Opinions on plastic storage tanks?

[HobKnobBrewery]

What do you guys think about using something like this for a startup before moving on to stainless? 110g Tank Doesn't look like it'd be too hard to convert it to a full on conical fermenter.

A few of these could be just what the doctor ordered for our startup. Maybe 2 fermenters and 2 brite tanks out of the tank in the link.

[v2comp]

What do you guys think about using something like this for a startup before moving on to stainless? 110g Tank Doesn't look like it'd be too hard to convert it to a full on conical fermenter.

A few of these could be just what the doctor ordered for our startup. Maybe 2 fermenters and 2 brite tanks out of the tank in the link.

they will work fine as fermenters, but if I understood you correctly, you cant use them as brite beer tanks, (they wont hold pressure). Hess Brewing as well as myself and several others have used them successfully (apparently) so far with no ill affects.
I dont fill beyond the 80 gallon mark for fermentations because I have had them "blowoff" or overflow with everything over that amount.
there are several 100+/- gallon SS, brite beer tanks available for around $2,500 from a couple of different suppliers. (DO YOUR HOMEWORK), they are not all created equal. you dont "HAVE" to have a brite tank, but that means you will be carbing in the kegs like you do homebrewing and cant fill them all the way up because you have to leave head space in order to force carb in the keg. you will either have to put casters on the fermenter stands to either roll them into your cold room/fermentation room or use a 1/2" ss coil immersion setup / wine tank plate chillers and run glycol through the coils or plates in order to temp control your beer. (insulate them well).
hope that helps.

[jvandenbrink]

do a search on the forum, i believe this discussion has been going on for quite some time. is plastic ok? sure, just treat it with kid gloves. is stainless infinitely better? yes.

plastic is a short term solution for beer. always will be. so as long as you run the numbers for ROI then i'd say go ahead buy them, and then save whatever money you can to get stainless ASAP.

Joel

[blueskybrwr]

Been fermenting in 6 different plastic inductor tanks for the past nine months (the baby is due any day now) and using stainless for brite tanks. They work fine for starting up cheap. As is always the case, sanitation is the key and more so with plastic and be careful about scratches. Tear down threaded fittings every batch and get em clean.
Cheers,
Bill