Milk Vat's For Brewing

[InCider]

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.

 

[Jono_w]

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

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

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.

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..

 

[PJO]

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.

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