Batch Size vs. Serving Space

[jlmcgrath]

Hey Everyone,

I'm really close to finishing up my system (3 x 100t vessels), and I was curious about others setups.

I intend on doing mostly 60L batches and have enough room in my 4 tap kegorator for 9 kegs.

What is your batch size compared to your serving space? How many taps do you have? How many fridges are you running?

Cheers,

Jeff M

 

[Kingy]

Its more about fermenting fridges for me as i no chill. I have a fridge that holds a 46litre batch and one that holds a 23. I can keep all 4 kegs full and 150 bottles full with beer ready and cold crashed waiting for a keg or more bottles to be available. another 2-4 kegs would be nice and another 50 largys.
I need more cubes to as i have 8 cubes full most of the time and itching to brew more beer.

 

[danestead]

Gday Jeff,

I've got a 2 tap keg fridge and 1 fridge I can stack 2 30L fermentors in. If I get the chance to build my 6 tap dream keg fridge I'd probably get 1 more fermenting fridge so I can do a lager and ale simultaneously but the reality is I only get through 1 keg a month so even if I had a kegerator 3 times as big, I'm still only drinking the same amount of beer. I brew single batches.

Btw, if you are Stokesys mate, I'll cya at the show 2moro

 

[Moad]

We have a keg fridge at work so I brew more than I drink.

I do 60-70 litre batches, I have an 80 litre conical that fits in a commercial drinks fridge (scored cheap). I sometimes do a double 60-70L batches and fit this in the same fridge. I have a smaller fridge I use if doing 20-40L batches.

For serving I have 6 taps on my keezer and can fit 8 kegs. You could get away with a few extra taps, I prefer quality and variety over drinking lots of the same beer!

 

[MastersBrewery]

Unlike those above most HBers who do large batches no chill and store a fair quantity for later fermenting. If your fermenting the lot then the issues are three fold: enough space to ferment, enough space to package( be that kegs or bottles or mixture of both on hand) and the turn over the ensure your drinking your beer at it's best. All this versus keeping a variety at the taps. No chill for alot of brewers is about bang for brew day. I chill but in the future I can see my batch size doubling, and no chill with half being in reserve to ferment later down the track. I currently knock out large doubles (44L) fill two kegs and some bottles, all up I have 12 kegs, 6 taps(between 2 set ups), and keggers hold 8 kegs. I find my ferment fridges are loaded to the brim for a few weeks then empty for a good while, so I'd like to spread that out some. Next year I'm going to try and hook up flow meters to the taps and this might just balance things out so I have no surprise blown kegs and can plan fermentation around actual stock levels.

MB

ED: fridges I have too many :huh:

 

[jlmcgrath]

Hey Dane, we will see you tomorrow. Bringing Ryan with me. Should be a good time.

The ferment fridge I currently have will hold 4 of the large better bottles. It has 2 x stc-1000 hooked up. #1 runs the fridge and also a heat belt if needed, #2 runs just a heat belt. Works pretty well. It will hold about an 8c difference if I put a towel underneath the top ferment. I can do a lager and an ale at the same time. I don't think it will fit 2 x 60L though.


What are people fermenting 60L batches in? I have seen a few people with plastic conicals. Anyone have any experience using something similar?

No chill may be another good option to look into. How would splitting the batch with half to ferment now and half to cube and only one kettle work though? I guess you could just cube all of it and let it cool, then crack one open and start fermenting the next day.

 

[marksy]

I went back to bottling as I drank my legs faster than I could supply them, my schooner size went from. 425ml to 560ml and finished at 1.1L. Ha-ha. I brew till I have about 12 cases then pack up shop until it gets down to four.