great. Because there is, there's a small stigma. I think it's fair to say it's probably quite a large stigma attached to, Chinese manufactured equipment. Yeah. Uh from my experience, it's not it's a bit lazy to be like the entire of chinese equipment is of a certain quality it's more as you mentioned the factory, it's very factory to factory. and you guys have obviously found one that you trust I feel like that's probably the message that people should really receive is if if you want to Get cheap tanks made from a factory that you're not sure of or you haven't been in visited Then in my opinion, you kind of, putting your neck on the line there And I would say that you wouldn't be surprised if you got you've got it chopped Because going to a trusted factory where you can go and inspect it and make that make that commitment I think is really important and if you can't do that, then you need to go through a company who does such as ssv i'm and there's plenty of others as well, but i'm not promoting that but what i'm saying is if you can't go out and literally see the factory yourself, then you need to go out, you need to find someone who has. It's an important, part of buying from Asia. Yes, uh, I mean, La Jolla does have a good reputation. They've been, they've been in the brewing industry for quite a long time, for bigger, bigger breweries. Um, so I think, um, now they're doing more smaller breweries as well, especially with SSV. And during the years, like at the first stage, Obviously, not everything was perfect, but because we have a long term relationship now, and we keep giving feedback to them, our kids and the manufacturer, manufacturing is getting the quality of the manufacturing is getting better and better. Because we have this relationship, obviously, day working with other companies as well. And so with us and we taking customers as well, we do have, uh, um, Quite strict requirements as well. And they do have, uh, certifications obviously, if they working with European or American companies, they do need to comply to certain regulations, regardless if it's not legal, like it's not necessarily like, I know the health and safety regulation might have, uh, some lakes in China. But if you want to work with European and international companies, generally, you need to have certain standards. So once we, when, when we go out, went out there and visited, everyone was wearing PPEs. Everyone tried to do the, um, Was working safely. They have a health and safety officer as well. Who's going around and looking if everyone wears and uses the piece babies, PPS and equipment accordingly. And if they not, they do have licensed sort of ticketing system. So they got a ticket and, um, they need to, they actually got a fine. They need to, they need to pay if they were not, uh, varying their provided PPS. Yeah. Uh, and, five s and sort of lean if we, uh, because it's a massive factory, they have, um, they have very, um, very organized processes in order to be able to comply and to able to, um, uh, produce or manufacture the tanks and, uh, different equipments. Yeah, really interesting. So let's take it back to we talked you obviously talked about design manufacturing shipping installation Now, of course, I guess your expertise is in commissioning So maybe for it'll be great for the listeners to understand like what are the steps of commissioning? uh, what happens first? How does it all look Um, so by the time I'm coming there, usually, um, the brew kit got installed, which means everything is positioned. Everything is, uh, welded together and fired together, or usually there's a little bit of, um. Uh, work that we do together over there, but technically all of our, um, kids coming on skid. So that's why we can do the installation very quickly, because it's, uh, just plugging little, uh, skids together. Little, quite big. Uh, plugging, um, bits together, skids together, like a little bit of Lego. So that's why the installation takes quite short time and we try to design everything on skids because it's easier to, um, to ship as well in the containers. Um, and by the time I'm in, uh, usually my first step is to, um, do a dry testing. Uh, which means, uh, um, just, uh, going through the PNID as well, double checking if everything, triple checking if everything is, uh, uh, good. And then we do an IO check, uh, an input output check, which means, uh, all the, um, All the instruments, all the sensors, liquid sensors, safety guards, pressure sensors, transducers, flow meters, uh, is getting tested on the system. As I said, most of our kids to a certain level, optimized. Uh, it's very important to make sure that, um, the input that I'm getting is, uh, is the right input. I'm getting the input. And then. Um, the output that I'm giving is also going to the right equipment, so I can a little bit explain more like, um, um, input is like your senses, like your eyes and a feeling, a touch, taste, uh, that's an input, uh, and then an output that what, what you're going to do, like an output is your, um, your arms, your legs. So let's say you getting burned. Uh, your output is that you're going to move your arm away from this. So, uh, that's how I kind of can explain just a basic of automations. Um, uh, so I'm getting, uh, level sensor, for example, and then I'm starting a pump. The, Oh yes, I'm flooded. I'm okay to go and to pump somewhere else. Or this, um, um, This valve opened, uh, then, uh, or I reach this pressure, then I can go to the next process steps. So that's why the input output check is very important. I'm doing this usually when, uh, the electricians are still inside. It's very, very, very important to have a good spark inside because usually there's some sort of wiring issues. Uh, in this, um, in this tab, um, We are also checking, uh, during input output check, uh, the pumps, pump rotations. Sometimes the pump rotations is going, it's not going to the right, um, um, right way. So we need to turn around, which the guys just need to do some sort of wiring over there. I have no idea about that. Um, Uh, so that's what we're starting with. Um, and we do some calibrations as well. Temperature calibrations, uh, pressure calibrations. Um, the second tap of the commissioning is wet testing. Which means we are bringing water inside on the system. So we tested everything, all the valves working, all the pumps working, all my sensors working. I'm just bringing water in. Water is a safe fluid. Uh, it's not hot. It's at this point, there's no chemicals involved in this. Uh, so it's the best to test with water if you have any leak test. So, uh, I'm pulling the voter in and I'm just going around. If I have any leak, uh, that could be some welding that may be not finished properly. Um, um, or it wasn't visible. So sometimes like this, like a little pinch that's been leaking or, um, some of the ports, uh, needs tightening, um, or so. Um, Uh, we also, um, in this step, we also with water. We also checking, um, the people programs called routines. So we are doing like some sort of like water brew. We are imitating a brew with water., uh, because we write our own software, um, for, um, our, um, HMI, we have like a PLC, like we programming all these sensors together. Um, we are testing all the, all the routines if they work, uh, and fixing that, making like little task list, not list what is working, what's not working. Um. So after we done the water test, uh, and there's no leakage as well, we do, um, we do cleaning, uh, which has to cleaning and passivation. So basically we do a degreasing. Usually, uh, during manufacturers to using different sort of, um, oils and greases, uh, for like cutting, bending. Welding and, um, uh, just assembling the kit. So there's a lot of, um, oil or oil and grease light residue, uh, in the kit, which needs to be, uh, moved. We usually just do it with, um, just general caustic, just a bit stronger. Uh, there's a quiet, uh, good test that you can do after that. It's like a comfort test. I don't know if you, have you, have you, have you done that before? So you can get, like, comfort, uh, Oh, sorry, I thought you said comfort. I was like, what's a comfort test? And I was thinking, what an unusual name. Oh, sorry, yeah, I was, yeah. A comfort test, yes, absolutely, yeah. It was one of those really cool little scientific you felt like you probably did at school but completely forgot about until you needed it in the real world. Yes. This is really cool. Yeah, I love it. There is a, yeah, there's finally, there's a use for it. Uh, we did like, you can put like a, I think like little fish and stuff like that in the school, uh, on the campfire and then you can see how it, uh. Uh, wiggles around. Mm-Hmm. Um, so yeah. Do you wanna explain the comfort test to people? Sorry, I interrupted you with thinking It was called the Comfort Test, which now I feel Comfort Test. I love a good comfort test.. So, c Comfort Test. Uh, uh, uh, so basically you just, uh, get some comfort, uh, news. Do I pronounce it right though? Yeah. Yeah. It's just me. I wasn't don't worry,. So you just get, you can granules, uh, you take a sample of the range rot. After you degrease the tank, um, and you drop a little bit of camphor granules, just make sure, um, you do it with just a spatula or so and you're, uh, just not in with your fingers because it's quite greasy. So you put some camphor water and, um, Uh, if they spin in the water, that means there's no oil or there's no grease. So it's good to go. If they are stand still, then that means oil or presence, uh, in the in the In the tank so you just need to do a re cleaning over there. Yeah, it's fun because they do really spin quite entertaining Yes, they do. There's a cool videos on youtube as well To check and then you can try it out It has a very strong smell though. So Don't be astonished by that and after after we degreased the do passivation which basically again from cutting there could be some um You Uh, some free iron present, which could cause rust. And so, um, so, um, with passivation, we usually use nitric acid or night back, but you can ask your chemical supplier about it. What's the best recommended concentration and chemicals that they do? And basically, uh, we just do a good acid clean, uh, on all the arms and ports of the kit. Um, which, um, sort of, um, uh, creates a protective, um, Oxid layer, uh, which protects you from rust, uh, and keeps your tanks nice and healthy. Uh, you can redo it as well if, um, if you notice anything in your tank or, uh, there's like different different chemicals as well. Um, Dina, I've got a question for you with cleaning. Have you ever come across, um, inside the tanks, uh, it was actually for mentors and from my experience, but like a black welding dust. Have you ever seen that before? Um, no I have not. Not many people have had the misfortune of having that in their, uh, in their tanks. But it's, so, in the project I worked on we got a, I think it was four to thirty six tanks. And I'd say thirty of them had a layer of black dust on the inside of the tank going all the way almost up to the top. Mm. Um. Some patches was really noticeable when you shine a light on it, you could see it and you could rub it off with your finger and it made you like, your thumb would then go black, but when you put water in it, it didn't come off and when you put C. I. P. Liquid through it, it didn't come off when there was nothing that would take this off other than like actually scrubbing it with a with like a cloth. But these tanks, some of them were 600 hectoliters, so pretty tall. and we Were in a bit of a pickle to say To put it very nicely because we really need to brew in these tanks and no one really knew what this was there was someone who'd been on the project whose career had been in project management for Bit new breweries who had never seen this before. So some say it's actually fairly rare, I guess and We contact I contacted chemical suppliers different people. No one had seen or used it before You I had seen this, like, black dust on the inside of the tank, and I eventually managed to get hold of someone who had seen a study from Veinsteffen University on this exact problem, and I managed to get hold of it, and I read it, and effectively, the only way of getting rid of this black dust is with beer. Oh! However, it dissolves into beer, and it'll be separated out with a separator, with zero side effects. And that's what this case study from Weinzeffen was. So it was like, this meaty document full of information about all the tests they'd done. Someone had paid them to do it, so one big brewery, I think it was one of the big conglomerates, had this problem. No one knew what to do. So he paid Weinsteffen to investigate the effects of this dust on beer. And it basically came out. There was no, head retention was good. There was no taste, off late taints or flavors. So we basically had to trust this study and we brewed into it. It was absolutely, yeah. And considering that the brewery was, the biggest project this brewery had seen, so it was pretty daunting, but yeah. So if anyone comes across this black dust and you'll listen to this, I hope this is the unlike, the, Of the shining that I got when when we found it, this study But yeah, you can effectively just put beer in it and it's and it's okay you just have to trust the process Oh, that's super interesting. Yeah, it was one of the we're just one of those moments, you know It's just really tough because there's a lot of pressure to get things done No one's knows no one's seen it. No one knows how to act and of course No one's the goal of nothing is to put anything down the drain. So it was a bit. yeah Yeah Yeah, and you go down some real rabbit holes when pressure's on, don't you? So, um, I hope anyone listening to this, uh, who, who needs it gets it, uh, gets the solution. Well, I have not come across with that. Uh, usually, to be honest, our kid's getting passivated and cleaned prior it. So, um, we just, when we are revalidating this kid, obviously there's, So that's why we do. But I haven't, I haven't seen that before. We don't usually manufacture those big tanks as well either. So, um, I keep an eye on it. Thanks for that. I hope it helps someone. Um, Oh, cool. So let's say you've now cleaned everything. you're happy with everything. How I find this a really interesting part. How. How do you get the first brew through? How, what quality specs do you go for? How strict are they? How often does that first commissioning batch make it into pack? A bunch of questions. Uh, we have, uh, not to my best knowledge, uh, there's never, uh, beer never gone down in a drain during commissioning. So every commission got into tank. Obviously, it might be different, um, With a bigger breweries as well. Those have certain specification that you need to need to, uh, go of it, but touch food, uh, uh, the, the never needed to dump, uh, usually on the first brew. Obviously I made sure everything is rinsed and clean. And so usually on the first brew, I like to do it myself. Um, um, so I can also get my head around it. Um, Um, just to make sure I'm doing make sure the program is, uh, is running right as well. Uh, and then, um, because in the first group is a lot of things that, you need to stop. You might need to keep your mesh a little bit longer or I don't know you meshing it in half an hour or whatever you have like, you need to adjust the motors and the conveyors together. Um, Um, and, uh, after the first brew gone, uh, and we fixed the major, uh, Uh, major issues. Programming issues. The good thing with us as well. Obviously, I can do everything manually. So even though we have a software, if the software part doesn't work on certain, uh, certain programs, uh, we can just do that part manually. I can still turn on my pump manually. I can still open my valve manually. So there's no, um, there's quite a lot of flexibility over there. And usually after the first brew, we fix the major issues, uh, or the, or the, That was stopping the brew program to go run through and on the second brew, uh, usually I'm already training, uh, trained the brewers, um, for the kit. Amazing. Yeah. If there's a brewer, sometimes, uh, there's no brewer at that time. No, it's like, uh, Oh no. Well, sometimes they are like head brewers or like, uh, It's very good to people, for example, just now at Blount Rock, it's very good to, to train, um, brewers that was actually going to work on the kit because, um, we might train head brewers or some senior management people, but, uh, as I said, we, we do usually, um, you We commissioned quite quickly and we have three commissioning brew. Uh, if I'm doing it with a head brewer, uh, or a senior brewer, I don't really have, uh, an impact. What is getting true afterwards? the business is very, very quick. There's a lot of, a lot of going on. There's a lot of, uh, uh, to pay attention as, um, As a manager, so I like to do the training with the brewers. There's actually a brew on it because then I can explain little tricks and, uh, tricks and tips. And I can also see, you know what, I can also see if the, what, what is that day laking. What, what skills they do not have because we are training different, um, people with different, brewers with different skills. Some of them has more or less experience. Some of them do not, did not have any experience with automatic brew on automatic brew kits. Uh, so, um, So I can just see and adjust my type of training as well, uh, to the person or to the kid. Uh, they can ask directly me if they are unsure about it. Um, and we just also build a relationship, a long term relationship where we can just reach out to each other. Oh, hey, Dina, uh, I was wondering about this or I'm not sure how to do this when I'm not on side and it's just easier to approach as well. Do you find that larger groups of people that you have to train is more effective or ineffective for training? Um, A good question. I usually train one people, one person. So, for example, if I'm going on, um, I'm going, uh, with this example that we just done at Blunt Rock. Each day I trained, or we trained, we did the brew with different brewers. And it's, I find it easier. Um, I don't think I ever trained more people. I mean, I can see two people. If it would be more than two person, I think I would struggle to explain. They would have different questions as well. Um, I think it's, it's more, it's more effective if I train one person and we can talk eye to eye and we can see and validate each other or, or, um, yeah, they can probably. Can we just we just can have a little bit open conversation Yeah, absolutely. Do do people often well, I guess they're going to have to make standard like sops standard operating procedures I promised I'd start explaining abbreviations more Yeah, do people make sops as they go generally from what you see or from the from like the first commissioning brewery they Writing down and then going away and writing it up So other people can train or do you think it's generally something they have to take a bit of time to figure out the kit themselves Uh, good question. Um, I do not write SOPs. I don't think that's my, uh, responsibility. Um, so we do not provide SOPs for our kids. Uh, they, they should do it after we commissioned. Uh, they need to still figure out their own way. we commission and we get the bruise through. Um, but they, firstly they need to make their own standards. What and how they want what they want what they pay attention on. Um, Um, and, uh, David need to write that. I don't know how they do that. I don't I don't have a I don't have a I don't have a picture on that, but it's their responsibility. I I'm aware that this is, I think, just generally in the craft beer industry. I think it's. It's something that needs to be improved on. I'm not sure what you, what's your experience is, especially on smaller kids, but I think it's also something that needs to come from management and upper end to put importance on it. Agreed. A hundred and ten percent. Um, I, I've got a question. Maybe you might have to end up going back to another point, but. If you wanted to change something so I'm a brewer I'm going through and I think no I don't want that to happen in that way Can they change that while during commissioning or is there is that the point of no return when you're on site or where? Where's sort of the best place to raise these concerns and how do you go about? You know changing or implementing new procedures at that point Yes. Um, good question actually, just because the commissioning is quite short. Not everything is perfect by the well, I'm going to say commissioning week, not everything is perfect. We usually, um, once we put a brew kit in operation, we write a snag list, a tech task list, um, that we, um, that we're finishing up and we always checking back with the customer, if let's say one of the step doesn't work. Then we just feeding back for quite a few weeks that to make sure it is how they want. And then, um, we do like, or at least I do like keep in touch with the brewers as well, if everything is okay. And after a few months we can check back if once they figured the actual processes, um, if they need to change anything, um, I want this tap or I want my palm to go slower or I want this regulate regulating or whatever then, then we would do that. Uh, there is, um, so after we had a setup and they want a new change after a year, uh, where we already closed the project, uh, they could still do that, but obviously there would be some charge on changing the software. If it, if it comes to get new valves, new pneumatic valves or stuff like that, uh, that, that's also like a different topic, but obviously that would need to be, that's like, we need to be caught, we need to cut the line. They could also, we can, we can always pop more automation on it as well. Later. I, I agree. You know my advice from my brief experience is nowhere near as much as the dean is but from the other side where you're the brewer and you're having someone help you with commission is don't be afraid to be quite demanding at this point Because it's now that you can influence the most change And then once you're sort of left with an automated system to some extent you get a Huge amount of consistency, which is why people strive for automation, but it does come at the cost of flexibility So it means that you don't have the ability to change things as you do Now on your manual kit where you want to change a new procedure or do something new You just open valves in a different way and it doesn't work like that. Obviously when you've got automation so during this time you want to be as demanding if you And question as many things as you can and if you don't like the way things are being sequenced It's a lot easier to get them solved and changed now or I mean, of course preferably in the design phase, but it can be quite difficult when you're in the design phase to visualize and some of some procedures and some Recipes or sequences might be the better word for it. So Yeah, I'd say my advice is just be super demanding don't be afraid and ask lots of questions during this time because this is your time to really have the biggest amount of influence over your brew kit before it gets sort of Sealed behind automation. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think that's right. That's that's 100 percent We improved a lot in the past couple of years so Usually now we have certain we have a certain style. I can say that and Because we reverted so it's so many breweries. We also got feedback. What was Okay. What was not okay. So we always changed. So I think we have acquired good design that fits to most of the brewers. Obviously, all the brew kit is tailored to the brewery. If it's a lager or double, triple, imperial style, whatever, whatever they brew, there are certain things that we need to pay attention on design. But we try to make it as practical as possible from the brewers. That's where my, my position comes in just to, as a brewer, to, uh, to make sure it's, it's designed on a way that it should be for the styles that they want to brew. The difficulty is sometimes they want to brew all the styles that's possible, which is very difficult to adopt to, but, uh, I think we're doing great, uh, generally. Well, yeah. Um, I saw quite a few brew houses as well. What I wanted to add as well, it's also sometimes, um, uh, let's say it has been designed, but the brewer was not involved in the design phase, or not the brewer was involved, who is actually going to brew. So sometimes over there, there could be some confusions like, or like, oh, the brewer wishes it was like this. Uh, but you know, I think it's perfect sometimes. So, um, uh, it's good to involve the brewery itself. Obviously the design fails already. Uh, but sometimes breweries, well, usually there are brewing experts. People, those are already worked, uh, different companies and wanting to set up their own brewery. Um, uh, Ideally, uh, if it's possible, it would be very great if the extra brewers can be employed, employed before the installation. Uh, that makes the life so much easier. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. I've been so far removed from that side of the world. It must be absolutely, uh, chaotic commissioning with no brewers around. Oh, actually probably beautiful. It's actually not chaotic at all. It's probably so incredibly peaceful. Cause there's loads of people asking loads of questions, but you must fear for the longevity of the, uh, Of everything. It could be quite stressful anyway, just because I think we were talking about it. There's a lot of other things going on while you're commissioning. So there's a lot of cranes around putting centrifuges in or different things, because you are commissioning the brew house, or it could be like, we didn't talk, but we obviously commissioning CIP kits as well, or, uh, we are commissioning boilers, um, smaller boilers. Sometimes the contractor comes inside and they commissioning there. Um, and then you have the, um, Um, or the chillers as well. Um, and everything happens is the same times for the, um, it's actually quiet. Um, planning for installation and commissioning is very, very crucial. I wanted to touch base that because. Um, if you have compressor boiler, everything, all these, they need to be happen quite on the same time, for the, for the steam generator, you need to have, um. a load to give. So you need to heat something up for the chiller. You need to already to a certain level have commissioned or installed the athletes to be able to test the chiller as well. Dry goods again. Um, so everything is happening at the same time. So when the commissioning is ongoing, there's a lot of people, a lot of, a lot of concentration that needed and health and safety is. It's extremely crucial as well, just because, as I said, there's so much electricians, so much other people, contractors inside, uh, you need to pay attention that, um, well, as a brewer, obviously, just generally not accidentally, um, um, um, um, um, during cleaning, not accidentally, uh, flushing chemicals on someone, uh, or someone is around, like, I don't know, for example. The other week we were commissioning and boiling and the electricians were just like at the condenser fixing something. So you need to pay attention to inform people, right? Because, uh, you don't know what, what there's a lot of contractors inside at that time. Yeah. It can be quite eyeopening when you've never commissioned before and you Realize that commissioning is not where they get every single thing set up ready to go and then you start brewing It's you start brewing as things are going in and it's like well, this is not what I expected at all I thought I was gonna walk in, you know Turn the key get into the brewery and if you have a brand spanking new everything's ready set up to go and I just turn up It's not like that you're running the brew house whilst the and then putting it into the fermenter whilst the separate is being installed Are you like this is You know, this is all getting rather tight and then all of a sudden, yeah Storage vessels are going in after the yeast prop but before You've actually well just before you're ready to use them. It's all it is a bit of a a beautiful chaos Really, isn't it? I mean as you said planning is just beautiful chaos. I like that planning is key and you need a very good project manager or someone who's capable of Working a lot of different moving parts into one timeline Yes We had, we had one for the big project, a guy called Jan Fidder. And he was one of the best people I've ever worked with. And, and to scale this project, like the scale of that project and how many people he had to deal with and bring into timelines, it's absolutely outstanding. It's a real skill, something I probably don't have a strong enough one in. Yeah. And a lot of times, if you have a brew kit, You want to brew, so there's a big pressure to push out the beers. Um, so, um, so there's, it's not like you're waiting for everything, as you said, to get finished. Because if you, if the brew kit is already there, okay, why am I not brewing? So there's a big pressure of start brewing and that beer is going to go into cans and, push out. Sometimes it's already planned in if it's, uh, if they scaling up. Um, Those first few brews are all, well, I'm not saying it's sold, but it's definitely planned in. And, uh, if it's a very busy brewery, just not too much leeway to, delay or, or be late with it. I think, yeah, absolutely. And talking about commissioning, how important is optimization during commissioning and how much attention gets paid and paid. Should they then pay it later on? Might be a leading question. Um, good question. Um, usually, uh, optimization is not, the pri not the priority during commissioning. It is safety, uh, obviously number one. Uh. Just because it's an automated system, we have safety guards, uh, and I think training is a part of the safety as well, just to make sure they're using the kids, right? And, um, and getting through synchronizing the system, synchronizing the dry good system together, making sure everything is is working rather than optimization and, We are not working already on efficiencies. We wanna, well, it's not like we, we are getting out, like our kids are getting quite good efficiency generally, but I'm not focusing on the efficiency on this time. Uh, and, uh, and not, not on voter usage either. Like obviously we are not, we not, uh, we not, uh, flooding the, uh, the brewery, but it's not, uh, that's not the. Space and time to do, it's just to get it going safely. Uh, getting a good beer out and the optimization, I would say on the brewery afterwards. And, uh, skilled brewers, uh, if they have, um, and obviously the management as well, where the, where they put the focus on. Yeah, I mean it's such a great point. Commissioning it so many moving parts, as we've said quite a few times, that optimization is kind of an unrealistic target, especially if, for your example, doing three brews, it's unrealistic to expect someone to, to also optimize perfectly in the goals of commissioning and not to be intensely resourceful. Of course you have, like, as you said, you have efficiency targets and things to make sure, but that's kind of like how the kit operates, but optimizing it beyond that is solely down to the brewery. And I, for my, the, my company brew resourceful, this is where I see a lot of room for optimization downstream, especially in things like water usage and flushes, like preset flushes. Like they're in there because that's what they need to be there for when they're commissioning tick the box, it's good, it works. It's safe. As you said, safety first for people. And, to some extent the beer as well. So making sure that everything is. You know ticked but how important is that and where you can take a lot more risks when it's your brewery rather than when you're commissioning someone else's so I found previous jobs. we had huge amounts of optimization to do post commissioning but that took a whole year really for us to even get comfortable with Everything that we were doing process wise and then we fine tuned And I feel that's you know, don't let that slide basically. It's And understand that it's not the expectation as exactly as you said adina It's like it's not really the scope of commissioning and nor should it be it doesn't really make any sense So just to have that bear that in mind that you will then need to undergo those optimization projects down the line To make sure that you're maximizing your resources and utilities Yeah, uh what I also like obviously i'm not on the side. I think you'd need a lot of data for optimizing Uh just to see like Even a data like what is my incoming water? If we're talking about water, what am I flushing down just to have? Because, uh, yeah, you pay the bills, but you don't sometimes don't pay attention on these details, so you need a data. And once you have that, Oh, where am I losing that water? You need to put some attention on those. And, um, uh, yeah, uh, just a little a person who is actually working there day to day. Well, I feel like and has to, uh, Um, the motivation as well and the willing to do, uh, from day to day basis, they can just notice where things slipping either, either we're talking about water or other energy sources, um, caustic, for some reason, like, um, I did some optimization on CIP kids before, um, on, um, caustic temperatures as well. So for those, you need to have a lot of testing as well. If you're talking about caustic and like micro and you need to, your other system. So, um, I think data that is a little bit overlooked us, uh, overlooked, yeah, that's a bit overlooked and, uh, are getting missed sometimes in smaller companies, smaller breweries. Um, There are, there are obviously a very good examples, but, um, I love data. I love numbers, maybe too much. And I think it has a data has a very, a very big power. If, um, if you put a little bit of attention, you don't even need too much, but you could save a lot of money. Uh, time and voted and all. Absolutely. Something I definitely preach a lot in my day to day life. one final question from, for me, Adina, is on maintenance. So, not all breweries will have engineers or maintenance, full time maintenance staff. So, how, how does just a lowly brewer go about maintaining their brand new turnkey project? Okay. Great. Uh, so we, uh, do provide a list of, um, crucial parts that might be needed to fix things. Some breweries do get them, some breweries do not get them. Uh, we do have service contract as well. Um, and, um, we do provide some sort of like some maintenance on our kit as well. If something goes wrong, lot of brewers just reach out to us. Oh, Could you, um, could you fix this and this and this or something gone wrong or I don't know, uh, heat exchanger recently that we needed to change, uh, because, uh, was not maintained necessarily well. Uh, obviously, uh, doing acid cleans helps a lot, especially if it's a heat exchanger. So you need to, uh, you need to do scale your kit, um, and just generally, um, use it smart. Um, and, um, yes, maintain it. So if you can, if you can afford a contract service, that's obviously, uh, very good. It's difficult. It's getting difficult when kids are not getting maintained. Uh, I wish, uh, I wish most of the brewers could employ someone who has least, uh, uh, has a little bit more, um, um, Electrical or, like engineering skills. It helps if they can maintain on side. But to a certain level, everybody is an engineer. We do a lot of a lot of a lot of fixes by yourself. But, um, uh, we do. We do provide the services as well. Yeah, that's really interesting. service contracts would probably be highly recommended. I'm sure they're not, not factored in the original cost of things, but having properly maintained equipment, pretty essential really, isn't it? For the longevity, what sort of, do SSV, for example, offer a warranty on their equipment? Uh, good question because I don't know. We'll skip over that then. I'm going to put that on, uh, on my list. okay. So, Adina, so far this has been absolutely amazing. Is there anything else you would like to add to the podcast? Um, there's a lot, a lot of things that I could add, uh, uh, not, uh, not to my, uh, not just to that. Is there Uh in my mind we could have a like three hours conversations about about other topics as well connected to commissioning obviously Well, Adina, you're welcome back on this show anytime, thank you so much for taking your time out and sharing Your wealth of knowledge on this like really fascinating subject. And I think you have such a cool job going around commission breweries. I think it must be so fun. I'm so, jealous. I think it must be pretty chaotic and probably pretty high stress at times. So massive respects as well, but I imagine it's pretty rewarding and fun. Thanks 100%. Just working together with these cool breweries. Uh, it's amazing and it's just a big learning curve for me as well. With each brewery I just learn new things. Uh, from each breweries, uh, I just, I just learn new and new. And, I, I learned so much. I thought there are things that would never work out because myself always work for quite big breweries, like, BrewDog, Submitler. I will not just automate it, but I had, um, um, advantage or I don't know, I had the, uh, experience of working on bigger and more automized kit. And sometimes I wasn't aware how, um, How certain manual things would go. Uh, like for example, this week, uh, there was, um, Uh, I had, uh, like I always had scavenge pump when I'm cleaning a CIP and this was the first time when I never, I didn't have a scavenge pump, I only had one pump. To work with. So, uh, so for example, that was a new thing for me as well. So I love, I'm loving learning all these new from new things from the Awesome. Well, I hope, you come back on the podcast in the future and share all of these, great experiences with us all again. Thank you so much for coming on Adina. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure, Chris. Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode with a Diener. If you can remember to share the pod with a brewing friend or acquaintance or colleague, that would be awesome. It would really help me out and help the podcast grow. So, thank you so much for your support and as always, I will catch you on the next episode of the modern brewer podcast..