Above is a chart showing the cost of improving the current VT pilot plant. We installed durable labels and valve tags to the system to help with instructional purposes.

Above is a chart showing the potential savings based on improved brewhouse efficiency for a smaller microbrewery that would make about 50 barrels or BBLs a month, similar to what the VT pilot plant would produce. We saw a 15% increase in brewhouse efficiency from this year's brews when compared to last year's brews. This was due to the adjustments we made in our mill and the use of consistent batch sparging. These savings are huge for a small microbrewery. For a larger microbrewery that produces 1000 BBLs per month, savings of around $6000 per month or $72,000 per year could be achieved with a 20% improvement of brewhouse efficiency. We expected to see a even greater increase in savings with using continuous sparging but we were unable to test this theory due to time constraints.

• Yeast Counting: Taking more samples of yeast to get a more accurate yeast pitching rate
• Brewhouse Efficiency Calculations: Need more data to confirm the positive trend we have seen in brewhouse efficiency
• Grist Analysis-Comparing how different malt sizes affect milling to see if one setting on the mill is enough or will need to adjust the mill according to different malts
• Continuous Sparging vs. Batch Sparging- Experiment with continuous sparging to determine whether it will be more efficient then batch sparging