MATH HELP: How do I find the maxium tank size caple of turning through a door way?

[MikeRoy]

I'm looking to add two additional fermenting tanks to our fermentation room which would then be maxed out foot print wise. We have two options to get the tanks into the room.

1) removing a three piece glass window and moving the tanks through a 139" X 72" frame-obviously the easiest in that tank size is not an issue and this will accommodate all sizes we are considering

2) moving the tanks (on their side)down a hallway (47") and making a 90 degree turn through a door frame 79" X 70"


Things I assume are true here are that the OD of the tanks shouldn't be more than 46".

***The question I have is what would be the maximum length of a vessel that is 46" OD that needs to turn through a 70" wide door frame?


Before anyone says why would you consider smaller tanks when you can obviously buy bigger tanks (increasing capacity more) and get them in through the window....the reason is I'm looking to do parti-gyle brewing with these two tanks,split batches and high gravity/experimental batches...things where its not as necessary for volume.

[Scott M]

You could move a tank 46" OD and 78" in length, if the height of your hallway is over 78" with no obstructions, just bring it in vertically. I got a volume of ~100 gallons/~3 BBL. The Size chart calculator I used is here http://jvnw.com/Literature/TankSizeChart.html

[MikeRoy]

Scott, I'm well aware of bringing it in vertically, this is however too small of a size (our other fvs are 10-12bbls). I was hoping for something in the 5-7ish bbl range so we could split wort a little more efficiently. Hence why I'm trying to see if there's a formula that I could figure out a "turning radius"-not sure if I'm terming it correctly.

[panadero]

When you get to the doorway, tip the tank backwards to put the bottom end in first... it just worked with a couch in my house. Also, when we ordered the servers for the basement, we built a mock up frame with two by fours to make sure they would go down the stairway to the basement, three left turns down. We did remove the door frame to get it to fit still.

[MikeRoy]

Thanks Pandero.

I think the problem is you're not taking into account a 47" hallway which is why bringing it in vertically and tipping won't work. Getting a couch through the front door of a house (outside of which has no vertical restrictions is an entirely different ball game.


Thanks for everyone for their practical advice, but what I'm looking for is ideally a formula given the distances and angle of the turn.

[Scott M]

The width of the hallway is 47". the opening of the doorway is 70".

I take it; the hallway and opening to the brewery looks like this...



So..... Going back to the tank calculator, I see I made an error reading the volume. A 6' tank should make the turn, with a 60 degree cone, it would be 2.5' in width and give you 220 gallons of capacity retaining 26 gallons in the cone. A 3' wide tank would still make the turn and at 6' in height provide 320 gallons of capacity with 45 gallons in the cone. The trick would be to bring the tank in cone out toward the entrance.

Now, since my math skills aren't perking on all three cylinders today, I laid this out using 2X4's and a Boddington's can. The can is ~6.5" in length and 2 1/2" wide. I set the scale to 1" = 1' and was able to make the turn easily from the 3.75" (scale) hallway, through the 5.8" (scale) opening.

So, a tank 2 1/2 to 3 feet wide and 6.5 feet tall with a 60 degree cone would fit, but I will admit that moving the Boddington's can was much easier. :-)

[panadero]

The couch was 8 feet long, 44 inches wide, thirty six high. Back porch into a 4 by 4 mudroom, stood upright, turned 90 degrees, tipped into the living room doorway. Not much smaller than your tank will be, and much smaller doorways. My 10 bbl tanks are 50 inches wide, and eight feet high, you could gget ten bbl tanks in there no problem, if the ceiling is high enough but you should find someone with a cad program to model it for you if you need. Our stick frame system worked. Or take out the window, and no worries.