Two 11 Gal stainless fermenters.

Well, my other project is hitting some snags... But! about a week ago I found these beauties!!!


they are jacketed hot food storage tanks. so we decided to turn them into fermenters!

here is the comleted step 1. with the ball valve installed!

 

That's gonna be awesome.


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Nice! great find there.

DanH - I don't have an IPhone.

 

Nice find. Should be a great vessel.

 

What is within the jacket, air or insulation?

What's the plan on temp control?

Those are nice!

 

Those look incredibly awesome.

 

thanks everyone, yeah, these things are kind of pricy brand new so it was a REALLY lucky find! they dont have conical bottoms or anything, but thats not too big a deal.

nothin but air! we are going to TRY and see if we can find a way to coil copper tubing between the inner wall of the vessel and the outer (jacket) we think there is enough room, but it will just be trick to get it to coil. if we can do that we will be able to pump chilled glycol through them!!

 

So, the only opening in the jacket, is where your drain valve is attached?

Or are there openings to the atmosphere in the bottom of the jacket , ( so no water will accumulate)?

 

Not yet! But thank you for bringing that up! Should be a very easy fix, maybe just drill a few small holes for drainage?

 

ok! finished installing spigots on both fermenters! now working on installing the thermowells. progress is a little slow, but still going!

 

Its been a bit since i have updated this! There HAS been progress though! We got the thermometer and blowoff tube installed on one of these bad boys and are working on the second!

 

Just going to throw a question out there as we are having a bit of trouble figuring this part out.
So these are jacketed, with just empty space between the jacket and inner wall. Probably about 1/2-3/4 inch between the walls. Does anyone have any ideas of how to feed/coil copper tubing through the space between the jacket and inner wall?


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Will the jacket hold water on its own?

Cheers
Jay

 

That thing is pretty.

I don't know about feeding tubing inside the void now, but there is a thread on here somewhere that shows a guy building one with a jacket to which he is pumping glycol. From what I understood most people's doubt about the design centered around the possibility of "channeling" of the coolant due the the absence of baffles within the jacketed space. Some fins or bumps in there might be a good upgrade.

if you could get someone to weld nipples on the outside of the jacket you could give this a shot though. Lots of ways to cool the glycol...window AC in a cooler reservoir or a glycol reservoir in a freezer.

I'm planning to upgrade my fermenters in a similar way....copper tubing wrapped and glycol fed from a freezer glycol reservoir.

Cheers!

 

It's got "fins or bumps" already.

 

I would think if its jacketed there should be an in and out port, and some fins or diveders inside to couse the circulation of the fluid.
I good friend of my brother is a fabricator and makes jacketed pots for some company, SS, so pretty. Anyway, he designed it to flow in a manner that would ansure even heat.
Just a thought.

 

Ok! Solved the "temp control" conundrum! Made a ss tubing coil that goes inside the fermenter and mounts into the lid! Then we hooked the coil up to a small cooler filled with water and ice packs. We have a submersible pump that is hooked to a Johnson temp control box that will pump chilled water into the coil. So far it works like a charm!


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That seems like the simplest solution and I would think very effective. Next step diy glycol chiller.

 

Heck yes! We already have a mini-fridge we are planning on using for just that!


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