12 gallon carboy fermenter - really

Hey all,

Just a quick note, I've been brewing for 4 years. Started off like all, switched to all grain, and never looked back. It's a great hobby, I love it. I'm set up for 5 gallon batches, so I've never really thought of other things. Until...

I just found a 12 gallon glass carboy and thought, this is awesome, I could make a double batch in that. The very simple obvious question here is - does anybody do that (or should I just dream, and really forget about it because it's just too hard). Would it work to make 5 gallons, then make 5 gallons again, so a double long brew day - but really I could use the mash tun once - start that process, then use the mash tun again while the first brews. Should only take an extra hour or so.

I don't have a way to boil 15+ gallons of liquid, nor would I have a way to transfer 10 gallons when finished (beyond just lifting it up and pouring, but it would be heavy).

What do you think?

pics.

A few questions:

1. How much is it? If its free/cheap, go for it. You can use it now if you want, but if/when you upgrade to larger system it will be more useful.

2. How big is it? You have to think about how you are going to ferment in it. I get scared moving my 5 gallons glass carboys around, I wouldn’t attempt to pick up a 12 gallon one if my life depended on it after hearing all the horror stories about glass chards going through peoples hands/arms/legs/etc.

3. Assuming you will be keeping it in one space per question 2, how are you going to transfer to bottles/keg/secondary/whatever after it is done fermenting? One way would be to use a carboy cap and CO2 system to ‘push’ the beer wherever it needs to go, or a sanitary pump.

Basically if you aren’t planning on upgrading your system to 10 gallon batches it doesn’t seem worth it to use this. Back to back brews are going to add more than an hour to your brewday, and it would be much easier to work with two seperate fermentors.

Ideally in order to make this worthwhile you would be brewing a 10 gallon batch, pumping the cooled wort to this carboy (which is sitting in a fermentation chamber and is never moved while full), and pumping/pushing it out to whatever serving vessel you want to use.

Here is a quick one:

It's mine. I found it in a basement - totally free. So it just tempted me, but really, I don't know if it's something I want to try or not. I just wondered if anybody used one of these for their hobby

Could be good for mead or something where you never have to move it.

I worry about my 6.5 and 5 gallon glass carboys (having broken one). A 12 gallon seems like a severe issue in moving and such.

Oh! I like the mead idea! Or maybe a big batch of a strong wine or something. You could do either of these generally at room temp, and leave the carboy elevated (on a table or something) so that you can rack from it without picking it up.

I've used a 13 gallon demi john several times that I borrowed from a friend....the key was to siphon beer into and out of it without moving it. Basically, once I put wort in it, it didn't move again until fully fermented beer had been siphoned out. Talk about an awesome yeast cake to pitch on!

Do 2x5 gallon Lambic style batches and let it ride for 1 year, at one year bottle 5 gallons then top it off with another 5 gallons Solera style. You will never have to move the heavy glass and will have a never ending supply of an ever changing house Lambic.

Buy ECY01 for your yeast.

Coff said:

Do 2x5 gallon Lambic style batches and let it ride for 1 year, at one year bottle 5 gallons then top it off with another 5 gallons Solera style. You will never have to move the heavy glass and will have a never ending supply of an ever changing house Lambic.

Buy ECY01 for your yeast.

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This is an amazing idea

It's a 12 gallon pyrex carboy!!!!! Christ on Christmas, you could boil,chill,ferment,and dryhop in the same carboy! Build a frame on wheels that you could roll over a burner and your set. If you aren't going to use it, let me know

You definitely want to build a furniture dolly-type deal to move that around when full. If you commit to those size batches I would also invest in a self-priming transfer pump (~$130) to avoid having to siphon.

I do double brew days all the time. If you sparge, however, you'll find that it's a little more tricky to work out the logistics of heating & transferring than it seems at first. A little ingenuity, though, will get you there!

+1pm on the Solera idea!

This is cool on its own, but the idea of a solera style house lambic is f***ing awesome!!!

gfd622 said:

I don't have a way to boil 15+ gallons of liquid, nor would I have a way to transfer 10 gallons when finished .

What do you think?

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Sell that pig! it is bloody EXPENSIVE. You would have enough to get a rig that could boil 14 gallons in keggles. When you get to the point were you wish you still had it grab a 1/2bbl, yank the spear out and you now have a 15 gallon stainless carboy with handles.

So have you used this monstrous fermenter yet?

gfd622 said:

Hey all,

Just a quick note, I've been brewing for 4 years. Started off like all, switched to all grain, and never looked back. It's a great hobby, I love it. I'm set up for 5 gallon batches, so I've never really thought of other things. Until...

I just found a 12 gallon glass carboy and thought, this is awesome, I could make a double batch in that. The very simple obvious question here is - does anybody do that (or should I just dream, and really forget about it because it's just too hard). Would it work to make 5 gallons, then make 5 gallons again, so a double long brew day - but really I could use the mash tun once - start that process, then use the mash tun again while the first brews. Should only take an extra hour or so.

I don't have a way to boil 15+ gallons of liquid, nor would I have a way to transfer 10 gallons when finished (beyond just lifting it up and pouring, but it would be heavy).

What do you think?

Click to expand...

You sir are sitting on a gold mine. Pyrex carboys are made of Borosilicate Glass which means its Damn expensive - $1000
So make good use of it