Mixing Chinese (zhejaing) equipment with American made

[EZ E]

I am looking to get a 5 bbl steam heated brewhouse with 2 5 bbl fermenters and 2 10 bbl fermenters with brite tanks of the same sizes. If I were going to buy the cheaper Chinese made equipment for a portion and some higher quality American made equipment for a portion, where would you spend your money? I thought this may also limit my risk a little and allow me to evaluate two suppliers at the same time for future purchases.

[touchemandgetem]

I am a firm believer in american made. Better quality stainless,better support, work yada yada yada , not to mention the chinese worker will not come in your pub and drink a beer. The american worker will.( steps off soap box) Im sure there would be no problem mixing chinese tanks with an american system or vice versa. But i would suggest keeping the system all one manufacturer. Makes for easier repairs in the future and less compatibility issues.

[MatthewS]

From my experience in the past and to live by my company's core values, I am going to to be working with a local (US) fabricator for our new brewhouse and tank needs. That being said, I have worked on Chinese brewhouses and fermentors that proved to be essentially 'perfect' and I have also worked on Chinese made brewhouses and fermentors that were flawed but functional. I have also seen Chinese systems to were essentially useless without 10s of thousands of dollars and 100 of hours of work to get them to work. I have worked with fermentors from Germany, US and Canada that were mostly perfect with a few non-functional issues. You absolutely get what you pay for.

From all this, my recommendation is to buy your brewhouse from a fabricator that can offer you quality, service, price (in this order). Fermentors are a different story for me. I go with quality, price, service. Rarely or never do you need service on a fermentor. Parts are easy too, whereas, on your brewhouse parts and service will likely be very important and hard to source if you can't read the language on the spec sheets.

For simplicity sake and to safe you some money(hopefully)… go with US, German, or Canadian Brewhouse and initial tanks from a reputable company and then add some Chinese fermentors if you want to save a few bucks and increase your capacity. Be aware though, there are companies all over the world passing off inferior product… they can be US, Canadian, or Chinese or wherever. Do your research! and best of luck.