Fermenter question

[I H8 UM]

I am in the planning stages of a 7bl brew pub. I want to get in on the cheap, so I am looking at Frankenbrew stuff as well as brewing equipment. What is the difference between an open fermenter and a beer fermenter? From what I can tell it is the way you clean it. Brewery fermenters have manways and showerheads that allow you to harvest the yeast easily and clean it out easily, where as the open fermenters require leaning over the top and spraying and scrubbing. It seems like both would produce the same beer.

Please advise.

Rich

[Beer_Nut]

I'm assuming you are talking about a uni-tank vs. an open fermenter right? We use both, and there are quite a few differences. You can pressurize a uni, while you obviously can't with an open fermenter. We almost never harvest yeast from our open fermenter, it's bottom is only slightly cone shaped, making it a PITA, and when we do it's from the top with a long rake. With the cones on the uni's, it allows yeast to settle out much better than the open fermenters. We filter straight out of our uni-tanks, but typically rack beer from the open fermenters into a bright tank before we even try to filter it. Cleaning is much different as well. Uni-tanks have CIP arms and spray-balls so they are pretty easy, the open fermenters are much more fun....Jump in with a bucket of acid, a scrub pad, and possibly a plastic scraper, and go to town. I've spent the better part of an hour manually cleaning after a batch of wheat in an open fermenter before. Hope some of this rambling helps.

[I H8 UM]

I suspected what you say.

Thanks,

Rich

[Jephro]

Yeast harvesting ability on Conicals is huge IMHO.

Most Open FV's/Dairy Tanks I've seen or worked with either have CIP already, or have been retrofitted to allow this. Most have a lid of some sort with and either cam->TC fittings or TC->TC so you can attach a hose and sprayball to CIP.

Given the right tools and foresight you should rarely, if ever need to get in FV's or BBT's. Depending on your local OSHA regs entering tanks may be prohibited w/o someone watching you ready to hoist you out in case you go down (i.e. Co2 asphyxiation), and all possible operations must be locked/tagged out.