100L Fermenter

[billyhitups]

Hi all

A few of us have begun making a few kit homebrews ove rthe winter. At the moment we have been putting three 30L fermenters into a fishtank and heating the fishtank water (it's cold in winter where we live). It has been working well, but I was looking for advice on switching to one large fermenter.

Would it work to use a 100L (possibly stainless steel) fermenter and brewing 4x23L brews in one ferment? Part of the reasoning would be to get something that we could also use when we look to use more advanced techniques.

If someone has done something similar in the past and has some advice it would be appreciated.

Thanks
Billy

 

[Feldon]

Yeah, you can double, triple, quadruple the kit recipe - whatever. Just be aware that 4x23L gives you a fermentation volume of 92L. That leaves only 8L headroom in a 100L vessel. You would need more than that. Better dropping down to say 3x23L (= 69L ferm. volume), or get an even bigger fermenter.

 

[billyhitups]

Thanks for the reply
Could you recommend a fermenter that we could use, and continue to use when we move to grain brewing/mashing? I guess I would also have to look at heating options.
Thanks again

 

[yum beer]

Maybe look at the 60l jobs, doing 2 batches per FV.
Plenty of headroom and they have handles for moving about.
100 litres is gonna get bloody hard to move.

Also look into going in on a fridge/freezer and temp controller to get consistent temps easier than a fishtank and without risk of sucking water in through taps or bungs.

If you are keen for a bigger FV you canget old drums that have been used for olives and such, there around the 100 litre mark and normally easy to chase down on ebay, search storage drum.

 

[seamad]

Not sure what temps you are fermenting at but most brewers require cooling more than heating. Ideally you want to drop to @ 0C for a few days after fermentation to help clear your beer. Ales are normally fermented @ 18, and lagers lower, @ 12.
If you are looking at larger ss conicals then the States has a good offering, check out brewers hardware, glacier tanks and brewhemoth amongst others.I'm looking at the brewhemoth as you can also carbonate in the fermenter with their spunding valve setup.

 

[billyhitups]

thanks for the replies. I haven't had much time to research in the last few days. I normally brew ales at 18, but the water is normally less than 10 in winter, though I shouldn't need to heat from now on. I would like to look into a ss conical fermenter in the future, but might try an old food grade drum in the mean time. I'm guessing I would need to install an outlet, I think they use a nut setup that you can screw the tap into.

For the fridge freezer, can I use an old non working one and install an extenal temp control unit?

Thanks again for your help

 

[Maheel]

http://www.tilkey.com.au/

a mob like this often have interesting barrels
i have a few Ex-olive barrels in the 70L range that i use


might be someone similar in your area