The hydrator mixes the grain with hot water (about 168 degrees). The grant underneath the mash tun acts as a reservoir for the sweet wort as it is being pumped to the kettle during runoff.

All 775 gallons (25 barrels) of wort is boiled for 75 minutes in the kettle. During this time, the hops are added and the wort is sterilized. It is fired by a 475,000 BTU natural gas burner.

After boiling, the wort runs into the hopback before being pumped to the fermenter. For some beers, the hopback is full of hops, which give the beer additional hop aroma.

The chiller is comprised of thin, stainless steel plates. The boiling hot wort passes on one side of each plate while cold, filtered water passes in the opposite direction on the other side. This heat transfer cools the wort to 70 degrees for ales and 54 degrees for lagers, and produces hot water that returns to our hot water tank.

Pure oxygen is added to every batch of beer to give the yeast the ability to reproduce before fermentation begins.

The grain silo holds about 65,000 pounds of pale malt, the base malt for all of our beers. All of the specialty malts come in 50- and 55-pound bags. The mill has two case-hardened steel rollers that split the grain husk open and expose the sugars inside. The grist case holds the grain for one batch of beer after it has been milled.

We have 12 fermentation tanks, ranging in size from one 14-barrel (434 gallons) fermenter to three 100-barrel (3100 gallons) fermenters. Our ales ferment at 70 degrees for about six days, and our lagers ferment at 54 degrees for about two weeks. Each fermenter is insulated and has glycol pipes that regulate the temperature.

The conditioning room is essentially a large refrigerator and holds most of our conditioning tanks. We have five 78-barrel (2418 gallons) insulated conditioning tanks that hold most of our green (young) beer at 39 degrees for ten days. Our IPA and Cabin Fever have dry hops added to them in the conditioning tanks, and are then aged for fourteen days. Our Oktoberfest is aged for about three months in these tanks.

Brite beer is beer that has been conditioned and carbonated. We have three 34-barrel insulated brite beer tanks (left) and one 78-barrel insulated tank found in our Mo Room (right). We use many of the tanks in the conditioning room as both conditioning tanks and as brite beer tanks.

We package kegs, 12 oz. and 16 oz. cans, and 22 oz. bottles. Our automated kegging line cleans, sanitizes, and fills up to 60 kegs an hour. The state-of-the art canning line is able to fill over 200 cans per minute and package them into 4pk, 6pk and 12pk boxes. Our automated bottling line labels, rinses, fills, caps, and boxes the beer.