Square fermentor idea/experiment.

[Online Brewing Supplies]

Nah mate it's just a tight fit!. Not sure the tub would be strong enough to hold the weight ?

If they did you could have a Burton union type set up where the yeast from the above FV would inoculate the lower one, brilliant.
The OVCIS : Open Vessel Cascading Inoculation System.
Nev

 

[wide eyed and legless]

But you could put a support across the top of the tub and put another tub on top.

 

[lael]

hmmm.... If stainless bain marie dishes were the right width for your fridge.... add a bulkhead, a pipe and a valve and you have Nev's idea ready to go...

 

[gap]

hmmm.... If stainless bain marie dishes were the right width for your fridge.... add a bulkhead, a pipe and a valve and you have Nev's idea ready to go...

I am currently researching bench top bain marie's for temperature control when making cheese.
They appear to come in a standard size about 530mm long by 325mm wide and 100mm or 150mm deep, may be able to get one 200mm deep. They also come in various fractions of this standard size.

Graeme

 

[Bribie G]

The 150mm deep model would give you around 25L - a 200mm would be excellent.
How much to they cost?

 

[gap]

On ebay for anything from $130 to $350 fpr a complete bench top bain marie with temperature control.

They trays can be had for 30$ or so.

 

[mje1980]

Hmmmmm, ss option would be very good. My fridge is small, so at the moment 400mm is the widest I can get and as you can see, it's tight at that. If the results are worth it, I'd happily look at getting a bigger ferm fridge so I could do full size batches. Might even swap my keg fridge over. A tap on the bottom would be awesome, and as mentioned, the beer could be "dropped" after 24hrs to another fermentor sitting underneath.

I think the beer is at the first stage, where the junky crap is on top. Not sure when I should scoop this off to encourage fresh, healthy yeast to come up. Don't want to leave it too long. Might do tonight, that'll be 24 hours from pitching.

 

[mje1980]

Scooped the gunky foam off the top, and gently roused the beer with a sanitised ss spoon. I'm hoping tomorrow it'll have a decent head of cleaner foam. I made sure the surface of the beer is still covered with foam. After I roused it there was clearly bubbling activity through the foam so I'm assuming the yeast is doing it's thing.

This is the most stressful fermentation ever haha. Smells nice though. It's a bit on the cool side, around 17c. Tomorrow I might let the temp come up a bit.

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

Think about an another throw away skim before you let the good one sit.
Can only make the final beer better/cleaner.
Nev

 

[mje1980]

Ok mate, will do.

I admit, I had a sneaky peak just now. More foam building on top of what I skimmed already, still a bit dark in colour but a little lighter than it was. I really shouldn't look so much, I'm asking for trouble. Just so tempting to see haha.

I'm going to transfer it to a standard plastic fermentor on Monday arvo. That will be 3 full days, so there should still be some fermentation left to do, but any flavours thrown up by the shape of the fermentor and open ferment should be in the beer already. Once it's in the fermentor I'll take a reading and see where it's at.

Will make sure I do a trial run of the auto siphon too.


In one way I'm hoping in the morning there isn't yeast overflowing the tub, making a mess of the fridge, but at the same time, I'll be quite happy if the yeast take off like that.

 

[Mardoo]

This is where that glass-front fridge I just got COULD come in handy! May have to give it a go.

 

[lael]

Ok, so the bain marie dishes are called Gastronorm Trays. Full size are 1/1 half 1/2 (go across the width of the bain marie) and third size 1/3rd (go across the width of the bain marie).

 

[lael]

Pretty sure they used them on the brewbot - unsure if they are custom.
http://news.yahoo.com/brewbot-will-help-you-make-beer-with-a-mobile-app-controlled-brew-machine-183435818.html


It looks like the deepest standard I can find are 200mm deep:
http://hospitalitydepot.com.au/search/p/page/1/search/gastronorm%20tray/level3//field/level3/sort/title

 

[mje1980]

Much more creamy looking today. Not very thick and rocky but jeez, it's cool here, so maybe that could be contributing?.

Anyway, I'll leave it til this arvo and scoop some off.

So far, so good

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Great thread mate, full of enthusiasm, always looking forward to your reports. Keep up the good work.

 

[Midnight Brew]

Looks great mje, that's a good krausen if you think of the krausen in a round fermenter and this has more surface area. I've always found top cropping to be a timing based practice. Sometimes the window is too small, sometimes you end up with a krausen monster of over flow. Love it.

 

[mje1980]

Cheers mate, I love uk ales and while I'm happy with mine I'm always looking to make them better. Tub cost me $10 and I needed an auto siphon anyway so not a big expense so far.

In the farmhouse ales book there's a pic of a DuPont fermentor, which is square. I've got two cubes of saison and some 3724 too. Tempted to give that a go too.

 

[Mardoo]

I'll bet you could repurpose a SS laundry sink for this. Good depth, right capacity and you can pick them up used for next to nothing. BTW thanks for the inspiration. I've been thinking about trying this and I just may give it a go now.

 

[billygoat]

If they did you could have a Burton union type set up where the yeast from the above FV would inoculate the lower one, brilliant.
Nev

I made a small Burton Union set up when using 1469. Worked well.
It was a PITA to clean though.

 

[billygoat]

Don't know why the second picture has gone sideways, might have made it easier to clean though.