Fermentors at half capacity

Dear friends,

Me and two fellow brewers want to buy a conical, stainless fermentor. The price between a 7bbl and a 3.5bbl is not so much, so we are considering buying the 7bbl one.

Does anybody here have any experience on using a fermentor at its half capacity? Would it be possible, and not damage the beer flavor, to use the 7bbl with 3.5bbl batches?

Thanks a lot,
Bruno

EDIT: didn't read the fine print. Sorry!

Dunno where you live but here in the states it won't take long for you to reach your legal annual limit...

he's in brazil.

You can use it at half capacity without impacting flavour. Is the tank going to be jacketed and insulated or how are you cooling it? If it is jacketed make sure you see the technical drawings and make sure that the jackets will actually touch beer if it is half full and that the thermowell is low enough that it will be in contact with the middle portion of the half batch (maybe have them add 2 thermowells and you can move the thermometer between them depending on how big a batch you have going)

I speak from experience - I have a small brewery and my 12hl tanks won't accurately read and control temperatures unless they are more than 2/3 full, that's just the way they were made

Great man, that's exactly the kind of response I needed. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience!

Our intention is opening a microbrewery, and starting with these fermentors will help us not needing to upgrade very soon.

Thanks!

blonguinho said:

Great man, that's exactly the kind of response I needed. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience!

Our intention is opening a microbrewery, and starting with these fermentors will help us not needing to upgrade very soon.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Good luck! That sounds awesome!!