Racking out of large fermentation drums

I am looking to do a 11 gal batch in a 15 gallon drum I have. To you fellow homebrewers to ferment in large and deep drums, how are you racking out of them? I don't think I could lift my container high enough to get it above the corny kegs.

Thank you for help
Trent

I've seen pictures of a block & tackle setup a guy had rigged on a track mounted to his ceiling. As for what I do - have a big breakfast so I can lift it out of the chest freezer and use an autosiphon.

ErikH said:

I've seen pictures of a block & tackle setup a guy had rigged on a track mounted to his ceiling. As for what I do - have a big breakfast so I can lift it out of the chest freezer and use an autosiphon.

Click to expand...

Yea, I can power lift if I really wanted, but I know there were a few people here fermenting in 30-55gal drums. I doubt they are lifting those!

How about using vacuum? Your target vessel would have a sanitized tube from the fermenter, and a vacuum port. So essentially you'd suck the beer through the tube.

Likewise, you can use co2 to push the beer out of the fermenter, but vacuum is free.

I have used a pump and it works great as long as it is below the bottom of the container being drawn from. I use CO2 to move beer from carboys to kegs so that would work if you can get the drum to pressureize to 3 or more lbs per sq in. You really need a racking port on the drum with a rotatable racking tube and this could be fabricated if you have the resources. Any fermentor should be raised off the ground on a platform or stand to make transfers to kegs easy without pumps, pressure or vacuum.

I use a pump for my drum...




I use sanitizer to maintain a prime and if that goes, then I use an autosiphon to restart the flow.