What fermenter are you using?

Lifting 5 gallons a few inches? Alot of brewers regularly lift a 5 gallon glass carboy into a chest freezer as did I for several years.

 

That's what I do until the day I can talk the wife into letting me buy a conical and chiller (I think it may be a while). The thought of only having to lift something a few inches sounds like heaven! lol

 

There are two issues. One is that lifting straight up with my legs isn't all that difficult--it's lifting with my arms partially outstretched in front of me that is difficult, and putting a fermenter in a refrigerator requires just that. I have a fermentation chamber refrigerator in which I place full plastic fermenters with lifting straps. Fortunately I can get them in there most of the way and push them the remainder.

The second issue is that I have had two back surgeries. I used to carry full fermenters in a milk crate down to my basement, and even holding the weight that far from my center of mass was painful. Some of my post-surgery pain is chronic and will never go away, and it's exacerbated by trying to hold heavy weight away from my body. I just deal with it, because.......beer!

 

I have 3 fermenters... a bucket, a Mr Beer legacy 6.5 gal clear plastic, and a 8 gal HDPE conical.

Guess which one I use most often...

Spoiler: it's not the one you think

the Mr Beer

 

Like the other people that mentioned Fermonsters, I love mine (wide mouth PET with spigots) and will keep buying them as I expand.
I do need to get a bucket for mead at some point.

@mongoose33 sounds rough man. I'd be making smaller batches or setting up everything in one area and using a pump so I wouldn't have to lift 5+ gallons ever.

 

It is what it is. Lots of people have issues, this just happens to be mine. I can actually do a lot more than some people who have other kinds of back issues. I do have a pump I use for some things. Just kind of depends on the day as to how much lifting I can do without major consequence.

And I don't have any difficulty whatsoever with 16-ounce curls.

 

Ooh slick. I'm just using PET carboys right now. Moving to Fermonsters, might go to SS buckets someday but damn they're expensive.

 

My Speidel 60L fermenter is awesome for 10G batches. I added a SS dip tube and ball valve from norcalbrewingsolutions and I would not trade this for a conical costing 5x as much.

 

I have 2 of these: 10 Gallon Black Lock Keg that I ferment 5.5 gallons at the time in.
I've been eyeballing one of these: Kegmenter Fermentation Keg - 13.2 gal

 

A 60L Speidel in Canada appears to be worth 2 SS Anvil brew buckets.

 

For those that have the Speidel fermentors with the NorCal dip tubes, what is the volume left in the carboy? I have 2x16 gal and still use a racking cane as using just the spigot leaves at least a gallon behind.

 

I mostly use 4 gallon disposable plastic carboys. Like this: https://www.menards.com/main/grocer...-gallon-jug/200000/p-1444433847115-c-6646.htm I have some 3, 5, and 6 gallon glass carboys that I sometimes use for wine, but I've mostly stopped using them for beer after I dropped a full 3-gallon going down stairs.

 

13 gallon keg and yes i can move it

 

Man. Thatd be awesome to fill my 3 gal,kegs. Is that the only place you’v seen them? No presence here on west coast unfortunately

 

I’m using a corney keg with floating dip tube and it works beautifully.
So much easier than the plastic bucket I was using previously.

I made the switch so I can exclude oxygen from my brewing process. I ferment in the keg, dry hop at day 4 by suspending a bag of hops above my fermenting wort from the PRV when I initially pitch the yeast, then sanitise the string and lower this in when the dryhop is needed. I spund in this as well so it saves CO2, and carbonates naturally.
After 7-10 days once I’ve taken a couple of gravity reading from the tap I install on the beer out post (which picks beer up from my floating dip tube) I transfer to the serving keg under the residual pressure in the fermenting keg - no extra C02 needed.
It’s a super economical way to do a whole lot more than is possible with plastic buckets - or even a lot of SS conicals, many of which do not allow fermenting under pressure.