Scaled from 5 to 12 vessels without adding complexity

Denver, CO · 12 vessels

“When we were 5 vessels, a whiteboard worked. At 12, we needed a real system. BrewFlow gave us that without the complexity of enterprise software.”
— Jake Mueller, Operations Manager

The challenge

Copper Trail's expansion from a 5-barrel system to a 15-barrel production brewery with 12 vessels meant their operations needed to scale too.

Their spreadsheet-based scheduling fell apart once they had more than 6 vessels to manage
Vessel conflicts became common — two batches assigned to the same fermenter
No visibility into which tanks were available, occupied, or in cleaning cycles
The team was doubling in size and new hires needed onboarding fast
Jake was spending more time managing spreadsheets than managing operations

The solution

Jake set up BrewFlow during the expansion and had all 12 vessels tracked before the first brew on the new system.

Added all 12 vessels with types, capacities, and initial status
Used the vessel timeline to plan batch scheduling across the entire operation
Set up recipes with step templates so common processes are standardized
Configured role-based access — brewers execute batches, Jake manages the schedule
Used the calendar view to plan brew days around vessel availability

The results

Copper Trail doubled their capacity and maintained the same operational efficiency.

Vessels managed

Every vessel tracked in real time — status, current batch, cleaning cycles, and availability. No more whiteboard guesswork.

Zero

Scheduling conflicts

The vessel timeline shows exactly what's in each tank and when it'll be free. Conflicts are caught before they happen.

45 minutes

Setup time

All 12 vessels, 8 recipes, and 4 team members set up in under an hour. First tracked batch ran the same day.

Real-time

Operational visibility

Dashboard shows active batches, vessel utilization, and recent activity. Jake can check the entire operation from his phone between meetings.

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