Production Facility  

The educational lab

The brewery hosts an educational plant with a production capacity of 4 hectoliters, equipped with a dedicated fermentation cellar. It is aimed at cooperating with the universities that express their interest in training professionals for the world of craft brewing. The first users have been the students of the Advanced Apprenticeship course for master brewers of the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo.

The brewhouse 

The main brewhouse has a capacity of 50 hectoliters. Built by the Italian company Meccanica Spadoni from Orvieto, it uses a completely automated technology which optimizes production times and energy savings, while ensuring high quality control and full flexibility.

In the mash tun, the water/malt loading operation and the wort heating phase to activate the enzymatic process have been improved. The lauter tun ensures optimal filtration and automatically manages the discharge of the brewers grains. In the near future, the system is ready to be integrated with machines that will dry the scrap materials to turn them into biomass (they are currently used as animal feed).

The double brew kettle and whirlpool allows for a higher number of productions to be carried out at the same time and is designed to ensure widespread heating which, in addition to reducing times, significantly improves energy efficiency. The two vessels work in conjunction with two dry hop containers, equipped with a kit to add three different types of hops (buds only, pellets only, a mix of buds and pellets) and two heatable containers to sterilize and automatically add the spices. They also have an integrated whirlpool system to separate the solid parts that are still contained in the wort.

A lot of technology, but a lot of heart too: the arrangement of the vessels in the brewhouse draws the shape of the Baladin label, to show once again that this is a shared project, designed keeping in mind the most important requirements of the craftsman who will use it.

The management of liquid flows

In a brewery, it is essential to manage the flows of liquids at best and to ensure that they are sterile. Some systems are not visually impressive, but are crucial to produce a high quality beer, just like the brewhouse or the large fermentation tanks. These "invisible” elements are the ducts that transport liquids, gases and, sometimes, solids.

We have given the important task of designing and building them to Racca Impianti from Cavallermaggiore (Cuneo). They have developed an integrated, highly efficient system which ensures full sanitization, for an extremely high level of hygiene in our lab.

Another hidden, yet strategic tool, are the valves that control the flows of the liquids carried by the ducts. Bardiani Valvole in Fornovo from Taro, near Parma, has provided specific components designed to facilitate the sanification operations, thus reducing any risk of contamination. It has paid homage to this cooperation by customizing them with the Baladin logo.

The analysis lab

The analysis and yeast propagation lab covers a large area and has the main function of controlling both technical and quality aspects. Here, five strains of selected yeast are kept and nurtured using cutting-edge technologies used exclusively by Baladin. A research and development center - where professionals from different Italian universities work - which, together with the Baladin experts, will produce innovative approaches based especially on yeast.

The fermentation cellar

The fermentation cellar contains 12 large steel truncated conical vessels with a capacity of 200 hectoliters each, where the most sold beers ferment. They ensure consistent production quality and the availability of large quantities. Eight 100-hectoliter and four 50-hectoliter fermenters are also available for the production of special beers.

A large drawn tree and the words “Alle radici” (At the roots) introduce visitors to the cellar where beers are aged in wooden barrels. Large 100-hectoliter barrels and 3-hectoliter barriques are the guardians of the precious experimental beers produced in Piozzo. Here, we also find a special barrel coming all the way from Japan: it’s the 30-hectoliter KIOKE barrel, given to Teo as a gift by craftsman Masao Yamamoto, who produces this amazing container for craft soy sauce by hand. Made with planks of cypress wood more than 100 years old, kept together by a 15 meter long hoop band, it is used to age a special version of Xyauyù, called Xyauyù KIOKE. An exciting and inspiring project which tells the craftsmanship of two geographically distant cultures which share a very similar philosophy.

The aromatic herbs lab

In 2018, we set up a laboratory to process aromatic herbs. It uses cutting-edge technology for low-temperature extraction, ensuring the freshness and integrity of the original aromas.

The bottling plant

The bottling plant has been built by GAI from Ceresole d’Alba (Cuneo), which specializes in the production of wine bottling equipment and owns important patents developed for the beer sector, and MAS PACK from San Marzano Oliveto (Asti), a specialized company in the packaging industry.

We use a last-generation electro-pneumatic filler with 36 heads, combined with an automated handling system that uses a robot to handle the pallets.

The system also includes a specific machine for our canned beers.

The automated refermentation warehouse

The brewery includes an automated warehouse built by FERRETTO Group from Vicenza. It autonomously handles 2,500 pallets stocked in three separate areas: the refermentation room, the cold room and the storage warehouse for the finished products. This system, in addition to optimizing spaces, ensures greater efficiency during the refermentation process and better stability of our products, thanks to the use of the cold room.