Page 35 - Beverage Master December January 2020

Craft Beverage

employees’ professional and personal lives fulfill- cies for the type of production the customer wants
ing. Working with nonprofits, connecting with the to do.”
community, and educating people on cider are
huge parts of doing all those things.” Here are some additional tips
from Cellar-Tek’s Co-owner:
Arsenal Cider House partners with a local activity
and tour provider that plans community excursions. 1) Most equipment for the cider industry isn’t pro-
Meriwether Cider Company’s approach includes duced in North America, so expect a supplier
integrative actions such as Purposeful Pours, a of specialized processing equipment containing
quarterly event that raises money for different non- electrical components to have the equipment
profits in its community, and Cider Crews, a tiered UL- or CSA-inspected and approved when it
club program to encourage a dedicated clientele. lands in North America.

Mind Your Business 2) Also, expect to have the supplier set up an
appointment at your production facility to start
The foundational practicalities of your start-up are the equipment and provide basic operations
often a mashup of reality and possibility. So start training along with any applicable maintenance
with the right advice. and safety advice. This tutorial might not be
necessary for “basic on/off equipment,” such as
“We always advise an in-person consultation with manually-fed fruit mills, pumps, or manual grav-
one of our cider equipment sales gurus to ensure ity fillers.
that our potential customers are correctly assessing
their equipment choices using the correct data and 3) If you can find used equipment in relative-
math,” Glockner said. “We also try to get them to ly good condition and see it working before
think ahead, so they don’t face having to upgrade purchase, it may save you capital during the
their equipment two-or-three years after opening start-up phase of development. However, lack
because they didn’t plan for growth. He stressed of warranties and local factory support from
the need for reinforced vision. “Production plans a supplier makes it a difficult decision when
and projections need to be backed up with solid your equipment breaks down in the middle of
sales plans and projections. Otherwise, you’ll have harvest, and there’s no technical support in the
an expensive hobby, not a business.” area to repair it quickly. The cost of lost produc-
tion, spare parts and labor to repair a broken
He also pointed out there’s no “right” way for machine can easily surpass the price of a similar
cideries to choose equipment. “’Right’ could mean piece of new equipment.
the equipment fits their budget, or it could mean it
matches the processing rates they need to achieve 4) If you don’t have experience with fermentation,
for the total volume fruit they harvest. Assuming hire a pro to do it for you, or at least a reputa-
that matching equipment sizes to the customer’s ble consultant with a list of references who can
projected harvest numbers and product plans is teach you the many ins and outs of a successful
the ‘right’ equipment, doing so can minimize the fermentation. “The pitfalls of fermentation are
required time to process a given volume of fruit— many,” Glockner said.
typically expressed in kilograms per hour of fruit
processed,” Glockner said. Our experts all recommended allowing an ample
amount of time and patience to make it through
“If one producer is doing multiple small-batch pro- multiple layers of bureaucracy to establish your
ductions of different styles or varietals, their equip- cidery. “Cider regulations are incredibly complicat-
ment and tank size choices will be smaller than ed,” McGrath said. “Anybody thinking to jump into
another producer looking to make large volumes the market should take some time to understand
of one or two,” he said. “The latter would bene- how they differ from wine, beer and spirits.” The
fit from equipment with higher throughputs and USACM intends to provide more checklists to help
larger tanks to process bigger batches for longer answer producers’ questions, but consult your
continuous periods of time. So getting the ‘right’ regional association for more specifics.
equipment is all about creating operational efficien-

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