Recommend a fermenter & critique my process

I'm getting ready to order a new fermenter. I'm still fairly new to brewing and have been brewing smaller batches. I have a three gallon carboy that I either brew two one gallon kits in or customize a five gallon batch down to two. I also have one gallon carboys for one gallon kits. I'm ready to move up to five gallon batches. I'm considering the 7 gallon Fermonster. Heres where I could use some critique on my process before ordering. Also these have been extract recipes and I do not plan to secondary ferment.

I'm bottling my beer. After coming across posts here about using domino dot sugars cubes for carbing, I tried it out on a batch of Caribou slobber. After 2 weeks it was carbed nicely. I'm at 3 weeks now and can tell it has more carbination than last week. I carefully syphoned straight out of primary to bottles and added one per 12oz & 2 per 22oz bomber. I just did the same for a saison batch. Am I asking for over carbonation, or any other problems?

It's just as easy to transfer to a bottling bucket mixing with priming sugar, but my reasoning is that I would have less chance of oxidation by going straight from primary to bottle.

If this sounds like my method is ok, I could make this easier with a fermenter with a spigot. Hooking up a hose & bottling wand straight to fermenter and opening a valve would be really easy. My concern with that is possibly getting an infection from the spigot after sitting for weeks fermenting. I'm not sure I could easily sanitize it before transferring.

 

The large fermonster is great but I didn't get the ones with the valve. I see the valve as just another thing to take apart and clean!

 

I use two seven gallon Fermonsters without spigots. I opted to not get them with spigots because they have to be removed and cleaned or they can become a source of infection. I enjoy them. I brew 5 gallon batches and I don't come anywhere near needing a blow off tube. I don't do a secondary either. Just two weeks in the fermenter and two more in the keg. I put them on platform dollies so I can roll them around. You want to be careful you don't pick them up while the air lock is in or it will suck the water into the fermenter. I've considered getting a metal fermenter, but for ~$30 the Fermonster's price can't be beat. Cleaning is also a breeze. I hose it out and wipe the inside with a paper towel and I'm done. I hit it with StarSan before I fill it again.

I also built two foam coolers out of rigid foam insulation boards to house them. With a couple large freezer packs I can keep them cold enough. It was cheaper than a fridge and I can keep them in the back of a deep closet where a fridge can't go. With the platform I can wheel them around while they are in the cooler.

When I bottled I used a bottling bucket and priming sugar. I've never used sugar cubes so I can't say anything about that other than I think it is a neat idea. There are carb drops made for just that purpose, but I'm sure your sugar cubes are cheaper. I switched to kegs a few months ago and love not having to bottle any more. I prime them with priming sugar too, but now I can skip the bottling bucket.

Once you have the Fermonsters you can use your old carboys to make hard cider or experimental brews.

 

I originally had a bigmouth bubbler without the spigot. When I bought a second, I bought it with the spigot. Didn't take long until I bought another spigot to refit the first one.

I've since bought three more BMBs, and all with a spigot. I remove it every time I clean the fermenter, takes about 10 seconds to remove it. I soak it in PBW for a bit while I'm cleaning other stuff, take a brush to it for a bit and then rinse. Takes all of about 90 seconds to deal with it.

I would not go back to using a siphon to rack. That's my experience, others' may be different.

 

I'm not worried about cleaning it. I don't mind spending time to take it apart. So I assume you've never had any contamination issues? I may be worried over nothing, but the small length from the end to inside the valve could get something in it while fermenting.

I've considered the BMB, but afraid of the sealing issues. Does the spigot sit high enough above the trub?

 

I've always fermented in plastic buckets with spigots (well over 100 batches) and only had contamination issues from dodgy adjuncts (vanilla, fruit, oak). The standard method in the US seems to be "ferment in carboy, transfer to bucket for bottling", but in Australia everyone I know uses a bucket with spigot as a fermenter. Every homebrew kit I've seen here includes these. I don't know anyone local who transfers to a bottling bucket - everyone who bottles goes straight to bottle from the primary fermenter using carbonation drops or measured sugar for priming. None of them have contamination issues.

BTW, I'm a bit slack and rarely clean my spigot (I'm not saying you shouldn't yourself - it is good practice) - I think a good, healthy pitch of yeast and strong ferment is the best way to avoid contaminations.

 

I run a small cleaning brush in there in addition to working the valve in the PBW. I rinse it, then dunk in star-san before storing it inside the BMB. I install it again just before I use it, again after dunking it in Star-San.

No problems with contamination thus far. If I ever get to the point where one of the spigots looks a little wonky, I'll just replace it. They're cheap at my LHBS, or online.

It's a funny thing. I really haven't had much trouble with them; others report different results. I store my lids w/ the silicone gaskets in my Star San bucket in between brews; I think that has in some fashion softened them up a bit so they aren't a problem. I also suspect that Northern Brewer may have made an adjustment to the lids.

There are workarounds if they don't quite want to seal down if you wan to try one.

The advantage to the Fermonster is they're cheaper and don't have that issue. On the other hand, their opening is smaller than the BMB.

It does for me. The trub really compacts down so that it sits below the spigot. There's always a little layer of yeast/trub inside the spigot mouth, but what I do is open the spigot to run off just enough beer to fill a hydrometer, which flushes that little bit of yeast/trub out of the spigot. I always dump all my trub into the fermenter so if there were going to be a large layer that would cover the spigot, I'd think that would do it.

Here's a pic showing a closeup of the trub layer from one of my brews; it's taken as I'm racking to a keg. You can see the layer is below the spigot. As the beer level gets close to the spigot, I'll gently (gently!) tilt the fermenter toward the spigot to get more beer out w/o disturbing the trub level.

 

Thanks, this is really what I have in mind and want to do. I didn't think of flushing a little beer/trub through it before going into bottle. (Duh).

 

if your primary concern is contamination, I don't at all understand the insistence of using a siphon over a spigot. To me the little spigot was much easier to clean. The siphon was bulky, has more pieces, and has that long narrow tube with a bend at the end. Frankly the siphon sucks to clean.

 

What would be the smallest batch size I could ferment in a 6.5-7 gal fermenter without having too much head space? Thanks

 

Generally people use a spray bottle to soak the inside of the spigot with sanitizer a few seconds before they open it.