MaxOut
Well-Known Member
You just made my train trip into NYC a true pleasure and joy. That is really a remarkable setup. After reading through 20 pages of this thread, not one person asked this question, so I will throw it out there. What the heck are you doing with plastic buckets? Why not move up to a brewhemoth conical or something similar. With a 1 barrel brewhouse why not? With all that extra refrigeration, what about plumbing in a glycol chiller to the internal coil in the brewhemoth, and if you really want high quality beer faster and fully carbonated in the conical, rig up a pressure control with spunding valve to natually carbonate the beer while fermenting. You could then transfer under pressure to your serving corny kegs and keep your beautiful beer free and clear of air contact until you're pouring it.
It just seems that using plastic buckets for your beer is like serving champagne in a solo cup.
Thanks for your compliments. There are definitely advantages to using conical fermenters especially ones designed to hold pressure as you pointed out. I plan on going to SS conical eventually. I am running out of room in the space I have and I do not air condition it in the summer time. For now the buckets are working well and I can do a bunch of smaller brews for some variation. The recent addition of the large steam kettle has me rethinking my options allot. I like the idea of a 1 BBl conical inside a refrigerator or even using my existing refrigeration to house a glycol chiller. As Im sure you are aware a jacketed 1 BBL conical is big $$$ so for now will have to wait a while. The way I am set up now I have 1 BBL in primary, 1 BBL in secondary and 1 BBL in serving. Total 90 gallons in pipeline. Im going to try this out for the summer and may do some changes in the fall. I like the Glacier tanks 50 gallon conical and is probably the one I would get Here somewhere down the road.