We bought a 20 BBL FAT conical tank recently for a couple thousand bucks. It's jacketed, holds pressure and unfortunately has a glycol leak somewhere in the jacket that makes the glycol foamy and then the pump works 1,000 times harder. We don't want to spend money fixing that. I made a joke with an all barrel-fermented brewer who contracted wort from us one day to the tune of "hey, wouldn't it be funny if we converted this to a foudre?" He just said, "that would be really smart. Make an acid beer. Blend it. Dry-hop it. Whatever."
Well now I'm in a pickle. What was originally a joke is now kind of a good idea...but how? Add staves? Add oak chips? Forget the wood and just pitch bugs to a bunch of wort? What do I pitch it with? How would it ferment compared to a regular foudre since it's not actually getting micro-oxygenation pickup? Should I fashion a wooden lid? Ah! So many options, so little time.
PLEASE help talk me down (or really encourage me with a plan to move forward) I think this could be a fun experiment. I mean, this is way cooler than converting it to a cold liquor tank, right? Help me out people!
-Scott Lucas
Sanctum Brewing Co. Pomona, CA
Well now I'm in a pickle. What was originally a joke is now kind of a good idea...but how? Add staves? Add oak chips? Forget the wood and just pitch bugs to a bunch of wort? What do I pitch it with? How would it ferment compared to a regular foudre since it's not actually getting micro-oxygenation pickup? Should I fashion a wooden lid? Ah! So many options, so little time.
PLEASE help talk me down (or really encourage me with a plan to move forward) I think this could be a fun experiment. I mean, this is way cooler than converting it to a cold liquor tank, right? Help me out people!
-Scott Lucas
Sanctum Brewing Co. Pomona, CA
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