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Reasons not to ferment 3bbls in a 5bbl fermenter

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  • Reasons not to ferment 3bbls in a 5bbl fermenter

    I have a collaboration Brew day coming up on the 14th. The company I am collaborating with wants to do a 3 Barrel batch however I only have 5 Barrel fermenters. is there a downside to fermenting three Barrels in a 5 Barrel fermenter? I vaguely remember reading something about it many years ago but I honestly can't remember. Thank you

  • #2
    It depends on the way your tanks are designed. As far as fermentation and conditioning, if the beer level is below one of the jackets, or only hits part of the jacket in a single jacketed fermenter, it may be challenging to adequately control fermentation temp, and to suitably crash the beer after fermentation. If the beer doesn't reach the thermowell, you'll have similar issues monitoring temp. But given the volumes involved, I don't think you'll have much difficulty on this front. The most likely problems you'll have are the beer level not reaching the sample port, or the krausen making the manway area more difficult to clean. But again, these depend on the design of your fermenters. We used to half-batch our 10bbl and 20bbl fermenters without much difficulty, but we occasionally had to mount a sample port on the racking arm. The percentage of the batch that will be lost to the cone also goes up, but that can be planned for. So it's more of a nuisance issue than an issue of making quality beer. Good luck!

    Edit: Also, remember that you'll be affected in brite, too. Make sure 3bbl will hit your carb stone, or it'll take much longer to carb. Learned that the hard way.
    Last edited by spetrovits; 01-08-2019, 09:17 AM.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by spetrovits View Post
      It depends on the way your tanks are designed. As far as fermentation and conditioning, if the beer level is below one of the jackets, or only hits part of the jacket in a single jacketed fermenter, it may be challenging to adequately control fermentation temp, and to suitably crash the beer after fermentation. If the beer doesn't reach the thermowell, you'll have similar issues monitoring temp. But given the volumes involved, I don't think you'll have much difficulty on this front. The most likely problems you'll have are the beer level not reaching the sample port, or the krausen making the manway area more difficult to clean. But again, these depend on the design of your fermenters. We used to half-batch our 10bbl and 20bbl fermenters without much difficulty, but we occasionally had to mount a sample port on the racking arm. The percentage of the batch that will be lost to the cone also goes up, but that can be planned for. So it's more of a nuisance issue than an issue of making quality beer. Good luck!

      Edit: Also, remember that you'll be affected in brite, too. Make sure 3bbl will hit your carb stone, or it'll take much longer to carb. Learned that the hard way.

      Thanks for the response. Thankfully the way my fermenters are built the jacket covers everything except the cone. Therefore I don't think I will have much of an issue controlling temperatures and going into our bright tank my carbonation stone is at the one barrel level so anything below 1 Barrel will take me a very long time to carbonate. I was planning on doing a full 5 Barrel batch of this beer however being as big as it is I might just stick with doing a 3 Barrel. It'll be a little easier on my system but that amount of Grain.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Abrowne0001 View Post
        Thanks for the response. Thankfully the way my fermenters are built the jacket covers everything except the cone. Therefore I don't think I will have much of an issue controlling temperatures and going into our bright tank my carbonation stone is at the one barrel level so anything below 1 Barrel will take me a very long time to carbonate. I was planning on doing a full 5 Barrel batch of this beer however being as big as it is I might just stick with doing a 3 Barrel. It'll be a little easier on my system but that amount of Grain.
        We have been doing this with our 5BBL tanks, running 3BBL batches. Our tanks' jackets dont include the cone, no issues with keeping temp, but we do see a longer crash time compared to when we do the 5BBl batch. The Brite has less of an issue as the jacket goes all the the way to the bottom almost.

        Art

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