Whether it’s a massive commercial undertaking, or a small, ten-gallon operation in a home brewer’s basement, all breweries are essentially the same. The same ingredients are used, and the process of brewing is similar. The one genuinely common denominator is the selection of the various materials that are used for the tanks, tubs, filters and brewery fittings.
When you see the inside of a commercial brewery, it is always amazing to see gleaming copper kettles, stainless steel hoppers and holding drums for the various ingredients and what seems to be miles of hose and pipe. A combination of materials and absolute cleanliness is what allows the brew master to turn out the same beer, batch after batch. Of course, predictable taste is of utmost importance to commercial brewers, often far more so than the beer brewed at home.
Home brewers do face different problems than commercial breweries; most of these problems are based on cost. Many home brewers do what they do as nothing more than a hobby, they try to keep it as inexpensive as possible and still turn out a beer which is pleasant and tastes great.
Beer reacts differently with various materials at different stages of the brewing process. The common materials that are used include aluminum, copper, brass and stainless steel. What is important is that all of these materials are non-corrosive which simply means they will not corrode during the brewing process and leave behind a flavor which is not wanted.
For many years the favorite material was copper, even though stainless steel brewery fittings were known to be superior. The reasons for copper’s popularity as a material in the brewing industry has now waned as the cost has increased dramatically and now stainless steel has become economically viable.
Many home brewers are satisfied with making small batches, perhaps no more than five gallons of beer at a time. These small operations are quite simple and the only metal component that is absolutely required is the brew bucket where the entire brewing process takes place. As the hobbyist brew master gets more and more into it, the entire operation can grow and all the various components get plumbed together using stainless steel brewery fittings and copper tubing or hose.
