Stainless Steel Fermenter
(or home brewery project #476)
Someone once asked me how much it costs to make homebrew. I figure that ingredients and consumables (gas etc) cost me around $1/L. So far so good. Then I divided the cost of all the other stuff I bought, boilers, taps, pipe, fittings, etc by the number of brews. I nearly fell off the chair. So then I thought, any good accountant would only expense the depreciation on these goods. So after some creative accounting it now comes to $2/litre. Also when you stop buying stuff for your brewery, then the cost per brew goes down - as if that is ever going to happen.
I have been using the same, HDPE (plastic) fermenter since I started brewing. I haven't had an infection and it has worked pretty well for me.
Some of the things I like about it:
- I can see the level inside (not easy to see much more since it is not fully transparent).
- It is light weight.
- Fits in my fridge.
- Inexpensive
What I would like to improve:
- The plastic tap is a weak point when moving fluids around.
Cleaning it can be a hassle. You can't scrub them and the the surface is not smooth so the krausen ring can be pretty stubborn (although I do manage, see CleaningAndSanitation).
- Sometimes the lid is a complete bastard to remove. I leave it pretty loose these days but that means that the air lock is about as useful as tits on a bull.
In anycase, my brewery seems to be slowly gravitating towards stainless components.
I have acquired the above 80 litre, stainless steel LPG tank. I was once considering making a boiler of it but my 50L keg works fine (see BrewPot) for the batch sizes I am doing currently. That leaves a fermenter as a possibility.
For a lid I am thinking of slicing the top (ie one end) off and then making some sort of clamping arrangement for a flat perspex cover and rubber seal. I will have to ensure I am thoroughly sober before attacking it with the angle grinder and cutting disk.
It will also need some kind of stand and it all needs to fit in my existing brewing fridge (see TemperatureControl).
I am not sure whether to add a tap at the very bottom of the end cap to dump yeast as well as one slightly higher for dumping wort.
If all else fails I can always cut it clamshell style and make it into a spit roaster.