On a glorious, sunny, Fall morning, two large flatbed trucks rolled up with our brewing tanks in tow.

It was truly amazing to finally see them in person, glistening in the sun and ready to be placed in our space. Our tanks were custom made for our space by Rocky Mountain Vessels in Colorado. For more details about our selections, see this previous post.

So, How’d you get those big things in there?

Our dock doors are relatively short (8′ opening). It turns out there are specialists that do this type of heavy lifting and maneuvering everyday. Murphy Rigging has been helping breweries in the Twin Cities place big tanks for years, and we turned to their expertise to handle our equipment.

The crew from Murphy Rigging immediately got to work preparing to move the tanks indoors. A couple fork lifts and a massive tool chest were unloaded from the trucks.

Some of the tanks arrived already laying on their side, which made quick work of pulling them inside. Others standing up, but too tall to make it through the door were slowly tilted down and pulled through the door using straps, two forklifts, along with our held breath and crossed fingers.

The photos above showcase the process of tilting a fermenter (our tallest vessel) up to standing. Once standing within the space, it was surprisingly easy to move them around. Since empty tanks really aren’t as heavy as one might assume, a simple pallet jack was used to lift the tank and it could be maneuvered around with just one person.

Next Steps

Once the crew placed them in their approximate positions, James got to work unpacking the fittings and setting up the connections. Here he is at the end of the day, proudly standing a top the brewing platform between the mash tun and brew kettle.

The next step is to inch the tanks into their exact final resting spot so the crew from Architect Mechanical can begin piping the glycol lines to the tanks and installing the ventilation chimneys from the brew kettle.

Before and After

Amazingly, it only took half a day to get the tanks inside and fill up this space.