Convince me not to go 30 gallons.

[user 246304]

Pretty basic. Convince me to stay as planned, with a 20 gallon setup and 26 or so bottle conditioned six-packs to drink and share, over 30 gallons of pretty much the same idea. Only....muwahahahahah....more!

 

[LarMoeCur]

I say....GOOOO TTTTHHHIIIRRRRRTTTTYY!

I built my system with 20 gallon kettles. Which limits me to 10 gallon maybe 15 gallon low gravity beers. I'm brewing twice a month and cannot keep up with demand. Now that football season is here. It's even harder to keep up. I really wish I would have went with 30 gallon kettles.

 

[user 246304]

I say....GOOOO TTTTHHHIIIRRRRRTTTTYY!

I built my system with 20 gallon kettles. Which limits me to 10 gallon maybe 15 gallon low gravity beers. I'm brewing twice a month and cannot keep up with demand. Now that football season is here. It's even harder to keep up. I really wish I would have went with 30 gallon kettles.

Okay, OK, I can only take so much pressure before I break, man!

Er, um.....would a single tier 2" Square ss 16 gauge still hold it all up?

Edit: Actually, just occurred to me while looking at my 20 gallon plan. I'd planned to stick with an IC, which I always used and enjoyed using when I was doing 12 gallon batches. I manually whirlpool x 5 minutes, settled from 20-40 minutes, and the IC goes up and over and sits for 5 or so to sanitize, then cooling begins. Crystal wort out the tap, cold break, trub, hop pile stays behind really well. Simpler to clean and far less for me to worry about re: sanitation issues.

That said, I'm not sure even a double or triple coil would work on these volumes. LarMoeCur, or anyone, care to chime in on this? Your wort cooling, 20-30 gallons? Thanks.

 

[LarMoeCur]

As for weight. I think you will be fine. I'd plan for at least a 300 lbs. 40 lbs of grain, 30 gallons of water (250 lbs), kettles 10 lbs each. The key will be good welds and when in doubt weld in some angled supports.

I've cooled 15 gallons down to 67F in 20 minutes with a IC. My cooling is kind of crazy. I cover my HERMS coil with ICE and run as a pre-chiller. The water entering my IC is 37F and I whirlpool continuously until I hit 67F. Then I pull the chiller, cut the pump, and let settle for 10-15 minutes.

 

[stz]

I went with 70L vessels and at the time toyed with the idea of and costed 100L. I really do not need 100L, but still find myself maxing out the capacity of my system nearly every time and wishing I went for 100L as I try and fine tune the worlds most gentle boil. I am just too cheap to discard wort so everything is always filled to the brim if I'm hitting my numbers. I think if I'd went for 100L it would still be the same though as the problem is more than likely me and not capacity.

As to useful advice think about the practicality. If you can only store so many bottles or fit so many on a counter while filling it'll annoy you fast to have to spill over and across the floor when working. If you work with particular fermenters it'll annoy you to have say 6 and a half instead of a whole number and you will need space in wherever you ferment for them. I can only fit 4 fermenters in the modified chest freezer which I use for temperature control and you may have similar constraints.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

If you already have a 20 gallon setup buying another setup is a bit of a waste. !0 gallons of beer at a time is a lot. Plus the average 7 cf chest freezer for fermintation only holds 2 buckets/carboys

Just brew once more during the month and your at the same amount of beer without wasting/spending money. Just my 2 cents

 

[user 246304]

Thanks, that's helpful. I actually just scaled up a Baltic Porter of mine, yields 20 g of 21.75 P wort into the fermenter. 37 gallons/308 # of water and 55 # of grain, plus the three vessels, pumps, etc. Seems fine - thanks for pointing it out.

Very interesting cooling regimen. I was thinking of doing a recirc of the IC water through a water bath, with a sump pump, as I've seen some describe. Am I understanding you - your system pump pumps the wort so you get a whirlpool, and your Herms is a pre-chiller...but I'm sorry, I can't see how you're recirc'ing your cold water.

Sounds awesome and if you wouldn't mind helping this techno-challenged brother out...!

 

[LarMoeCur]

Very interesting cooling regimen. I was thinking of doing a recirc of the IC water through a water bath, with a sump pump, as I've seen some describe. Am I understanding you - your system pump pumps the wort so you get a whirlpool, and your Herms is a pre-chiller...but I'm sorry, I can't see how you're recirc'ing your cold water.

Sounds awesome and if you wouldn't mind helping this techno-challenged brother out...!

Yes, I use my pump to circulate my wort to aid in the radiant cooling.
Moving the hot wort around the coils drastically increases the cooling rate.

I'd don't recirc my IC water. Water is straight from the spigot and into my HERMS coil, out of the HERMS coils and into the IC chiller, out the chiller and into my lawn sprinkler. No recirc or extra pump needed. At the start of cooling the water is way to hot to recirc you would just be wasting ice. My water going into my HERMS is around 70F, out of the HERMS and into the chiller around 37F, exits the chiller around 150-160F.

Now, when I do lagers. I want the wort at 50F. So at 67F I move some hoses for recirculation. I have to drain the HLT and refill with ice. I then recirculate down to 50. From 67f to 50F takes a lot of time.

 

[user 246304]

Great, thanks for taking me through. Nice way of doing it!

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

So I was considering making a tongue in cheek thread, "convince me not to go 3 gallons, since I currently brew 2 gallon batches. I got to thinking about it though and I knew a cool family that they and their friends drank a lot of beer. If they had chosen to go off the grid and make all their own beer, I crunched some numbers and the thirty gallon system would make more sense for them. I am not as social, so for me it would be ridiculous, but if I had buddies over all the time and parties it starts to be more reasonable. Bottling that much beer though is absolutely ridiculous. To go that big kegging would be an utter necessity. Bottling 2 gallons is kind of a pain in the a$$.

 

[user 246304]

I went with 70L vessels and at the time toyed with the idea of and costed 100L. I really do not need 100L, but still find myself maxing out the capacity of my system nearly every time and wishing I went for 100L as I try and fine tune the worlds most gentle boil. I am just too cheap to discard wort so everything is always filled to the brim if I'm hitting my numbers. I think if I'd went for 100L it would still be the same though as the problem is more than likely me and not capacity.

As to useful advice think about the practicality. If you can only store so many bottles or fit so many on a counter while filling it'll annoy you fast to have to spill over and across the floor when working. If you work with particular fermenters it'll annoy you to have say 6 and a half instead of a whole number and you will need space in wherever you ferment for them. I can only fit 4 fermenters in the modified chest freezer which I use for temperature control and you may have similar constraints.

Good thoughts thanks, stz. If I were being totally honest, 30 gallons wouldn't be enough, just as 15.5 wasn't enough the last time I brewed. I've always got the burn to brew on a commercial level, er, at home. I'm too old and broken down to do this pro anymore, but I do love everything about a 100 or 200 bbl MT, etc.!

 

[user 246304]

If you already have a 20 gallon setup buying another setup is a bit of a waste. !0 gallons of beer at a time is a lot. Plus the average 7 cf chest freezer for fermintation only holds 2 buckets/carboys

Just brew once more during the month and your at the same amount of beer without wasting/spending money. Just my 2 cents

Good 2 cents they are, Jonny. I'm actually in the planning stage, so the idea of "doing it once, doing it right" is definitely in mind. To be honest, my former 2 tier, entirely gravity based system (hand vorlauf, hand transfer to BK) was great - worked like a champ. But there was a lot of dreamt of then as I wanted to get going so badly, I went cheap where I could. Trying to meet a dream, with a budget, this time. And I do push some high gravity brews. Larrymoe's thoughts come into play here.

 

[user 246304]

So I was considering making a tongue in cheek thread, "convince me not to go 3 gallons, since I currently brew 2 gallon batches. I got to thinking about it though and I knew a cool family that they and their friends drank a lot of beer. If they had chosen to go off the grid and make all their own beer, I crunched some numbers and the thirty gallon system would make more sense for them. I am not as social, so for me it would be ridiculous, but if I had buddies over all the time and parties it starts to be more reasonable. Bottling that much beer though is absolutely ridiculous. To go that big kegging would be an utter necessity. Bottling 2 gallons is kind of a pain in the a$$.

I laughed, AZ. "1 gallon, phew, v. 1/4 gallon."

Your right, bottling will be insane on even a 20 gallon system. I used to have an awesome CPF, hardware totally mounted in .... can't remember which plastic this would be, anyway, emulated the pro fillers on a small craft level you see. Not easy by any means, but much easier than handheld CPF. Force carbonated my 10 gallon cornies.

Here, I plan to do "real ales". So bottles will be merely poured, not filled under pressure. Maybe I'm delusional, but the idea doesn't seem to bother me. I hope to do some casks, when I can ensure they'd be drained in a few days. (can't believe I gave my engine, casks, etc.; my substantial lab equip; and my cornies to my wife's cousin, years ago, thinking I'd given up brewing for good).

The remainder of my brews will be kegged. So, I dunno. I'm probably just delusional. Wouldn't be the first time.