Continuous Brewing Setup

I'm planning on starting to brew kombucha soon and am hoping to create a continuous brewing/dispensing system.

I've heard that glass is the best option but I've also heard that if the glass is not tempered the hot water can shatter the jug. Can anyone point me in a direction of where I can find a large, tempered glass jug with a spigot...similar to that used for sun tea but tempered.

I'd love to modify a 5 gallon glass carboy but the opening at the top is not suitable since it is very small.

Something like this but tempered:


Thanks!

I make bulk concentrated tea beforehand, and then dilute it when adding to the kombucha. Because it's stored in the fridge and I also use room temp tap water to dilute, nothing hot is going into the kombucha. If you're doing continuous brewing this is way easier to brew tea every couple of weeks rather than every couple of days.

schleven said:

I'm planning on starting to brew kombucha soon and am hoping to create a continuous brewing/dispensing system.

I've heard that glass is the best option but I've also heard that if the glass is not tempered the hot water can shatter the jug. Can anyone point me in a direction of where I can find a large, tempered glass jug with a spigot...similar to that used for sun tea but tempered.

I'd love to modify a 5 gallon glass carboy but the opening at the top is not suitable since it is very small.

Something like this but tempered:

Thanks!

Click to expand...

If you fill the jug with hot tap water and warm the glass before adding boiled water it will not break. i use standard glass sun tea jugs that are not tempered. The only way you will break glass is if you pour boiling liquid into a COLD jar.

I use porcelain water crocks for this purpose. For use as a continuous brewer, I don't think the brewer itself needs to be tempered. Just don't make your tea directly in the brewer. Make it in a separate jar, then after it cools, add the makeup tea to your continuous brewer. If you add boiling hot tea to the continuous brewer it may damage the culture.

I prefer to bottle and add makeup tea every 2-3 days. To me that seems the ideal time roughly for 2.5 gal continuous brewers. But since that's about the smallest continuous brewer you could use, if you had say a 10 gallon continuous brew it would probably be more practical to go longer between withdrawal/makeup teas.