What are you fermenting in?

Hey guys:

I've done about a dozen 5 gallon batches so far. I have a 6.5 glass carboy, and 2 6 gallon better bottles. Fermented in both equally and thinking of changing up.

I hate lifting/moving my glass around. And I am scared its going to break and slice off my arms. Kind of a pain to clean.

I hate cleaning my better bottles. After I rack my beer, I completely fill it with water and let it soak for days/weeks/month. Then I wash it according to the directions using soap/warm water/wash cloth. Takes me at least 2 hours to clean these stupid things. I do love how light they are though.

I have never tried fermenting in a bucket yet. What are everyones thoughts on that? They seem like they would be way easier to clean/harvest yeast.

I don't know. What are your thoughts?

Thanks. Sorry about the novel.

I always do my primary in an Ale Pale....always have...probably always will.

I use the big plastic fermenting vessel that came with my coopers kit a while ago.

Has a huge mouth when the top is off(easy to clean) also has a spigot for easy racking and whatnot.

I almost always ferment in a bucket now, and then rack to a carboy for secondary if I want to. The only time I use my carboy, is if I want to watch it ferment Or if my buckets are already full.

Also, I don't mind cleaning my glass carboys. Normally I empty it, put some hot water in, swish it around empty it again. Use my jet bottle washer and shoot hot water into for about a minute or so moving it around, by then, all of the settlement is gone, and the glass is pretty clean. Then I fill it about 1/2 way or more with sanitizer, shake it a few times, then let it sit for a few hours or longer. Then empty it out, and let it dry upside down.

I use buckets whenever I can. Easy to clean, easy to harvest yeast, cheaper than carboys or better bottles. Just be careful not to scratch them when you're cleaning and you'll have no problems. I just make sure to either rinse them immediately after emptying and/or soak them in oxyclean if the krausen has had a chance to dry on.

I always use buckets...thought about getting a better bottle so I could see the wort better but then didn't...buckets are easy to carry and clean.

I've got a 6.5 Gal glass carboy for primary, 2-5 Gal better bottles for secondary, and a 5 Gal bucket that I usually use for bottling. The safety factor of the better bottles is nice, but they don't clean up as easily as the glass. Early on, when I used the plastic for my primary, the ring of krausen around the top was a pain in the butt to scrub off completely.

drainbamage said:

I've got a 6.5 Gal glass carboy for primary, 2-5 Gal better bottles for secondary, and a 5 Gal bucket that I usually use for bottling. The safety factor of the better bottles is nice, but they don't clean up as easily as the glass. Early on, when I used the plastic for my primary, the ring of krausen around the top was a pain in the butt to scrub off completely.

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I think you are doing this backwards Glass is much better for long secondary, it's not porous at all, where plastic is.

I didn't say it was right, just that I liked it better that way.

The main reason I use the glass for primary is that it has more headspace for active primary fermentations. Like I said before, I like the way it cleans up as well. I rarely do really long secondaries (more than a month), so I'm not all that worried about the porosity of the better bottle.

I stopped using buckets because glass was easier to clean, not the other way around, and I'm always confident that there's nothing left behind that star-san won't get. Plastic scratches.

I use my sink hose to loosen up the yeast cake, oxyclean with a carboy brush to wash, then my jet washer to rinse. It comes out spotless every time.

If you don't have handles already on your glass carboys, get them. They take a little of the worry away.

I've been using an 8 gallon conical for the past 10 years. It's one of those plastic deals from Minibrew. I was kind of hesitant to go with plastic but compared to the price of stainless, I couldn't justify the price to my wife lol. Anyway, it's been great all these years - easy to clean, doesn't scratch, nice and thick so no light or oxygen can get in. Super easy to harvest yeast and rack to a keg. You can even brew your next batch and drop your fresh wort right onto the yeast cake from the last brew, as long as you sanitized everything properly. Best of all, no secondary - just leave it in the primary and watch all your yeast and trub drop down into the cone. And no I don't work for them, I just like a conical better than carboys and buckets. I did have to modify the stand it came with a little bit so I could fit it into my lager fridge. Oh and my first couple of batches fermented in it turned out tasting super metallic. I brought some samples to my homebrew club (lots of BJCP judges there) and they couldn't figure it out. I decided to email John Palmer because of his metallurgy background. He suggested I look at the ball valves. Sure enough, the nickel plating on the brass ball valves the unit came with had worn away and was reacting with the acidic wort. I replaced them with stainless and haven't had any problem since. :rockin:

I've got Better Bottles, and buckets that I kinda randomly decide between when I'm fermenting (I go back and forth on what I like better). If I do a double batch (20 gal) I use 4 corny kegs and some fermcap. For sours I have my original glass carboy. And if I do a really oddball test batch I have a bunch of 1 gallon glass jugs. So I'm just all over the map.

PBW is your friend if you like better bottles. A good 1 hour soak and the fermenter is spotless, no scrubbing. Be real careful cleaning with standard detergent soap, odds are bad that u will actually fully rinse away all of the residue.

I built my keg/carboy washer after reading about them here on HBT. Cost me around $100 IIRC and it's great. Granted, I built it after switching from buckets to Better Bottles because, well, I hated trying to get them clean.

Buckets work great and I still use them for the occasional melomel.

I have one better bottle for lagering and any beers that need a secondary, but all of my primary fermentations are done in buckets.

I ferment mostly in cornies now, but before that it was all buckets. I've used portless better bottles too and liked them well enough.

bobbrewedit said:

PBW is your friend if you like better bottles. A good 1 hour soak and the fermenter is spotless, no scrubbing. Be real careful cleaning with standard detergent soap, odds are bad that u will actually fully rinse away all of the residue.

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Yep. Works on all carboys. Hot water and the prescribed amount of PBW and it basically cleans itself. Especially if you get to it shortly after racking out of the carboy.

I use glass 6.5 gallon carboys. I'll stick with these till I get a stainless conical.:cross:

Rick

I use 6.5 gallon carboys - and yes they are a pain to clean. But I can be sure thay are clean.

I use handles and brewhaulers to lug them around.
I use CO2 to push the beer into a corney after a long primary.

I have thought about using a stainless stockpot for primaries but haven't figured out a good way to transfer the beer.

A valve install will have threads (hard to clean) unless going with an expensive clover fitting. So for now the glass carboy is it.

Stainless conicals are just too expensive (and I would need 2 or 3 since I brew a lot of variety).

I've used both buckets and better bottles, but I use mostly BB now. I don't have an issue cleaning them. Between hot water and a carboy brush, it's easy.

I used cornies, but is anyone using milk cans?



-John

Hey bulls you use a carboy brush on your better bottles? I thought that was a no no.

I used glass carboys for years--7 gallons for primary, 5 or 6 gallons for secondary. Last year I got a Stout conical. I still lager in carboys (so I can keep my conical gainfully employed). And in 20 years of brewing, I have broken exactly one carboy (It cracked when I left it outside in winter filled with hot water. No one was hurt. I just felt stupid).

Carboys are great for having an easily sealable opening. But they definitely suck for getting a FG sample.,. Long test tube I guess... That said I will still use them over buckets because you can see inside them for racking and in my opinion cleaning them isn't so bad. However I will be graduating to a plastic 15 gal conical soon

Sankes. Never going to break or scratch.

I use a dolly to move it around, brute strength to pick it up, powered sump keg cleaner to make sure it is clean, rinse with once then star san, refill with wort.

I try to brew two batches within a week so I can run at least two sankes and a few corneys at the same time through the washing process.

If I choose to rack, which is rare I use glass.

Djuhnk said:

Carboys are great for having an easily sealable opening. But they definitely suck for getting a FG sample.,. Long test tube I guess... That said I will still use them over buckets because you can see inside them for racking and in my opinion cleaning them isn't so bad. However I will be graduating to a plastic 15 gal conical soon

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Turkey baster. I have no trouble at all taking samples.

I use Buckets for Primary unless they are full and I have a carboy available. Both work well. Easier to clean a bucket imo.

All glass - primary and secondary. I like being able to see what's happening + easy cleanup + less plastic in the mix.

________________________________

Primary: Classic Pilsner, D-rest
Secondary: Empty (just bottled Pre-Prohibition lager)

8 Gal Sanke for my 5 gallon batches, 16 Gal Sanke for my 10 gallon batches.

Remove the spear, and its a big stainless carboy.

I have yet to break one...

I ferment everything in kegs these days. I usually brew 12 gal batches, and sometimes ferment the whole batch in a 1/2bbl sankey. More often though I split it between two 1/4bbl's or three sixtels/cornies, and pitch different yeasts, or use different hops for dry hopping,

I ferment 10 gallon batches in plastic open top barrels with locking ring that i got off craigs list for $12 a piece they work great and the price is right

I just recently started using plastic buckets and loving it. Except I can't see what happening so have found myself tranferring to glass secondary. A secondary is so much easier to clean than a primary. So using plastic for a primary and the water hose set to power wash, it's clean. Then to clean the glass, soapy water, shake it, dump it, rinse it, it's clean with no scrubbing. Transferring isn't a big deal with an auto-syphon.

Buckets 90% of the time, cornies the rest.

I use glass carboys and a 14 gallon heated/cooled conical.

Billy-Klubb said:

I use glass carboys and a 14 gallon heated/cooled conical.

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What do you use to heat and cool your conical?

Djuhnk said:

What do you use to heat and cool your conical?

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http://morebeer.com/view_product/10776/103722/14_Gallon_Conical_Fermenter_-_Heated_and_Cooled it's awesome.

jweez said:

I hate cleaning my better bottles. After I rack my beer, I completely fill it with water and let it soak for days/weeks/month. Then I wash it according to the directions using soap/warm water/wash cloth. Takes me at least 2 hours to clean these stupid things.

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use a bottle brush to get the krausen ring off. don't worry about scratching the plastic, the brush can't put much of a scratch in that plastic, certainly not deep enough for bugs to hide from the likes of star san or whatever sanitizer you use.

Billy-Klubb said:

http://morebeer.com/view_product/10776/103722/14_Gallon_Conical_Fermenter_-_Heated_and_Cooled it's awesome.

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Holy crap that's expensive. I have 60 gallon fermenters I need to cool. But only cool, i will probably just end up putting an air conditioner in and just keeping the room really cool

I knew that some people secondary in a keg, but how do you do your primary in a keg? How do you keep tabs on how the fermation is going? What about blow out and D-rest?

okiedog said:

I knew that some people secondary in a keg, but how do you do your primary in a keg? How do you keep tabs on how the fermation is going? What about blow out and D-rest?

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Just think of it as a stainless steel carboy. After my first couple batches the novelty of seeing the yeasties swim around was gone, and I never really "kept tabs" on my beer. I just let it ferment out, then took a hydro reading to make sure it had fermented properly, and then bottled or kegged it. Same process with a keg. Depending on what type of keg you use, there are a lot of different options for blow-off tubes and airlocks. You can even use a spunding valve instead and ferment under light pressure like a lot of larger breweries do. I don't think the fermenter makes any difference for doing a d-rest. Just raise the temp of your ferm chamber when appropriate.

Djuhnk said:

Holy crap that's expensive. I have 60 gallon fermenters I need to cool. But only cool, i will probably just end up putting an air conditioner in and just keeping the room really cool

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it was worth it IMO. and I could afford it when I was making Wyoming wages. not these days though. hahahaha!!