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  • Unitank Carbonation Process

    Hey guys, so I have a couple questions in regards to doing everything through unitanks. I've been brewing for years and have always had brite tanks at the previous breweries I've worked at. This new venture we only have (3) 30 BBL unitanks. So, my process is going to be this: Keep carb stone in fermenter while beer is doing it thing, when it comes time to kegging I'll do the standard crashing and trub dumping to get as much as I can out of the ferm. Keg from the racking arm. The carb stone is roughly at the 12-13 BBL mark of the ferm according to the manufacturer (roughly 6 inches above the beginning of the cone). My main question is this. When carbonating, should I do a recirc, or perhaps blow some CO2 from the bottom port to make sure everything gets evenly carbonated? Or will it just kinda find it's way down towards the beer in the cone?

    Also, if there's any other tips/tricks/hacks from any of you wonderful people that ferment/dryhop/carbonate all in one vessel, I'd love to hear some of your findings.

    Thanks everyone!

  • #2
    You've got the right idea. Trub out with a small diameter hose and do it often to save on volume, and clear out better. Crash cold and fast to aid floc. Condition as long as possible. Don't bother recirculating or bubbling from the bottom as there will be an un-noticeable amount of co2 stratification in 30bbl tanks. You just risk infection, IMHO. 100bbl plus maybe noticeable, but then you likely have brites and such. Spund your beer if you want to help yeast floc, save on gas and possibly have better dispersion of co2. Use a screened gasket (but not too fine) on your racking arm to prevent large flocs from pulling into your kegs. I've used a dry hop tube with butterfly to add dry hops in a spunded tank with good results.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by fturw View Post
      Hey guys, so I have a couple questions in regards to doing everything through unitanks. I've been brewing for years and have always had brite tanks at the previous breweries I've worked at. This new venture we only have (3) 30 BBL unitanks. So, my process is going to be this: Keep carb stone in fermenter while beer is doing it thing, when it comes time to kegging I'll do the standard crashing and trub dumping to get as much as I can out of the ferm. Keg from the racking arm. The carb stone is roughly at the 12-13 BBL mark of the ferm according to the manufacturer (roughly 6 inches above the beginning of the cone). My main question is this. When carbonating, should I do a recirc, or perhaps blow some CO2 from the bottom port to make sure everything gets evenly carbonated? Or will it just kinda find it's way down towards the beer in the cone?

      Also, if there's any other tips/tricks/hacks from any of you wonderful people that ferment/dryhop/carbonate all in one vessel, I'd love to hear some of your findings.

      Thanks everyone!
      We are seeing more and more of this style setup and IMHO, the Uni-Tank (swiss-army knife) is a great way to cut equipment cost. Typically what you see with 3x 30BBLs or any size set up is a "shell game" of conditioning.
      You have beer fermenting in tank 1- transfer fermented beer from tank 1 using traditional racking to the empty tank 2 for conditioning.
      Clean tank 1 and fill tank 3 (fermentation).
      Keg and clean tank 2.
      Transfer green beer from tank 3 to empty tank 1 for conditioning.
      Clean and repeat.

      As I understand you are turning off carbonation to crash in order to settle the trub? How much beer are you loosing by keeping the trub in single tank for both processes?
      SMT Brewery Equipment
      rhice@smartmachine.com
      smartmachine.com
      704-302-6383

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      • #4
        Originally posted by SMT Stainless View Post
        We are seeing more and more of this style setup and IMHO, the Uni-Tank (swiss-army knife) is a great way to cut equipment cost. Typically what you see with 3x 30BBLs or any size set up is a "shell game" of conditioning.
        You have beer fermenting in tank 1- transfer fermented beer from tank 1 using traditional racking to the empty tank 2 for conditioning.
        Clean tank 1 and fill tank 3 (fermentation).
        Keg and clean tank 2.
        Transfer green beer from tank 3 to empty tank 1 for conditioning.
        Clean and repeat.

        As I understand you are turning off carbonation to crash in order to settle the trub? How much beer are you loosing by keeping the trub in single tank for both processes?


        Hey there! I havent kegged anything yet so I dont know how much we're losing. I havent messed around with doing 3 beers at once, we just started production so I have two beers in them currently and did the aformentioned method where im basically using one as a brite tank. But I know some breweries dont even transfer tanks, they do everything in one vessel from fermentation to kegging.

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        • #5
          We don’t transfer, and we also run a canning line off our unitanks. Your always going to gross more beer with less transfers, and less o2 pickup. And less time spent cleaning tanks.

          Here’s what we do:

          Ferment with carb stone installed, (I use carb stones from GW Kent with tank extensions installed in my sample port) Harvest yeast if needed, dump any excess yeast (important to do this thoroughly. Use a small hose, we Use a 3/4 id hose. Just leave it hooked up over the course of a day or two and pull off a few gallons every hour.) you can crash down to 38F while pulling yeast off, or if it’s an IPA pull yeast at 64F then dry hop. Your going to want to pull dry hops off the bottom slowly as well before you keg. You can leave dry hops in while carbonating though. For carbing, I set head pressure to a 2-3 psi, hook my Co2 to the stone at 19-20 psi then I 1/4 crack my regulator valve so the Co2 trickles in. If your valve is open all the way Co2 flow is going to be too rapid and won’t dissolve. (A flow meter/rotameter would help with this) I leave my tanks overnight like this and when I come back usually the beers are either well carbed or need a slight touch up and then ready to keg. Haven’t noticed any Co2 stratification and my carb stones are mounted in the same place yours is.

          Good luck!

          Comment


          • #6
            I have three unitanks that will be starting with next month. I'm hoping to use them along the lines of junkyards process. How is your clarity. do you and any fining agent? why the small diameter hose reduce issues with the beer punching though the yeast cake. do you think this method would work if you dry hopped then removed yeast from under the dry hop?

            thanks

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by bazzamckazza View Post
              I have three unitanks that will be starting with next month. I'm hoping to use them along the lines of junkyards process. How is your clarity. do you and any fining agent? why the small diameter hose reduce issues with the beer punching though the yeast cake. do you think this method would work if you dry hopped then removed yeast from under the dry hop?

              thanks
              The smaller diameter hose will allow you to draw yeast off slower so the "cone" of yeast can move down together. If you use a larger hose, it is easier to suck a "volcano" in the yeast cake. You can still get good removal with a larger diameter hose, but it may take more frequent dumps of yeast.

              If you dry hop with your yeast still in the tank, you will definitely mix your hops and yeast. It will require a larger pitch of yeast to achieve the same cell count, but that doesn't mean you can't do it. It can also add some bitterness to your next beer potentially. Personally I prefer clean yeast for best results, however I have previously pitched hooped yeast into other hoppy beers without negative results. I would not pitch from a dry hopped beer into a lighter style (American wheat for instance). Also remember that pressure will have a negative impact on yeast health, so if you are carbing in the uni-tank you will want to collect yeast in a reasonable time period. Some pressure can help flocculation, but extended time under pressure can crush the cells.

              Clarity will be more dependent on process, yeast strain, and conditioning time than anything else.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Junkyard View Post
                We don’t transfer, and we also run a canning line off our unitanks. Your always going to gross more beer with less transfers, and less o2 pickup. And less time spent cleaning tanks.

                Here’s what we do:

                Ferment with carb stone installed, (I use carb stones from GW Kent with tank extensions installed in my sample port) Harvest yeast if needed, dump any excess yeast (important to do this thoroughly. Use a small hose, we Use a 3/4 id hose. Just leave it hooked up over the course of a day or two and pull off a few gallons every hour.) you can crash down to 38F while pulling yeast off, or if it’s an IPA pull yeast at 64F then dry hop. Your going to want to pull dry hops off the bottom slowly as well before you keg. You can leave dry hops in while carbonating though. For carbing, I set head pressure to a 2-3 psi, hook my Co2 to the stone at 19-20 psi then I 1/4 crack my regulator valve so the Co2 trickles in. If your valve is open all the way Co2 flow is going to be too rapid and won’t dissolve. (A flow meter/rotameter would help with this) I leave my tanks overnight like this and when I come back usually the beers are either well carbed or need a slight touch up and then ready to keg. Haven’t noticed any Co2 stratification and my carb stones are mounted in the same place yours is.

                Good luck!

                Junkyard, how many liters/min do you set your flow meter at?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by bazzamckazza View Post
                  I have three unitanks that will be starting with next month. I'm hoping to use them along the lines of junkyards process. How is your clarity. do you and any fining agent? why the small diameter hose reduce issues with the beer punching though the yeast cake. do you think this method would work if you dry hopped then removed yeast from under the dry hop?

                  thanks
                  I don’t advise dry hopping with any yeast in the tank. Your dry hops will be wasted. They’ll fall to the bottom and get lodged in the yeast cake, and won’t contribute to beer flavor and aroma. Best results are to remove all the yeast humanly possible before dry hopping.


                  Originally posted by fturw View Post
                  Junkyard, how many liters/min do you set your flow meter at?
                  I haven’t actually measured my carbonation flow yet. but if you have the time the slower the better. Try starting at .25-.5 LPM and go up from there.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    so an experienced brewer advised to drop hop a point or two before FG and seal up the tank (has a PRV). the idea being to build a little carbonation and since the yeast is still active it should use up any O2 introduced with the hop. since the tank is sealed you shouldn't blow off at the nice hop aromas.
                    Can I harvest yeast successfully a point before final gravity or will i only be harvesting most flocculent yeast. and will its attenuation change over a few generations. Or is it better to wait until FG, harvest yeast and then dry hop and not get to worried about the O2?

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                    • #11
                      We have a unitank I use constantly. Love the all-in-one idea. When carbing, we crash to 36f, we pressurize the headspace in the tank to about 13psi (tank rated to 15psi). We then slightly crack the valve on the CIP arm to release CO2 as we slightly crack the CO2 line connected to the carb stone to fill with pressure. The idea is to keep that PSI regulated inside the tank to a constant amount as you introduce and release CO2 at the same time. My sweet spot is about 12.5psi. With this method, we can carb a 30bbl in about 4-5 hours. During the process, we take samples from the pigtail every 30 minutes, and use the amazing powers of taste to determine the proper carb level on that specific beer.

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                      • #12
                        Also, we have in the past made our NE style IPA by dry hopping at 1.015 using #001 for 4 days at temp, then crashed to 36 and held for 2 days before dumping trub and yeast from cone. Led to basically a cement in the cone that took my cellarman about 2 hours to dislodge, but produced the juiciest and haziest beer to date. It was basically a 10 day IPA from pitch to keg, but pitching at just above final gravity did not produce any adverse affects on the hop profile itself, like say floc dropping aromas out of the beer.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by DVB View Post
                          We have a unitank I use constantly. Love the all-in-one idea. When carbing, we crash to 36f, we pressurize the headspace in the tank to about 13psi (tank rated to 15psi). We then slightly crack the valve on the CIP arm to release CO2 as we slightly crack the CO2 line connected to the carb stone to fill with pressure. The idea is to keep that PSI regulated inside the tank to a constant amount as you introduce and release CO2 at the same time. My sweet spot is about 12.5psi. With this method, we can carb a 30bbl in about 4-5 hours. During the process, we take samples from the pigtail every 30 minutes, and use the amazing powers of taste to determine the proper carb level on that specific beer.
                          Do you not blow off and lose hop aroma by using this method?

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Unitanks

                            We only use unitanks in our brewery. 2 x 30bbl & 3 x 60bbl tanks (soon 5 x 60bbl's). We use a similar method to Junkyard. You definitely want the extended carb stones from gw kent. As much as I hate working with GW kent they are the best stones for unitanks (if someone knows where else I can get these please tell me). Other than ipa's, we'll ferment out fully, crash to 32F, harvest yeast, add fining agent on certain beers, and carb. With ipa's we'll do first dry hop towards the end of active fermentation and then again when crashed. We don't harvest yeast of these beers. We've had a lot of success with this method.

                            We keg and can off the racking arm on our unitanks. No need to transfer to a clean tank. Never had an issue with stability, flavor or clarity. We've even won some national awards for our beers so we know someone out there thinks they're tasty!

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