The Coates family in Busselton WA, Colin and Hamish Coates have been a dairy farm operation for 3 generations.  When you go to their property it is a great surprise to find the option signage left to the dairy or right to the Brewery and for a young entrepreneur Hamish, Head brewer is setting a crack pass with new business.

Rocky Ridge Brewery, WA specialise in brewing quality craft beer, but had set backs with inefficient, impractical pre-existing mill design and structure and manual handling operation 

• Brewer had no time to re-design mill system
• No understanding of how the malt barley mill will work

THE CHALLENGE

• Came into project at critical time when significant delays had happened and infrastructure was already on ground
• Brew house was plumbed almost ready to go but no way of getting malted barley into imported mill to grist case and could not be determined without bringing in Eastern States/Overseas installers
• Original supplier had supplied high speed and power flex system that was dangerous and impractical to distribute grist into MashTun

THE SOLUTION

• By using conventional grain moving equipment as used in the Rocky Ridge Dairy business and upgrading the specifications for a food grade operation and plan was implemented by the uniFARM team
• Modified existing Mill design and supplied additions. Supplied components, and installed Flexi Auger from Mill outload, modified Grist Case inload and outload, supplied and fitted 3 phase variable speed Rigid Auger for hydrator (MashTun)

Among a number of important components, specifications and installation actions, the set-up included:

• Supplied and installed 14m / 80mm Flexi Auger with new 3 Phase Motor and i5 Gearbox
• Supplied and installed Stainless Steel Hopper and elevated Mill
• Modified Mill and Hopper to Flexi Auger boots and grist case
• Supplied Rigid Transition Auger and stands, Stainless Steel Flanges VSD & transition Grist Case to Mash Tank

WA business support each other and agricultural systems can be easily adapted to help process malted barley, moving the product into the shed and controlling the grain around the gristing process particularly through a variable speed Rigid Auger, so the mash process can be controlled into the hydrator without hand mixing

THE RESULTS

The modified design together with the additional equipment enables the Brewer better management to adjust Milling speeds and flow rates, and has eliminated a large amount of operator manual lifting and OHS risks.  Brewer says, “Useable, scalable system with a firm pathway forward for efficiencies and consistent operation”.

So, would Hamish production manager at Rocky Ridge Brewery recommend uniFARM for modifications and milling solutions?  

“Yes, definitely! On a daily basis the mill now configured saves us having to manually mash in – both an operator efficiency and an OHS saving – less wear on the brewer!!” Says Hamish  

THE BENEFITS

Rocky Ridge Brewery can now source through his own grown or locally sourced malt producers and mill at a varied product to produce desired density flavours and variety of quality craft beers.

• The business philosophy of natural farming process of grain, growing hops and using rain water to make big beers is the secret