Brewhouse kit - how necessary IS that 10 gal primary?

[2wenches]

Hello all,

I'm about to start my second beer ever - another Brewhouse kit (since the first turned out quite well). The instructions call for a 10 gal primary fermenter. Since we didn't have one of those, we just split the batch into two 5gal buckets and that worked fine. But it was a pain. So we want to get one, big-enough primary fermenter.

Since the beer didn't seem to really foam up that much in those first few days, and since I've seen a certain amount of ignoring the rules around here, I would like to hear from those who have done Brewhouse or other no-boil kits before: do you really need a 10 gal primary fermenter? Or would a 6 gal do? The 10 gal ones are expensive (considering it's just a bucket) and tough to find used.

If it matters, my thought was to do the Brewhouse Prairie Wheat, but mildly hack it by using a nicer yeast (probably Wyeast 3086) and floating a little sack of orange zest in it.

 

[FrozenOcean]

I've made lots of those brewhouse kits, with good results.

I would say that a 6 gallon bucket is not going to do it. It will depend on the yeast and the type of beer, but wheat beers tend to foam up the worst. Get the bigger bucket before you have a mess on your hands. Also, that sack of orange zest sounds like a dangerous way to get your beer infected. Why not just serve it with a slice of orange if you want to go that way?

 

[jekeane]

6.5g better bottles, bigmouth Bubblers, or fermentation buckets would be the way to go for primaries.

As for your zest put it in your hop bag the drop it in a container cover the whole thing with some vodka for a couple of days and there should be little infection concern.

 

[kh54s10]

6.5g better bottles, bigmouth Bubblers, or fermentation buckets would be the way to go for primaries.

As for your zest put it in your hop bag the drop it in a container cover the whole thing with some vodka for a couple of days and there should be little infection concern.

Where have you found a 6.5 gallon Better Bottle. AFAIK, they only make 3,5 and 6 gallon ones.

I do just over 5 gallon batches of all sorts of recipes, extract, partial mash, BIAB and traditional all grain. I use fermentation buckets, and 6 gallon Better Bottles. I set up a blow off tube every time.

If these kits make 5 gallon batches there is no need for such a big fermenter or to split it into 2 buckets. But, you may get some blow off.

 

[jekeane]

the 6g Better Bottles are technically 6.5 when you count to the rim, they used to market them as 6.5 when in reality they are only useful for 5.25-5.5g volumes.

 

[RiderEh]

Just use a 30L, it's what most western Canadian home brew shops carry. I haven't had any issues though the foaming will touch the lid. I just use a 3 piece or s type airlock.

As for the orange zest, try this recipe.

http://www.beerthief.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8#p24

I am doing it now and from my taste tests it's turning out great! However I did make the kit to a full 23L. I actually split the batch, did the other half on blueberries. We did a raspberry already which was fantastic.

#brewhouse

 

[2wenches]

Thanks for the advice, all. I'll go ahead and get that bigger bucket. Thanks also for the link to the beertheif recipe - I have read over an over about the vodka, but never with details like time to soak and how much orange and coriander.

I would love to try raspberry some time too, so I'd be interested to hear how you did that!

 

[RiderEh]

The raspberry turned out really well, one of my fiancée's favourites. We just used frozen organic raspberry's and let soak for a week.