WWMD (What Would MacGyver Do)

With the help of my friend (and future brewery engineer), Tony, and my girlfriend (and future sales rep/tasting room supervisor) we unloaded three fermenters yesterday. The good news is that the fermenters we safely delivered with no damage, and there were no personal injuries. Other than that, not a whole lot went smoothly. The first inconvenience happened when the driver told me that there were 9 pallets stacked high with boxes of wigs blocking in the tanks. While I was unloading the wigs to get to the fermenters, it started to rain (keep in mind our driveway is gravel/dirt). So I finally unearth the fermenters to discover that the two 15bbl fermenters are loaded on their side within a metal frame, which has no space to put the forks of the forklift underneath. The proper method of unloading would involve using slings and picking the tanks up from above. You can probably guess at this point that we don’t have any of that. We had to drag the 1^st tank to the back of the truck and carefully tip one end onto a stack of pallets positioned off the back of the truck. At this point I think it was a good thing none of us had eaten yet because we all felt like we were about to puke. With the tank half off of the truck and looking like it was going to take a 5ft plunge any second I had to come around the side of the tank, pick it up and gently place it on the ground where we used the forklift and a pallet jack to get it into the building.

We are now about 2 ½ hours into the ordeal now, and it has been raining steadily the whole time. By time we try to get the last tank out it has become obvious that it’s far too wet outside. The forklift was continually getting stuck in the mud. We had to get the lift indoors or it would be spending the night outside and we’d never get the last tank in. We were left with no other choice but to have the truck back right up to our bay door and try the same maneuver inside our building. This proved to be much easier from a labor standpoint, but left the front end of the 18-wheeler hanging out onto our neighbor’s property. They were none too pleased, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. We are scheduled to have a zoning board meeting where the local citizens can voice any concerns they have. Should make things interesting… All told, a one hour job ended up taking almost 5. If we do get approval to put a brewery at this site you can bet we’ll be paving our driveway ASAP.

Pictures to follow...