Fermenter Advice

[Morrey]

I am preparing to scale up my operation and need some advice from those with experience owning what I am looking for.

I am currently using 7 gallon Ss brew buckets with the FTSs cooling system and glycol chiller. I have a chugger pump but currently limit the use for whirlpooling. The 7 G buckets are light enough I can sit up on a table and fill a keg with a hose gravity fed.

My goal is to step up from 5.5G batches going to 11 G for two 5G kegs at a time. I have a 20G boil kettle ready to go. I'd like to use CO2 to transfer to kegs. I suppose I'll need to transfer wort from boil kettle to the fermenter via pump since gravity drain from my boil kettle on burner with legs (Hellfire) probably wont be high enough to fill the conical gravity fed.

My natural inclination is to go with the Ss 14G Chronical w/ FTSs control (familiarity)....but I may be overlooking other brands that will be suggested. Ss also makes a 14G brew bucket like the 7G models I have now, but my gut feeling is to step up my equipment since I'll be spending a bit on this upgrade. Once empty, I'll need to roll or lift the conical and take it outside of my brew cave to be cleaned and washed.....so it needs to be semi-portable and not fixed in place.

Any help, suggestions or advice will be most appreciated. Thanks!!

 

[EsoChingado]

Thought about fermentation in a sanke keg? You can even do pressure fermenting and definitely transfer under co2 pressure. Very portable.

 

[Morrey]

Thought about fermentation in a sanke keg? You can even do pressure fermenting and definitely transfer under co2 pressure. Very portable.

Glycol chilling may be a concern here. I make IPA's in that I will be adding in dry hops during biotransformation and use a large hop strainer for that. Need large access port.

 

[Dcpcooks]

From what I've seen blichmann, spike and ss offer or are developing some form of a coil to control temps. I'm not sure how far away blichmann and spike are at this point. A friend was at nhc and spoke directly with blichmann and he said they have several new product coming out to challenge Ss. Spike is dealing with several new launches and based on past challenges Idk what to expect from them at this point. But their conical looks nice. Ss has new uni tanks on the market which look very nice for carbing, o2 free transfers and pressurized fermentations. I am very tempted to sell my cold side and go with 3 14 gallon uni tanks and a new chiller. It seems very versatile and would take up the smallest footprint in my new space.


I think it's a personal choice at this point. They will all make good beer! I have one 1/2 bbl with coils and run it on glycol and another in a commercial fridge with a temp controller. Both work great.

You should really look into CIP set ups for the conical. I never move my conicals anymore. I just hook up a sump pump, and move it as needed between buckets of PBW, hot water, and sanitizer and run them through a cycle after fermentation. Super easy and very effective. I have gone from brett primary's to lagers with the cleaning process and I've not had any cross contamination. (I do swap out triclamp gaskets.)

 

[Morrey]

From what I've seen blichmann, spike and ss offer or are developing some form of a coil to control temps. I'm not sure how far away blichmann and spike are at this point. A friend was at nhc and spoke directly with blichmann and he said they have several new product coming out to challenge Ss. Spike is dealing with several new launches and based on past challenges Idk what to expect from them at this point. But their conical looks nice. Ss has new uni tanks on the market which look very nice for carbing, o2 free transfers and pressurized fermentations. I am very tempted to sell my cold side and go with 3 14 gallon uni tanks and a new chiller. It seems very versatile and would take up the smallest footprint in my new space.


I think it's a personal choice at this point. They will all make good beer! I have one 1/2 bbl with coils and run it on glycol and another in a commercial fridge with a temp controller. Both work great.

You should really look into CIP set ups for the conical. I never move my conicals anymore. I just hook up a sump pump, and move it as needed between buckets of PBW, hot water, and sanitizer and run them through a cycle after fermentation. Super easy and very effective. I have gone from brett primary's to lagers with the cleaning process and I've not had any cross contamination. (I do swap out triclamp gaskets.)

The new 14G uni tank from Ss is very attractive to me. I can add FTSs heating and cooling systems bundled together for a shade over $1K. PLUS Ss Michael allows veterans a nice discount .

With all this said, and with you saying you'd probably go this way Don, I take this as a thumbs up. With all factors being somewhat equal give or take a few features here or there, I like to do business with merchants who recognize our service to our country.

Oh yeah, I have a sump pump I use to pump BLC thru 6 lines at one in my Bev Air. This would be keen with the CIP....good advice.