How do you man handle large fermenters/washes?
Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2016 10:36 am
Hi everyone,
I am quickly finding that using a single 30L fermenter is not going to yield me a large enough wash per batch, and have accordingly upgraded to a 60L fermenter (pic below) and will soon be upgrading to a 50L boiler. It all seemed simple enough at the time, but then I considered something – how does everyone go about man handling such a big, heavy vessel (especially once it is full of liquid)?
My standard practice with the 30L fermenter thus far has been as follows:
1. Mix the wash
2. Add the fermenter to an esky of water with an aquarium heater (to regulate temperature) – I know this step can be skipped by inserting the heater directly into the fermenter, but this is just how I have been doing it so far.
3. Leave the wash until it ferments and clears
4. Raise the fermenter on top of the esky so I can siphon the wash into the boiler (which I sit on the ground)
5. Move the (now full) boiler to wherever I am running the still (currently in my kitchen)
This has been working fine until now, but I have the following concerns moving forward:
1. It isn’t very practical to lift a fermenter with ~50KG of wash in it off the ground in order to siphon it into another vessel.
2. I can’t siphon the wash out of the large fermenter directly into the boiler on the ground, because once the water levels equalise the siphon will stop (as I understand it?).
3. Even if I could siphon the whole wash into the boiler it would make the boiler equally as impractical to move to wherever I am going to run the still.
At the moment the only way I can see around this is to siphon the first half of the wash into a 30L bucket/fermenter, tip the first bucket into the boiler, then lift the half empty 60L fermenter up so I can siphon out the second half into the bucket and fill the boiler. Does this sound reasonable, or am I completely over complicating things? I know that I could just run multiple 30L fermenters, but for temperature regulation purposes I would rather keep them to a single vessel per batch (at least for now).
I see that lots of guys on here are using 60, 120 and even 200+ litre fermenters, so how does everyone go about handling the large volumes of wash that come with such huge fermenting vessels?
Mick
I am quickly finding that using a single 30L fermenter is not going to yield me a large enough wash per batch, and have accordingly upgraded to a 60L fermenter (pic below) and will soon be upgrading to a 50L boiler. It all seemed simple enough at the time, but then I considered something – how does everyone go about man handling such a big, heavy vessel (especially once it is full of liquid)?
My standard practice with the 30L fermenter thus far has been as follows:
1. Mix the wash
2. Add the fermenter to an esky of water with an aquarium heater (to regulate temperature) – I know this step can be skipped by inserting the heater directly into the fermenter, but this is just how I have been doing it so far.
3. Leave the wash until it ferments and clears
4. Raise the fermenter on top of the esky so I can siphon the wash into the boiler (which I sit on the ground)
5. Move the (now full) boiler to wherever I am running the still (currently in my kitchen)
This has been working fine until now, but I have the following concerns moving forward:
1. It isn’t very practical to lift a fermenter with ~50KG of wash in it off the ground in order to siphon it into another vessel.
2. I can’t siphon the wash out of the large fermenter directly into the boiler on the ground, because once the water levels equalise the siphon will stop (as I understand it?).
3. Even if I could siphon the whole wash into the boiler it would make the boiler equally as impractical to move to wherever I am going to run the still.
At the moment the only way I can see around this is to siphon the first half of the wash into a 30L bucket/fermenter, tip the first bucket into the boiler, then lift the half empty 60L fermenter up so I can siphon out the second half into the bucket and fill the boiler. Does this sound reasonable, or am I completely over complicating things? I know that I could just run multiple 30L fermenters, but for temperature regulation purposes I would rather keep them to a single vessel per batch (at least for now).
I see that lots of guys on here are using 60, 120 and even 200+ litre fermenters, so how does everyone go about handling the large volumes of wash that come with such huge fermenting vessels?
Mick