Stainless Fermenter Build

Hey guys, just thought i would share my stainless ferment-er build. One of my father's friends works for a shop that manufactures instruments for medical use. Well i was talking to him one day and showing him a conical ferment-er i was looking to buy. He ended up telling me he can build a rectangular one for me for FREE!

Two weeks later he comes by and gives me this thing, not finished but 80% there. It's length and width is 16'' and height is 20 (excluding the angular area). So in total i'm looking at around 24-25 gallons in total volume. Enough for 20 gallon batches if i ever get that far.

Nice. Free is good but free SS in GREAT!

Cool, keep us updated!

sweet. keep us posted.

A little update, I received my fermenter today and it looks fantastic. Here's a picture of the "blueprint" i drew up for him to make. the only difference is that I asked him later on to weld a 1/2 coupler about 1.5 gallons up the tank's edge. I'll post actual pictures when i'm home from work. The only issue i am going to have is getting a tight seal between the lid and tank. I was thinking of getting a small 3/16 beer line hose and making a slit along it to fit on the tank edge so it acts as a gasket when the lid is pressed up against it. Any other ideas/suggestions?

sweet! get that puppy filled up!

Why not seal the top entirely and add an access port with a smaller, circular hole? I'm thinking something like the top of a Better Bottle that you could just seal up with a regular gasket and airlock.

However, then the problem comes that you don't full access to the fermenter like you would with a fully-open top.

In any case, I wouldn't trust that clear tubing to provide all that good of a seal. If you want to go that route you'll want a rubber similar to the ones used with Grolsch bottles. Square sections are a pain to seal properly because of the corners.

grfrazee said:

Why not seal the top entirely and add an access port with a smaller, circular hole? I'm thinking something like the top of a Better Bottle that you could just seal up with a regular gasket and airlock.

However, then the problem comes that you don't full access to the fermenter like you would with a fully-open top.

In any case, I wouldn't trust that clear tubing to provide all that good of a seal. If you want to go that route you'll want a rubber similar to the ones used with Grolsch bottles. Square sections are a pain to seal properly because of the corners.

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Biggest issue with conical fermenters is keeping them clean/sterile and so i definitely want to keep my fermenter open. The rubber tubing wont keep it air tight, but it will be enough to keep wort sterile. The area in which i am going to be placing this fermenter is stagnant enough for me not to worry, i've considered open fermentation for that very reason.

also, the lid itself isn't flat on top, it's curved along the edges downward, so nothing's going to be falling in.

Here are some pictures, it looks like rust but it's just discoloration from the welds.

Very nice

Ok, I couldn't tell from your original pics/plans that you were putting a lid like that on it. In that case, your solution with the tubing should work fine, assuming positive pressure in the tank or equal pressure with the outside air. If it were me, I would still try to get some of that rubber gasket material that's used for Grolsch bottles.

I'm just picturing the "professional" conicals that have the big, dome-shaped lid with a small hole for the airlock, which you could probably achieve with this design if you drill a hole in the top cover.

I have to say though, I'm jealous of your build. I wish I could weld stainless or knew a guy who would do this project for me.

That is beautiful! Any idea of the costs of the stainless and other materials? I know it was free to you, but I'm curious what it would cost me if I had to purchase the materials. If I found a stainless welder, I might look into having something like this built, myself!

What about a 6" or 8" tri clover ferrule and cap with an air lock in the cap? I can't imagine you couldn't properly clean that thing with an 8" opening.

FirstStateBrewer said:

That is beautiful! Any idea of the costs of the stainless and other materials? I know it was free to you, but I'm curious what it would cost me if I had to purchase the materials. If I found a stainless welder, I might look into having something like this built, myself!

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Honestly, i don't because the stainless steel he used was from scraps. It's really thick stuff though, the whole tank with stand weighs near 70lbs. Good thing is that stainless plates ~20ga don't cost too much, maybe in 150 in parts. How would aluminum fermenter tanks fare?

As for the top, i'm just going to be drilling a hole small enough to fit a blowoff tube, maybe in the future i can drill two more and run copper lines down it to cool it.