Home

Week 10: Inspections, Licensing, More Concrete

Submitted by josh on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 02:40
Well the new crop of Chicago breweries made the rounds in the news last week, including this WSJ piece featuring Doug and Tracy from Metropolitan. Now that all my demo work is over, I took a side trip up to Half Acre in North Center to check our their new brewery. Although it is still a work in progress, I was impressed that they got themselves up and running in such a short amount of time. They didn't think it was short, but I guess I have the long view on things. Their building is a neat multilevel garage space with a big bay door facing Lincoln Ave. Tasted a couple brews including a bitter extra pale ale that was the first batch out of their brewhouse. It being morning time, I limited myself to one, but I could see knocking down a couple of those on a nice spring day.

Back in Logan Square, things are starting to pick up after a slow period of activity. We passed our first couple construction related inspections and were also given preliminary approval for our city liquor license. We still have to complete buildout before we can sell beer at retail, but at least the bureaucratic portion is complete.

As of tonight we have about half of a new concrete floor in the basement:

There are also new foundations in place to support to copper brewhouse skid and the heavy excavating equipment is just about to leave for good. It was fun to watch the guys play Bob the Builder inside the building, but I won't miss the mud floor and lingering diesel exhaust they created. With the floor complete in the next day or two, we'll starting building up from the basement. A new rear wall and new structural framing will come before we prepare the first floor for its concrete topping.

In addition to wrapping up the second flood demo with the help of Matty Kemp, I finished the plasma cutting of the letters for the new building sign:

Next up on the crafty side of the project is reusing some this old wood we've freed up. Sure, you can buy tabletops from a catalog, but why not just make them out of the massive floor joists?

Sign

Submitted by josh on Sun, 03/08/2009 - 15:26
Like my kids, I still get a kick of playing with cool toys. Our new brewery is one I'm looking forward to fiddling with, but in the meantime I've got another brand new bag. I purchased a plasma cutter to work on making the new sign for the front of our building. Sure, I could have paid a sign company and spent my time on other things, but for the moment, time I got and shingle I will hang.

Generally, any excuse I can come up with to hang out at WISCO is worth the trip. I used to live right next door to this place and put up with their beeping trucks backing up every morning at 7am. Now I just get to enjoy to good part of the experience: checking out the welding equipment and hanging our with welding guys. The interesting brewing connection is that we will buy our compressed nitrogen and oxygen from WISCO when we open, so there is no better time to build a vendor relationship.

The plan for the sign is spell out 'Revolution Brewing' in stainless steel letters with red lighting behind the letters. Back ten years ago when I first tried to launch this project the one bright spot was the artwork developed by homebrewing virtuoso Randy Mosher. Randy crafted a wood-cut font for us that I'll be using to make the sign. The first step was to print out some templates and trace them onto some stainless steel sheet stock:

I've used a plasma cutter before, but it has been a few years. I made the Handlebar sign using a CAD-controlled cutting table at the great welding class at Evanston Township High School (classes start 3/25!). That sign had lots of intricate detail and the cutter gave nice clean results on the thin materials I used. This time, I'm going for a little rougher look and am using thicker material. With plasma cutting, the quality of the cut is related to your amperage, how fast you cut and the thickness of the piece. Use lots of juice and cut slow and you end up with pretty results. Use a lower voltage machine like I got on thicker material and you end up with a nasty looking kerf:

After a few sample passes, the cutter was easy to use and the hardest part was trying to see the line of my template with the welding mask on. Unlike TIG welding in which the arc tends to light up the piece you are working on, the cutter spits its arc and sparks through the piece.

So what is a pirate's favorite beer?

PB-Arrrrrgh!

Week 8: Tales From The Underground

Submitted by josh on Sun, 03/08/2009 - 14:52
After two months of construction activity, we've got a new underground basement plumbing system in place. New sewer lines, new floor drains and new drain tile to carry away any groundwater that bubbles up in rain storms like the one we are having right now. I'll spare you all the gory details of what happens when it rains heavily and your city sewer line is half under construction. Use your imagination.

Right now we are waiting on the city inspector to sign off on all the work so we can pour the basement floor. This will beget the structural footings for the brewhouse and structure for the new rear staircase. We'll also start rebuilding some of the structural walls in the basement that were removed during excavation.

Although our job site was quiet for a few days, two doors up, the Logan Square Kitchen is now underway with their work. They've got less overall work to do than us, so we're probably on track for opening at a similar juncture.

Upstairs the demo is just about done and as the dust settles it actually makes sense to sweep up for a change. One of the downsides of all this demo in wet times like this is that without a ceiling, all the twenty or so leaks in the roof drop right onto the hardwood floor. Previously the invading moisture had to work through layers of plaster and acoustical ceiling panels before landing on the old carpet floor. Although we had only planned to do some minor roof patching it's become clear that we need a full tearoff. With all the associated masonry work, that's probably $30,000 at a minimum, but it's money well spent to close the envelope. After we install all the roof-mounted HVAC we are insulating the attic crawl space and closing it up which doesn't mix well with a lot of drips. Overall I think I've done a good job budgeting for the amount of work that needed to be done, but I'll admit to going cheap on the roof. Unfortunately, that's less money to spent elsewhere on optional projects like our wholesale brewing operation, which we might have to wait to launch. Choices, choices. Current priorities are: 1. Do all necessary work to open up the restaurant. 2. Everything else.

Week 6: Fermentation Cellar Floor

Submitted by josh on Fri, 02/20/2009 - 01:54
Today we received our new concrete floor for the fermentation cellar in the basement. This massive slab was designed to support the weight of extra-large tanks we hope to acquire in the future for off-site wholesale sales to bars across Chicago. It's two feet thick and full of rebar.

Properly sloped floors are a must in the brewery and here we pitched them 1/4" per foot to the center trench drain. This is the wettest part of the brewery and it is also the area that requires the highest level of sanitation. Once the concrete sets, we'll be laying quarry tile on top that will clean up well and withstand the rigors of brewery abuse. The stairs you see will lead down to the serving cellar and eventually we'll install a staircase up to the brewhouse on the first floor.

Up next week is the rest of the underground plumbing system in the basement including floor drains, drain tile and the sump. That would be a great band name: Sump.

Week 5: Concrete!

Submitted by josh on Fri, 02/13/2009 - 00:40
We'll were not exactly paving paradise, and there will be no parking lot either but the concrete has arrived. This is the first of many concrete pours at 2323 N. Milwaukee over the next few months. Thanks to Joe the Concrete Guy, we have new footings in place for our walk-in cooler in the basement. A couple feet of Chicago clay were removed to make some headspace for our tanks that will hold the precious beer you'll get to drink.

In the picture you can see the forms in place for the upcoming pour of the walk-in cooler foundation wall. This is set to be combined with the pour of the structural pad for the fermentation cellar in the next load. The plumbers need to lay the trench drain before that goes down, but we are not too far away.

Upstairs we've been enjoying tossing lumber and drywall down our new indoor ramp. The old partition walls were full of two by fours and we tried to remove them whole. And while we didn't spend the time to take out all the nails and reuse them, someone else did. Yesterday, while we were having lunch around the corner we left the dumpster door open and someone in a pickup helped themselves to the good sticks. How about that market-driven recycling? For folks without internet access, an open dumpster is the equivalent of Craigslist free section, minus the all the spam postings. I find the hardest part of recycling building materials is completing the match-making process with limited time and space. We don't have room to store everything forever so we've tried to prioritize the 'best' material like all the old beams.

Speaking of which, anyone like to carve a few fists out of some 13-foot lengths of 100-year old 11" x 13" Douglas Fir?

Syndicate content