We brew 20bbl batches and we have a 60bbl fermenter that we just brewed 3 batches into for the first time last month. All batches were in the fermenter within 36 hours and O2 and yeast were only added in the first 12 hours, etc.
Since we only have a 20bbl brite tank, I could only filter one batch at a time and it took a week to empty the tank due to scheduling issues and having the filter go down for repairs for a day. First batch was great, second batch was good, too. Filtered the third batch today and it was a butter-bomb!
Is it possible the batches may have actually stratified in the tank? A possible theory is that since we rack off near the cone of the tank, the first filtered batch was at the very bottom, 2nd batch at the middle, and 3rd bad batch was at the top. Is it possible the that there may not have been enough circulation in the tank so that the very top may not have fermented as completely as the beer towards the middle and bottom? Off the sample port (about 1/3 up from bottom of tank) we had a terminal gravity of 1.0185, and we had that reading for several days before finally crashing. I took a reading of a filtered sample of the 3rd batch and it is actually 1.022.
The tank has 3 glycol jackets and the temp probe is at about 1/3 up the tank. Fermentation temps were usual and final crashing seemed to go fine as well.
We checked bottled samples from the first two batches to see if it was an infection issue on the tank, but they're fine.
Anyone ever come across this sort of thing?
Since we only have a 20bbl brite tank, I could only filter one batch at a time and it took a week to empty the tank due to scheduling issues and having the filter go down for repairs for a day. First batch was great, second batch was good, too. Filtered the third batch today and it was a butter-bomb!
Is it possible the batches may have actually stratified in the tank? A possible theory is that since we rack off near the cone of the tank, the first filtered batch was at the very bottom, 2nd batch at the middle, and 3rd bad batch was at the top. Is it possible the that there may not have been enough circulation in the tank so that the very top may not have fermented as completely as the beer towards the middle and bottom? Off the sample port (about 1/3 up from bottom of tank) we had a terminal gravity of 1.0185, and we had that reading for several days before finally crashing. I took a reading of a filtered sample of the 3rd batch and it is actually 1.022.
The tank has 3 glycol jackets and the temp probe is at about 1/3 up the tank. Fermentation temps were usual and final crashing seemed to go fine as well.
We checked bottled samples from the first two batches to see if it was an infection issue on the tank, but they're fine.
Anyone ever come across this sort of thing?
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