If you work in operations and are the person ‘on the floor’ – you’ll know that in any distillery, tanks and transfers are where the daily grind becomes real. For new projects and start ups – they are the layer of the build that decides whether production will feel smooth or constantly irritating.
Mistakes come in many forms. Mismatched vessel sizes. Awkward headroom. Incompatible fittings. The wrong valve type. A pump that doesn’t suit the liquid. Clamps that don’t match across suppliers.
Getting it wrong becomes a massive tax on patience and efficiency.
Yet, none of it feels that dramatic on a quote sheet and it can easily be overlooked or undervalued as you go about the build process. It all looks so mundane.
Even if you are switched on and know what you are looking for, there is a need to balance “future-proofing” with initial operational reality.
If you overbuild, you create problems of your own. Too much headspace in vessels. More surface area to clean. More energy spent heating and cooling liquid you didn’t need to move. Seemingly endless time spent maintaining kit that isn’t earning its keep yet.
But if you only buy for month one, you can trap yourself. You end up with bottlenecks that stop you scaling. A layout that can’t accept another fermenter. A transfer setup that becomes a safety and quality risk as volumes increase.
So with all the pitfalls and perils in mind – Here’s some upfront advice on how to get it right, along with a few suppliers to contact for quotes on your next project.
And before we begin – a reminder, for you – having built a few distilleries and navigated this with several clients – drop me a note if you have any questions or are looking for support. My promise to you is simple, a small amount of consultancy here saves far more both in upfront costs (longstanding supplier relationships) and ongoing daily drain (no wastage, fit for purpose and hyper efficient set up) than it costs for a day of time…
Start with a process map, not a “tank” supplier list
The first job isn’t pick a tank supplier. It’s to draw a simple process map from receiving through to dispatch.
Start with intake and raw material storage. Then move onto fermentation (or maceration if needed). After this, the still will come into play so you skip to post-distillation receivers. Then blending, proofing and holding. Finish with packaging and dispatch.
Add the unglamorous-but-essential bits too. Where does the spent wash and waste go? Think about effluent handling. Consider water storage and treatment if you need it. Ask yourself about cooling water capacity if your site relies on a buffer tank or a closed-loop system.
Once that start-to-finish line is on paper, sizing becomes easier. Take your time really visualising each section, while considering the volumes and the moves you are making.
Once done – you can choose vessels with intent. It becomes possible to spot bottlenecks early. And as a result, you can build a site that behaves like a system, not a collection of stainless steel containers.
Decide how automated your distillery will be
Before you talk to suppliers, you need to lock in something beyond litres and vessel count. You must decide how manual your operation is going to be.
Are you happy moving liquid with hoses and a pump you wheel around, and cleaning vessels manually with a spray ball and elbow grease? That can be completely fine at very small scale. But it becomes a sink for labour, water, (potentially chemicals), energy and time as you grow.
Do you need cleaning-in-place (CIP), hard-piped transfers, and some level of automation so moving from A to B doesn’t become your daily bottleneck?
Built in transfers and CIP can transform the day-to-day. But it needs budget and planning. It affects where drains sit, how you route hoses (or eliminate them), and how you manage flow, temperature and cleaning cycles.
This decision also shapes your supplier approach. The more systemised you want the plant to be, the more sense it makes to work with fewer suppliers who understand the end-to-end line. A single fabricator or engineering partner can standardise fittings, valves and pump connections across the site. They can often supply pipework and integration between vessels too.
That reduces the risk of ending up with equipment that is individually good, but collectively awkward.
The spec checklist that stops expensive mistakes…
Once you’ve nailed volumes, batch rhythm, automation philosophy, and how you’re moving liquid around site, the next step is building up and ticking off a spec checklist.
This is the detail that decides whether your setup feels professional or cobbled together. It’s also where quality and safety live too, even if it doesn’t look like it on paper.
Temperature control and QC monitoring
Start with temperature control. Do you need jackets, internal coils, insulation, and temperature probes? If you do, how will you use the data?
If you’re setting fermentation and holding parameters, you need a clear view on whether monitoring is manual or digitised. Manual can mean clipboards, spot checks, and handheld meters. Digitised can mean sensors, logging, alarms, and trend data.
Neither is “right”. But you need to choose, because it changes the spec, the peripheral instruments, the controls, and the budget.
Instrumentation, motors and hazardous areas
As soon as you add motors, agitators, pumps, and instrumentation, you step into compliance questions. In some environments and use contexts, those components may need to be ATEX-rated.
You may also need to think about earthing, bonding, and the practical reality of safe operation around flammable vapours. You will need to think about spillage, drainage and worker egress paths.
Fermentation brings its own safety considerations too. CO₂ build-up is real. Ventilation and monitoring matter. If you’re changing layouts, adding tanks, or increasing throughput, it’s worth revisiting zoning, ventilation and alarm strategy as part of the equipment plan.
Transfers and handling
Transfers dictate labour, spillage risk, and repeatability.
If you can use gravity, great. If you can’t, decide what you’re relying on:
- Mobile pumps and hoses.
This keeps CAPEX lower and gives flexibility, but it increases handling and connection points. That can raise spillage risk and cleaning effort. - Forklifts and IBCs.
This can work well for certain operations and sites, but it introduces traffic flow, lifting risk, training considerations and more handling steps that need discipline. - Fixed pipework with dedicated pumps.
This supports consistency and speed, but it needs proper design to avoid dead-legs, awkward routing, and cleaning problems.
Each approach changes how fast you can work, how consistent you can be, and how easy it is to keep the site clean.
Standardise connections early
Standardisation sounds minor until you’re living with it. Pick your connection types and size early and stick to them.
Clamps, valve types, hose sizes, gaskets, tri-clamp standards, and accessories should be consistent across the whole site wherever possible. Pick a size and conform everything around that.
Otherwise you end up with adaptor-hell. You also end up with a messy spare parts situation. Inevitably, it leads to avoidable downtime when a single fitting fails and you don’t have the right replacement.
Take my word for it. This is not just convenience and getting irritated by fiddling about with leaky clamps on a cold morning. It’s safety too. Leaks, pressure mishaps, and improvisation during transfers are exactly where accidents happen.
Tank design, access and working height
Look at tank design like an operator, not a buyer.
Manway location matters hugely! It’s linked to working height and access for cleaning. The ability to safely open, inspect and maintain the vessel is paramount to daily operations.
A top-opening tank can be fine until the lid is two metres up and you realise you now need a platform, handrails, and safe access built into the budget. Multiply that across several vessels and it becomes a serious cost and space implication.
The “right” design depends on what you’re making, the site constraints, and how you want your team to work. That’s why these human factors should sit next to technical specs from day one.
Ask yourself simple questions when looking at blueprints , such as “how will i use that when stood in front of it”. Picture yourself and visualise the movements involved.
How to budget for tanks and “everything around the still”
This is the question I get asked most. How much should I budget for storage and processing tank capacity?
There isn’t a fixed rule. It depends on location, shipping, how complex your process is, and how broad your range will be. Gin vs Whisky vs Brandy is a totally different reality too. But here’s a useful reality check… It is not uncommon for tanks and wraparound equipment to cost the same as the still itself, sometimes more.
The still is the heartbeat. It’s the centrepiece. But the plant anf operations around it is what turns “distillation” into a functioning production line.
A good starting mindset is to treat the still as roughly half of your overall equipment budget, and everything else as the other half.
That “everything else” includes fermentation and storage tanks, receivers, blending and proofing vessels, pumps, hoses, valves, clamps, pipework, instrumentation, CIP capability, and the unglamorous utilities and handling gear that keep liquid moving safely and consistently.
This split won’t be perfect for every build. Far from it. I’ve seen 70/30 splits in either direction.
But it stops the single most common mistake; Spending heavily on the still, then trying to run a distillery with under or over-sized tanks, improvised transfers, and a cleaning setup that becomes a daily drain.
It also keeps your operation coherent and the ability to scale as a business possible and dependent on sales, not your ability to create spirit profitably.
Start with 50:50 as a mindset when splitting your initial CAPEX. Then fine-tune based on your category, workflow, automation level, and the suppliers you choose.
Supplier pathways: Specialists, turnkey solutions and off-the-peg
There are a few common routes when it comes to tanks and ancillary equipment. None are “better”. They just suit different builds.
Turnkey suppliers (one partner to design, build, ship, and help you join the dots)
If you’re aiming for a more integrated setup or are in a location that is remote, there’s a strong case for choosing a supplier who can deliver more than vessels.
Transport costs alone often dictate if this is the path for new builds.
The value isn’t just that they can fabricate tanks. It’s that they can think in systems: vessels, heating and cooling, pumps, pipework, controls, and how the whole line behaves when it’s running every day. You can also add other things in a container. A tool here, spare parts, additional items etc.
They often test the units side by side and in my experience sense check the orders being placed based on their understanding of typical needs.
Two turnkey-style suppliers that are commonly recommended in the craft space for broad capability and pricing are:
- DYE / Daeyoo
A China-based manufacturer that designs and builds distilling equipment plus broader stainless process equipment, with a good export-led, turnkey project offering. - Tiantai
Large-scale brewing and beverage equipment manufacturer offering complete lines and turnkey solutions (including customised equipment and automation/controls), with a distillery range covering kit like mash tuns, fermenters and spirit storage tanks.
A practical note if you go turnkey: treat it like an engineering project, not an online purchase.
Ask about documentation and standards. Ask what’s included. Make sure the quote covers the “boring” items that create the most pain later and understand shipping timelines, import taxes and so on to get the full picture.
Off-the-peg tank suppliers (proven designs, sized correctly, delivered as a set)
Not every distillery needs a fully integrated turnkey system. Many great sites are built from well-chosen, standardised vessels, as long as the sizing is right and the fittings are consistent across the plant.
This approach suits distilleries that want to keep CAPEX tighter, prefer flexibility, or already have a local engineering team who can handle pipework, pumps and integration.
A few suppliers worth exploring if you want strong ranges of tanks in standard formats are:
- Letina
A long-established stainless tank manufacturer supplying wine, beer and liquor producers, with a wide catalogue covering storage, fermentation and variable-capacity tanks. They’re a strong option when you want a consistent “family” of tanks (and even CIP/mixers) built for hygienic food and beverage use. - Speidel
A Made-in-Germany tank and container manufacturer with a long track record and impeccable quality, producing stainless tanks for wine, beer and juice, including popular variable-capacity formats. - Albrigi
An Italian engineering and fabrication company designing and manufacturing stainless tanks and integrated plants, with a strong heritage in beverage and process applications. They have local agents in various markets so good if you want a semi-local intermediary that can help service etc.
A note for whisky makers and brandy makers
If you’re making whisky or brandy, it’s worth widening your supplier lens beyond “distillery equipment” specialists. Namely, because upstream of the still, much of your process overlaps with other industries…
For whisky, you’re working with cereals and grain in ways that mirror brewing in the early stages. Mashing, wort separation, cooling, fermentation, and CIP are well-trodden territory for local brewing engineers and brewhouse suppliers.
In some regions, you’ll get faster support, sharper pricing, and better spares availability by working with brewing specialists who already build and maintain these systems every day.
For brandy, the same principle applies with wineries. Vineyards and wineries have been supported by specialist equipment suppliers for generations, and that experience can be valuable when you’re dealing with grapes and must. Pressing, pumping, handling solids, fermentation management, and material compatibility all come with their own quirks.
A good winery-focused supplier often brings a level of practical know-how that a general distillery fabricator may not. There is also an unspoken advantage that becomes apparent when in operation – it’s useful to have similar kit to others in your region as spare parts, emergency items and second hand kit found locally will more likely be compatible.
It’s also worth remembering that high-quality, hygienic, small-scale equipment doesn’t only come from beverage alcohol suppliers.
If you’re operating at micro scale, you can sometimes find excellent solutions through adjacent sectors like olive oil production, dairy, and broader food-and-drink processing hubs.
These industries often use stainless systems built for hygiene, repeatability, and easy cleaning, and many suppliers are used to small footprints and modular installs.
Closing thought: buy a system, not a pile of equipment
The biggest shift is mental and the biggest saving you will making happens through planning. Don’t buy “a tank”. Buy a production system that your team can run with ease, clean efficiently, and scale as you grow.
While this article should get you further on your journey – please get in touch if you need help to get your process map down first.
I can assist talking you through the working realities and the decisions that matter. Fundamentally – I can save you time, budget and errors that have dramatic knock on impacts. Just drop me a note – Olivier@everglowspirits.com
