Equipment Advice - Fermentation Vessel With Anvil Foundry

[tgile512]

Hi All,

I have been brewing small 1 gallon extract kits for about a year and want to make the jump to all grain in larger batches. I am looking at the Anvil Foundry and am leaning toward the 10.5 gallon version with the small batch adapter given I like the ability to continue brewing on the smaller side but have the flexibility to shift up to a full 5 gallon down the road.

None of my current fermentation vessels would be big enough to handle 2.5 - 5 gallons so am looking at the Anvil bucket fermentors. I would like to keep my equipment footprint as small as possible given space issues so my question is: would I be able to get by using the larger 7.5 vessel even for smaller 2.5 gallon batches or is that much headspace too great an issue?

I do not foresee brewing too many 5 gallon batches anytime soon (no kegging capability/space) and want to avoid having multiple vessels but not sure there is anyway around that. If I cannot use the 7.5 for small batches, my thought was to just go with the 4 gallon Anvil bucket (given that is what I will be using most of the time) and then a cheap 5 gallon carboy/PET option. Ultimately want to set myself up to grow in the future without unnecessary equipment today.

Any help/thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Bad Bubba]

I don't know why it won't work for smaller batches. I make nominal 5 gallon batches in a 14 gallon chronical all of the time and it seems to work just fine. I do have an Anvil 4 gallon bucket fermenter that I use for 2.5 to 3 gallon batches. I think scaling up is more of a limitation than scaling down.

The thing I do like about the Anvil is you can add their chilling system and do a pretty good job of controlling temperature. If you are planning on adding chilling I would contact anvil to be sure their chilling system would reach down far enough into the fermenter to be effective on a small batch. But if you are not doing going in the direction you should be fine.