Turn my conical to a BBT.

[Jeangtd]

Hi, Im looking to turn one or two of my conicals to a BBT's, what happened was that my inicial plan was to bottle carbonate, but then after a lot of tests I decided I want to start carbing with Co2. I only bottle, no kegging at all, I bottle using a counter pressure filler.

My fermenters have a 48" diameter and are 96" high plus the cone I usually make 120 gal. batches. they are made of 1.5mm gauge SS, and are not pressure rated. I have 4 clamp fittings welded, two on the cone and two on the body. the lid is held by 12 screws.

what I want to know, is what is it going to take to carb in my fermenters, I cannot afford any new equipment now so Ill just have to work it out with what I have. I am willing to buy carb stone, pressure relief valve and any other thing that i need to make it suitable. Im going to put the fermenter/BBT in the walk in cooler.

Thanks a lot,

[claponsie]

Hi, Im looking to turn one or two of my conicals to a BBT's, what happened was that my inicial plan was to bottle carbonate, but then after a lot of tests I decided I want to start carbing with Co2. I only bottle, no kegging at all, I bottle using a counter pressure filler.

My fermenters have a 48" diameter and are 96" high plus the cone I usually make 120 gal. batches. they are made of 1.5mm gauge SS, and are not pressure rated. I have 4 clamp fittings welded, two on the cone and two on the body. the lid is held by 12 screws.

what I want to know, is what is it going to take to carb in my fermenters, I cannot afford any new equipment now so Ill just have to work it out with what I have. I am willing to buy carb stone, pressure relief valve and any other thing that i need to make it suitable. Im going to put the fermenter/BBT in the walk in cooler.

Thanks a lot,

Short answer: Carbonation is a function of temperature and pressure. You can bubble all of the co2 you want, but if the tank does not hold pressure, you will not carbonate your beer. To carbonate a beer, you need two things: A tank that holds pressure, and a way to keep the tank cold.

If you are hell-bent on force carbonation, which might not be practical for you based on the scenario, consider finding some kind of cost-effective pressure-rated tank. If you have access to enough kegs, 120 gallons is not an unreasonable amount to force carbonate in kegs. You would just need 8 half barrel kegs and a co2 manifold \w keg couplers.

I wouldn't advise trying to make the fermenters pressure rated. Instead, I would tough it out with bottle conditioning until I could afford a 3 barrel brite tank.

[Jeangtd]

Yeah, I guess your right, I dont like bottle conditioning because I am not filtering my beer so Im not pitching bottling yeast thus I have to rely on the remaining yeast for carbonation. The other thing is bottling, what is everyone using to bottle uncarbonated beer?

As for kegs, I think the money that id have to spend on couplers, kegs, gauges....can just go to the BBT fund.

[dick murton]

Do NOT do any modifications without making sure it is done to insurance approved standards. You will not be covered if anything goes wrong unless the tanks are reclassified insurance vessels.

Looking at you tanks, these cannot easily be made pressure rated. Normally BBTs are heavier gauge steel, with dished ends, to withstand the pressure. It will be easier to buy some second hand pressure tanks - or kegs. You may be able to get hold of 100 litre kegs - there used to be loads in use in the UK at least, so you may be able to find some cheaply somewhere (I realise you are not in the UK, so these would have to be locally sourced)