Beer Forum

With the 6.5 gal carboys going away, and since a lot of you brew ten gallon batches, what are people fermenting in besides glass carboys and better bottles? There is always something else to ferment in. I found a HDPE container from US Plastics that will be my next fermentor. It is square, wide, and low, like a cake pan. Comes with a lid. They come in various sizes, I think I'm opting for the 20 gal. This would be a great alternative to try because you can easily harvest the krausen or just skim the crap offf the top if you want. The low height to width ratio is supposed to make a maltier, smoother beer, I guess due to less pressure on the yeast. The English traditionally used the Yorkshire Square style fermentor which is the same idea. I believe Anchor ferments in big square shallow vats too.

What do you use?

I own a Fermenator, so that is my main fermentor. But I still uses buckets for some beers, and carboys for others. And then there was my open fermentation experiment. You want shallow and flat?

It worked just fine, but I lost a lot to evaporation here in Colorado. Follow the link above for more information on that.

I have a friend that converted a keg to a fermentor. He cut the top just as you would for a boil kettle, and rigged a sealed lid with a cross piece through the keg handles and an o-ring around the lip of the cut-out.

-Eric

i made a 10 gallon keg fermentor viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10172 i gotta tell you .. if you try this, don't use the soda keg lid. it won't seal. i'm still trying to figure out how i'm gonna do it. i got some ideas but havn't had time to try them yet

tom

foomench, I forgot about your open fermentation experiment, that kicks ass! That's really surprising you lost so much to evaporation. Here in AZ I bet I would have the same problem since it's so dry all the time. My plan was to use pans similar to yours but with lids. The lids don't seal, just sit on top but they would do well to protect against shit falling into the fermenter and would inhibit some evap too. I'm going to put the pans in my chest freezer fermentation chamber so that lid would be another shit/evap barrier.

one_dead_soul, I have a sankey keg that needs to become useful to my brewery, I just might turn it into a fermenter. I think the perfect design, at least to me, would allow me to use the keg as a kettle when I need it, and a fermenter when I need it for that.

yeah.. that would be the best. i say just get a lid from a big pot and make the opening in the keg so it fits snug and put a gasket on the lip of the lid. drill a hole in the lid for a ruber stopper that you can stick a blow off in. if the lid fits snug enough you could just put a weight on it to keep it air tight.. ish. no point in over complicating things.

tom

Grist Licker wrote:foomench ... My plan was to use pans similar to yours but with lids. The lids don't seal, just sit on top but they would do well to protect against shit falling into the fermenter and would inhibit some evap too. I'm going to put the pans in my chest freezer fermentation chamber so that lid would be another shit/evap barrier.

Those are just standard restaurant steam pans, so I'm sure one could get lids for them. I wanted a true open fermentation for that first experiment, but I would definitely consider lids if I did it again.

My friend with the keg fermentor made an air-tight seal with his lid. He put a screw thing in the crossbar to apply pressure to the lid. But as others have suggested, I don't really believe this is critical. My carboy fermentations are regularly done with sanitized tin foil over the top.

foomench wrote:I own a Fermenator, so that is my main fermentor. But I still uses buckets for some beers, and carboys for others. And then there was my open fermentation experiment. You want shallow and flat?

It worked just fine, but I lost a lot to evaporation here in Colorado. Follow the link above for more information on that.

I have a friend that converted a keg to a fermentor. He cut the top just as you would for a boil kettle, and rigged a sealed lid with a cross piece through the keg handles and an o-ring around the lip of the cut-out.

-Eric

excellent. i was thinking about building a cool ship of sorts to try this. did you take any readings along the way? how about taste? and more info on that would be great.

TampaBrew wrote:excellent. i was thinking about building a cool ship of sorts to try this. did you take any readings along the way? how about taste? and more info on that would be great.

I didn't take any readings along the way, and I let both the pans and the bucket fully ferment out. It was a 10 gallon batch, half open fermented, half in a bucket. There was a slight taste difference, but I couldn't really put my finger on it. Someone told me the fermentation geometry would make one ferment out further than the other, but one didn't taste sweeter than the other. Also, I topped up the evaporated one with some water, but not fully to the level of the other. I could add some more text to that web page, but sorry, I don't have any great revelations.