DIY 3 barrel yeast fermenter?

[dlwhitlinger]

Greetings,

I'm stepping up from home brewing to production (20-barrel) and attended several seminars at last week's CBC regarding yeast and yeast management. I started thinking about a yeast production system....

Take a 3 barrel conical jacketed fermenter - maybe put it on casters so it is easy to move around
Connect a valve and hose to the bottom port and run that to a pump
Take the output from the pump and plumb it into a valve on the racking port
Set the pump on a timer controller such that it kicks on maybe for 5 min every hour? 5 min every 3 hours?
Perhaps put a oxygen diffusion stone inline between the pump and the racking port such that you could give the fermenter an O2 boost once a day?

Has anyone done something like this? Pros / Cons? Thoughts?

Dave

[Yeast]

propagator?

Greetings,

I'm stepping up from home brewing to production (20-barrel) and attended several seminars at last week's CBC regarding yeast and yeast management. I started thinking about a yeast production system....

Take a 3 barrel conical jacketed fermenter - maybe put it on casters so it is easy to move around
Connect a valve and hose to the bottom port and run that to a pump
Take the output from the pump and plumb it into a valve on the racking port
Set the pump on a timer controller such that it kicks on maybe for 5 min every hour? 5 min every 3 hours?
Perhaps put a oxygen diffusion stone inline between the pump and the racking port such that you could give the fermenter an O2 boost once a day?

Has anyone done something like this? Pros / Cons? Thoughts?

Dave

are you talking about making it into a propagator? whichever pump you use, you want to ensure there's no shear to the yeast. some pumps can kill viability. look into a lightning mixer or peristaltic pumps

if you don't have a DO meter I would use air rather than O2 to propegate. air will never get to O2 toxicity. using straight O2 you easily can.