# Milk Vat's For Brewing



## Jono_w (25/6/07)

Hey guys,

Got a question about Milk vats.



I have purchased two of these 1150 litre stainless milk vats, I would one day like to use them to brew in. They have a stainless skin wich contains copper tube around the outside and underneith used to run refrigerant through. Could I run steam or hot oil through these coils? I realise with steam they would have to be pressure tested. Any ideas?

Jonathon.


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## goatherder (25/6/07)

keep with the refrigerant idea - they'd make great fermenters with glycol pumped through them.

good score by the way - can I ask what you paid for them?


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## Jono_w (25/6/07)

goatherder said:


> keep with the refrigerant idea - they'd make great fermenters with glycol pumped through them.
> 
> good score by the way - can I ask what you paid for them?



Yeah never thought of using them for fermenters..
$220 each. lol get more than that for scrap.


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## Pumpy (25/6/07)

Better get a good recipe I hate it when I end up with 40 litres of beer that aint too flash 1150 litres would reall piss me off  

Pumpy


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## kook (25/6/07)

I personally disagree, I'd be using them as a kettle or mash tun with some modification. The geometry seems much better suited to that application. Hair of the dog brewing in Portland, OR has a very similar looking kettle to your vat there.


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## Jono_w (25/6/07)

kook said:


> I personally disagree, I'd be using them as a kettle or mash tun with some modification. The geometry seems much better suited to that application. Hair of the dog brewing in Portland, OR has a very similar looking kettle to your vat there.



Kook,
I actually had that in mind, put a lage false bottom in one and its a nice mash tun / lauter tun.


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## Thirsty Boy (26/6/07)

I seem to have heard of quite a few brewers (at least in the States) that have constructed their brewery out of old dairy equipment. So there is nothing inherently wrong with using them.

I'm with Kook. I reckon a mash/lauter tun (you could just circulate plain old hot water through the coils). And a kettle. I suppose you would have to talk to a boilermaker about using steam in the current coils, but you could always just direct heat or use electric immersion heaters.

Of course, as Goatherder said, they are pretty much ready made as fermentors.


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## ant (26/6/07)

They are sensational looking units, no doubt about it, but unless you were brewing big (ie huge) batches, I would think maintaining a reasonable depth grain bed would be the biggest issue in using them as a mash tun. As a fermenter; can you imagine trying to tilt it to get those last few L above the yeast cake out of it


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## FNQ Bunyip (26/6/07)

They look great..

I dont think ou would need to tilt it as it was a milk vat it would drain compleatly, slopeing floor I would think..

Steam is a great idea and you woulden't need to pressure test if it was an open path just venting to a condenser to recolect the water..

Get into it cant wait to see pics of of your first mega batch..

Cheers


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## jayse (26/6/07)

One of the breweries on the frankenbrew video used a milk vat with cooling coils switched over to be used as heating with steam for a kettle with no problems at all.

They are a great shape for a mash tun, another idea depending on the size of the brewery and how much cold liquor you need you could use one as a cold liquor tank for your cold liquor you need to cool the wort down through the heat exchanger after the boil and/or for the cold water needed for pumping around jacketed fermentors for cooling.

At a rough guess i'd say you'd be able to get around 2-3 grand each for those, awesome deal for a little bit of pocket change you spent on them.

Anyway to answer your question I'am sure they could be made to heat but it would depend on the actuall design and a few other things on how well they would go as to bringing the wort to a rolling boil reasonbly quickly and maintaining it.


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## kirem (26/6/07)

Make sure the coils are serviceable inside the jackets. Most of those ex dairy vats are removed from the dairy as fixing a broken coil is not economical for them.


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## johnno (26/6/07)

I'd like to see someone to a brew in a bag in one of those.

johnno


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## Adamt (26/6/07)

Leave it to Pat... I'm sure if you hired a crane...  

On topic: I've heard of people paying more than that for a S/S stockpot... very nice score! What kind of stirry bits (technical term) does it have? Could it handle stirring a mash?


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## jayse (26/6/07)

johnno said:


> I'd like to see someone to a brew in a bag in one of those.
> 
> johnno



Classic :lol: 

I hate to see anyone brewing in a bag full stop after all how hard is it to build a mash tun as simple as a mayo bucket for free from the local.
Before the BIABers start flaming I better get in first 'Your mothers wear army boots' :lol:


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## Lukes (26/6/07)

Jonathon,*
*Emerald Hill in South Melb use an old milk vat for a tun what I reckon is a great idea.
Might be worth contatcing them or heading down there for a few and check out how they did the conversion.
Can't say I have tried the beer.







- Luke


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## tangent (26/6/07)

> I hate to see anyone brewing in a bag full stop after all how hard is it to build a mash tun as simple as a mayo bucket for free from the local.
> Before the BIABers start flaming I better get in first 'Your mothers wear army boots'


 :lol:


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## goatherder (26/6/07)

I believe there was a book kicking around the US a few years ago about how to start a micro brewery. One of the bits of advice it gave was to chase down ex-dairy equipment to use for fermenters, tuns and kettles. Apparently the dairy industry was in a bit of trouble and the gear came up often at a good price. As a result there are plenty of US micros using (or started up using) open topped ex-dairy vats as fermenters. If I was starting a micro this is exactly the kind of score I'd be chasing.


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## Jono_w (26/6/07)

There are many small local diaries that have closed so there is a bit of gear around that im going to stock up on. I have a couple of heat exchangers, valves and fittings.

My goal is to brew around 600 litres commercially...one day.
If it doesn't work ill have a flash looking bath tub..


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## Jono_w (20/1/08)

Hey,
Just had to brag, got a ripper bargain today. Another full stainless vat $66.60 at auction. I priced a sheet of 1.5mm stainless $420, so I think this was a steel, stainless steel... ! :lol:


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## big d (20/1/08)

Jonathon said:


> If it doesn't work ill have a flash looking bath tub..


Way to go Jonathon.
If it doesnt work out you better have a look at the movie Transformers.By the look of that pic you could transform it into a beetle. :lol: 
BTW i have come across a whole lot of ss comercial brew gear sitting out the front of certain place in Perth on my wayward travels and hope to get a few photos to show and also prices.

Cheers
Big D


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## InCider (20/1/08)

Jonathon said:


> Hey,
> Just had to brag, got a ripper bargain today. Another full stainless vat $66.60 at auction. I priced a sheet of 1.5mm stainless $420, so I think this was a steel, stainless steel... ! :lol:
> View attachment 17243



Looks great - did you put an offer in on the one partially obscured on the right of the picture? If you did, can I have the other one?  
Good score.

Cheers,

InCider.


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## Jono_w (20/1/08)

big d said:


> Way to go Jonathon.
> If it doesnt work out you better have a look at the movie Transformers.By the look of that pic you could transform it into a beetle. :lol:
> BTW i have come across a whole lot of ss comercial brew gear sitting out the front of certain place in Perth on my wayward travels and hope to get a few photos to show and also prices.
> 
> ...


I was thinking an in-deck spa bath.. :lol: 
Commercial Brew gear..Hmmm 



InCider said:


> Looks great - did you put an offer in on the one partially obscured on the right of the picture? If you did, can I have the other one?
> Good score.
> 
> Cheers,
> ...


Thats a pic of the new one next to my other two i already have bought. Your welcome to come and brew in them, you bring the grain..


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## PJO (20/1/08)

Jonathon said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> Got a question about Milk vats.
> I have purchased two of these 1150 litre stainless milk vats, I would one day like to use them to brew in. They have a stainless skin wich contains copper tube around the outside and underneith used to run refrigerant through. Could I run steam or hot oil through these coils? I realise with steam they would have to be pressure tested. Any ideas?
> ...




Hi Jonathon,

Great score! :super: 

I have seen them used both as fermenter and a combination mash/lauter tun.

The Burton Bridge brewery was using larger versions as fermentation vessels back in 2001 when I visited. The brewer had one full of very cold glycol solution, and was fermenting in three or four others. He didn't use the pipes inside the skin for the glycol though, had ~32mm stainless tube immersion chillers for cooling the fermentation down (not sure why exactly).


Also, I used to mash in a 1200L one to brew a whisky wash. 
Here are some of the issues I had:

The dead space under the false bottom was large (-200L) and even after recirculate for half an hour at the end of the mash, grain chunks still came through (nor really a big deal for whisky wash but would be for beer). Part of the reason for the large deadspace was the fact that the bottom of the vessel sloped quite steeply toward the drain near the side. The other reason was that the actual false bottom was one single piece which meant it had was very thick (and bloody heavy) due to the reinforcing. A false bottom made from a number of segments could be made much thinner.

It was hard to get and even temp throughout the bed but I was mashing at around 2L/kg and stirring by hand with a large stainless paddle. Mashing at 3L/kg would probably solve that one.

Didn't have a lid so that top ~50mm of the mash bed would cool pretty quickly. Made the stirring easier without a lid but would have kept the temperature well with one (even an uninsulated one).

The mash bed was about ~50cm deep which meant that you couldn't sparge too fast as the bed would compact and start to cause channels, but I was making 16P wort which wasn't boiled. So for a regular 12P wort (which if around 11P before boiling) the bed would be quite a bit shallower and you shouldn't have the same problem. Runoff and sparging would last around 4hrs. 

Have you also considering electric elements for heating (eg if you were going to use one for a boiler). You could get elements mounted under the bottom surface (would need to cut the outer skin underneath and remove the insulation).

As far as cleaning goes, it was all done manually, shovel and scrubbing brush <_< .

Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Petr


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