Craft breweries get fermentation tanks installed by hiring professional rigging crews to offload the tanks from flatbed trucks, stand them upright, and position them inside the facility. The actual heavy lifting takes one to three days, but the preparation phase spans six to nine months and requires facility modifications and structural engineering to support the weight.
Installation Timeline
Equipment Lead Times
New stainless steel fermentation tanks carry a manufacturing lead time of 16 to 32 weeks. Use this waiting period to finalize facility preparations. Do not wait for tanks to ship before pouring concrete.
Facility Preparation
Allow four to eight weeks for building upgrades. This includes saw-cutting floors, pouring concrete, installing trench drains, and letting floor coatings cure completely. Moving heavy equipment across uncured floors damages the finish.
On-Site Rigging and Delivery
For an expansion of four to six tanks, rigging crews can offload, stand, and position them in one to three days.
Planning with Your Tank Manufacturer
Reviewing Engineering Drawings
Manufacturers provide detailed engineering drawings before production begins. Share these with your structural engineer and rigging contractor. Check the locations of the lifting lugs—the steel loops welded to the tank’s top used for hoisting. If the lugs do not align with your building layout, request modifications before manufacturing starts.
Specifying Valve and Port Placements
During design, ensure valves, sample ports, and manways are oriented correctly for your floor plan. A rear-facing clean-out port against a back wall is useless. Fixing port orientation on-site requires costly welding.
Structural Engineering and Floor Load Requirements
Standard commercial spaces are rarely built to hold the concentrated weight of fermentation tanks.
Managing Point Loads
A standard 60-barrel fermentation tank weighs about 2,050 to 2,850 pounds empty, but exceeds 18,000 pounds when filled with liquid. This weight concentrates onto three or four small legs, creating point loads that can crack standard four-inch concrete slabs.
Concrete Slab Specifications
Consult a structural engineer to evaluate your flooring. Production breweries require reinforced concrete rated at 4,000 to 5,000 pounds per square inch (PSI). The concrete slab beneath the tanks typically needs to be six to eight inches thick. If your floor falls short, contractors must cut the existing slab, excavate, and pour reinforced concrete pads.
Pitching and Drainage
Floors must slope at 1/4-inch per foot toward central trench drains. Modifying a flat floor to include proper pitch and stainless steel drains is often a major facility expense.
Modifying the Building for Equipment Access
Evaluating Ceiling Clearances and Swing Height
Measuring ceiling height against the standing height of the tank is a common mistake. Tanks arrive horizontally and are rotated 90 degrees into a vertical position. During this rotation, the tank’s diagonal measurement becomes its highest point, known as the swing height.
A 14-foot tall tank might require 16 feet of overhead clearance to stand up. For 5- to 10-barrel systems, aim for a minimum ceiling height of 12 to 15 feet. For systems of 30 barrels or more, 20 to 25 feet of overhead clearance is standard.
Knock-Out Walls and Oversized Doors
If your building lacks a roll-up door at least 12 by 12 feet, you may need to temporarily remove an exterior wall section or widen an entryway. Secure landlord permission early and budget for demolition and rebuilding.
Roof Hatches and Vertical Drops
In tight urban environments, bringing tanks through the roof might be necessary. This requires removing roof panels, hiring a mobile crane, and lowering tanks vertically into the space. Lifting tanks over a structure involves weather, wind, and liability factors; reviewing guidelines on how to plan a critical lift helps manage these risks.
Managing Weather and Permit Requirements
Wind Delays
Fermentation tanks act like large sails when suspended. Crane operators will halt lifts if sustained wind speeds exceed safe limits, often around 15 to 20 miles per hour for large surface area loads, depending on the crane manufacturer’s specifications. Monitor the forecast and communicate with your rigging company if high winds or lightning are predicted.
Street Closures and Traffic Control
If the crane must set up on a public street or block a sidewalk, you will need a Right of Way (ROW) permit. These permits typically cost between $100 and $500 or more depending on the municipality, and the permitting office will require a detailed traffic control plan. You may also need to hire certified flaggers or off-duty police officers to direct traffic, which costs $50 to $100 per hour per person. Start the permit application process at least two months in advance.
Delivery Day Logistics and Rigging Operations
Coordinating Truck and Crane Arrival
Do not schedule the crane and the flatbed truck to arrive at the same time. Freight shipping is unpredictable. Schedule a buffer day — have the tanks delivered one day and the crane the next. If the truck arrives early, pay the trucking company a layover fee to leave the trailer overnight. A layover fee is far cheaper than a crane cancellation fee.
Ensure your site has enough room for a 53-foot flatbed trailer and a crane simultaneously. The crane needs space to extend its outriggers and a clear swing radius to move tanks without hitting obstacles.
Offloading from the Transport Truck
Tanks arrive strapped horizontally into shipping cradles. Standard warehouse forklifts cannot handle the offloading safely. Riggers use industrial lifts with fork extensions measuring six to eight feet long. This bridges the width of the tank so the forklift carriage avoids pressing against the fragile outer shell.
Standing the Tanks Upright
Lifting straps must attach strictly to the lifting lugs on the top dome, as wrapping chains around the cylinder crushes the cooling jacket. Facility owners rely on specialized brewery equipment crane rigging to execute this phase safely and control the bottom legs as the tank rotates.
Final Positioning
Once vertical, tanks stand on legs and cannot be dragged without damaging the floor or snapping a leg. Rigging crews use multi-directional machine skates or compressed air skates under the feet to glide the tanks across the floor without scratching the coating.
Expected Costs for Brewery Tank Installation
Budget 15% to 30% of your total equipment cost for installation labor and facility upgrades.
Rigging and Heavy Lifting Labor
Hiring a professional rigging crew costs between $1,500 and $4,500 or more per day, depending on location and lift complexity. When broken down per unit, offloading, setting upright, and positioning averages $1,500 to $3,000 per tank.
Facility Upgrades
Cutting, pouring, pitching, and applying urethane cement for a new drainage floor runs $15 to $30 per square foot.
Common Mistakes That Delay Brewery Expansions
Attempting DIY Rigging Operations
Renting a forklift and trying to stand a tank up yourself often results in bent legs or crushed cooling jackets. Professional riggers carry specialized heavy machinery liability insurance. If a tank drops during a professional lift, insurance covers the replacement. If you drop it, the shattered internal sanitary welds make the tank a total loss.
Miscalculating Access Restrictions
Always verify the overall diameter—including protruding valves and cleaning arms—the shipping cradle dimensions, and the swing height before purchasing. Measure every door, hallway, and ceiling truss along the path from the loading dock to the final location.