Plastic fermenters?

[bndooley]

Hello all,

After all the recent talk about plastics kegs, I happened to flip through a U.S. Plastics catalog and notice a selection of conical tanks. I'm looking for equipment for our brewpub now, and needless to say it got me thinking.

Plastic conicals (http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=USPlastic&category%5Fname=20726&product%5Fid=3946)

Does anyone think these could work? I'm immediately concerned about oxygen permeability, uv resistance, and the possibility of scratches leading to sanitation issues. Then there's taste, staining, etc. I've seen homebrewers use similar tanks, and I've heard of brewpubs brewing in plastic. The savings are phenomenal, but I wonder if it would be more grief than it's worth.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Best,

Ben Dooley
www.oldcrankybrewers.com (http://oldcrankybrewers.com)

[jimvgjr]

Interesting, not sure how you would control the temperature though. Unless you had the poly tank in a refrigerated room and then transferred to a jacketed tank for pull down?

[tarmadilo]

I've successfully used 50-gallon food grade plastic barrels as fermenters, stored in a room air-conditioned to 60 degrees F. I bought a bunch of them and discarded them as they got scratched up.

I'd put a couple on a pallet, fill them with wort, pitch the yeast, transfer them to the cool fermentation room via forklift. Then, when it was time to chill them, I'd just forklift them over to the walk-in. It was an unusual way to go, but it worked.

Probably not a good idea to go with plastic tanks, as they do scratch...

Cheers, Tim

[bndooley]

Thanks, as always, for the advice, Tim. So, it can be done. The forklifts and palettes all sound a bit complicated though. Maybe rather than conicals, I should just buy some HDPE plastic barrels.

I found another place that sells jacketed conicals and will also weld on any necessary fittings.

Kefco (http://www.kefco.com/conebottoms.html)

I spoke to some other folks about the scratching problem, and they told me the following:

1. Stainless also scratches. (Touche.)
2. You can always buff the scratches out.
3. If you follow a proper sanitation routine, scratches shouldn't pose a problem.

Now, I've always heard that scratches in plastic breed bacteria. And you certainly can't dump boiling water into the fermenters, unless you want a pile of plastic glop. So, I'm still hesitant. These tanks are way cheaper than stainless, but still not so cheap that I can afford to replace one everytime someone dings it.

[Diamond Knot]

Thanks, as always, for the advice, Tim. So, it can be done. The forklifts and palettes all sound a bit complicated though. Maybe rather than conicals, I should just buy some HDPE plastic barrels.

I found another place that sells jacketed conicals and will also weld on any necessary fittings.

Kefco (http://www.kefco.com/conebottoms.html)

I spoke to some other folks about the scratching problem, and they told me the following:

1. Stainless also scratches. (Touche.)
2. You can always buff the scratches out.
3. If you follow a proper sanitation routine, scratches shouldn't pose a problem.

Now, I've always heard that scratches in plastic breed bacteria. And you certainly can't dump boiling water into the fermenters, unless you want a pile of plastic glop. So, I'm still hesitant. These tanks are way cheaper than stainless, but still not so cheap that I can afford to replace one everytime someone dings it.


Yes, stainless scratches, but it is WAY harder than plastic to scratch and the Chromium Oxide surface matrix is harder than plastic could ever pretend to be. Have you ever tried to buff out food grade nylon or polyprop surfaces? Had the person who advised you to do that? What generally happens with buffing operations that require enough speed and force to get down to the root of the scratch is that the material itself will regionally melt and smear, making the situation much worse. Scratches are deeper in plastic, and that's why they hold contamination.

Also, I wouldn't sell the ability to run very hot water through the fermenter short. Most, if not all, of us Breweries on this site run hot caustic through the fermenters to clean them and many use 180F+ water to sanitize.

Many, many, moons ago, I looked at plastic fermenters and came to a quick realization I was making an overwelming leap of faith with regards to their endurance. There are a few reasons to select stainless over plastic:

1.) Stainless fermenters take any heat you're going to apply to them. Plastic may not melt at 180F+, but it gets softer, and that's a loss in strength at that time.

2.) They do not retain smells.

3.) Stainless fermenters generally come with cooling jackets.

4.) Stainless fermenters can be welded. This is crucial if you want to modify or repair the tanks.

5.) I haven't seen plastic tri-clamps, and threading fittings onto and off of plastic tanks for cleaning will eventually round off, cross thread, or not hold a seal.

As Tim mentioned earlier, you can certainly make plastic work, but it's your time and labor. For myself, someone who's had to modify stainless tanks and even repair damaged ones, I'm sorry. I just can't take plastic tanks seriously. I know it's done out there somewhere, but it depends on what you're trying to achieve.

Regards,

[tarmadilo]

I'd also note that I'd greatly prefer stainless steel, myself. Way more durable, way easier to clean and sanitize, way less amateur...

My situation at the time required brewing many different small batches, so it worked for me, but frankly I lived in constant dread of contamination.

Cheers, Tim

[bndooley]

Excellent points, Brian. Thank you.

I had considered the tri-clamp problem, as well as the heat issue. Thank you for your insight into both. The welding is also something I've thought about. I TIG weld and have heard that plastic can be welded, but have no experience with the process.

The discussion of scratching and oxygen permeability, however, brings to mind wood. I suppose the ability to heat it negates the scratching issue. But what about the permeability? Is that a serious concern during fermentation?

The only real advantage for me, with the plastic, is the price. We're starting such a small operation here, and the idea of bootstrapping it is terribly tempting. I know everyone here recommends starting with a larger system, but I also see a lot of advantage in starting small, and I'm tempted to start off with a cheap, tiny system that can be upgraded on a need to do basis. I realize it's not ideal for most places, but I like the idea of being able to tweak lots of small batches (even though it means more work). A small system provides a seductive flexibility that simply isn't available when you're making 7 bls at a time. You really don't want to experiment at that level. If I go small, I want to keep the investment small as well. And then, if and when things pick up, I can convert some dairy tanks or, cue music, actually buy a system... Of course, the extra work would be an enormous drag.

Anyway, I definitely thank everyone for the input. I wish I could just find a cheap source of stainless.... ha ha.

Best,
Ben
www.oldcrankybrewers.com (http://oldcrankybrewers.com)

[tarmadilo]

Ben, you might consider building or buying a very small (20-50 gallon) pilot brewing system for cheap, while still getting a smallish (4-7 bbls) system for your place. That way, you'll be able to do one-three keg experimental batches. Heck, you could even have one tap in your place dedicated to only that stuff! Your regulars will dig it, and will feel ownership of the beers that graduate from that tap into the regular rotation.

Cheers, Tim

[newbeermullet]

As we all know, plastic is a no go for fermentation, but did you see the prices on the tanks?! Used dairy stainless runs around a dollar per gallon but the price of these plastic tanks break at 500 gallons.
Anyway.......
A good site to look at for cheap tanks, if you have the balls to work with old dairy is www.wisfarmer.com, go to classifieds, and then to dairy.

[Rosie]

I'll have to admit that I'm fermenting in plastic at the moment and would agree with the discussion. Again, at your stage of the game, maybe it makes sense, for me it does.

I'm using 250 litre food grade bins. They have a super tight seal, and I have cobbled together fittings to be able to push beer out (CO2) of these things, also created a crazy CIP system for them as well. Heating blankets on Ranco controllers/probes keeps the temp dialled in...crazy and stupid, but true...

Touch wood, no problems with sanitation...

Cannot wait to to have jacketted conicals...

Cheers,

[bndooley]

Good idea Tim. I'm in the process of building a 15 gallon pilot brewery, and I thought I might use it in a similar way to what you describe. I should have it done soon, and I'm pretty excited about firing it up. I'll send over a few bottles when I do.

Rosie, where are you located? What's you place like?

Thanks for all of the advice.

Best,

Ben
www.oldcrankybrewers.com

[bndooley]

Where do you get used dairy for a $1 per gallon? If I could find a deal like that, we wouldn't need to have this conversation :)

The cheapest I've found was about $7 per gallon. The tanks on the above link are all too big (And way too expensive) for my purposes, but I'll definitely keep my eye on it.

Best,
Ben
www.oldcrankybrewers.com

[Diamond Knot]

Ben,

About a buck a gallon is the going rate up here as well. However, you may be hard pressed to find 15 gallon stainless tanks. I had the impression in my first response to this thread that you were trying to ferment 7 Bbls in plastic. I've used plastic garbage cans for 15 gallon batches with pretty good results. also, a couple of bigger carboys will work just as well. However, they won't taste the same as your 7 Bbl system.

About the need for a pilot Brewery with a 7 Bbl system.............
Our B1 site is a 7 bbl and we have never used a pilot Brewery. In fact, we never budgeted one in, and I haven't brewed a homebrew size batch since I started microbrewing back then.
In the beginning, we brewed smaller 2 Bbl batches to prove out the recipes on the 7 Bbl system and then scaled them up. Of course, you tweek the extract efficiencies here and there, but that process worked great and we have never made a pilot batch. Myself and our team have designed around 11 - 12 beers without the pilot system.

Just my $.02

[rafters_brewer]

I used to work at a brew on premise which brewed primarily in half-barrel batches. For fermentation and secondary we used standard 20-gallon plastic barrels lined with a heavy duty plastic bag. The lids had a bung-hole and were secured with metal snap rings. Airlocks consisted of a drilled bung and a tube running into a gatorade bottle with sanitizer. Of course, this method required an ale room at 68, a lager room at 52, and a cold box at 36, not to mention filtering and force carbonating in the keg, but the system worked fairly well.

The plastic bag liner eliminated alot of the sanitation concerns for the barrels themselves, allowed you to siphon off most of the beer from the trub, and made getting rid of the yeast a snap.

[Beersmith]

Used stainless dairy tanks are definitely the way to go if you are looking to cobble together a system on a budget. Many of the old milk-cooler tanks still have their refridgeration jacket in-place, and can be hooked up to a glycol system with a $40 analog controller and a solenoid. Around here, larger used SS dairy tanks do sell for about $1-3 a gallon, smaller ones are more. Although anymore, the stainless is often worth more than $1 per gallon sold for scrap (if it is a sturdy/heavy built tank). I believe it would be more cost-effective in the long run (and more sanitary) to employ used SS dairy tanks than plastic. In fact, I think I have 3 SS approx. 60 gal. used dairy tanks I would sell - shipping might be cost prohibitive though. Good Luck!

[bndooley]

Brian et al,

You were right, the conversation started off with 7Bls and kind of metamorphosed into a pilot brewery. As the discussion went on, it became clear to me that a 7bl plastic fermenter might not be a great investment... although I will say that the idea of using plastic bags in the fermenters is pretty clever. But too much trouble with 7bls.

If anyone could point me towards some of this cheap dairy equipment, I would be enormously grateful. In the local scrapyards stainless is $1 a pound. And the prices on the online auctions have been pretty exorbitant.

Thanks for all of the advice and help. It's nice to be involved with such a great community.

Best,
Ben
www.oldcrankybrewers.com

[Diamond Knot]

Ben,

Have you thought about Grundy tanks? We used them for several years and made good beers out of them!

Source for 7 Bbl Grundies, anyone..........

Cheap, and work. A few issues..........but they work.

[bndooley]

Grundies, eh? Sound good.

Did you ferment in them or use them as serving tanks? What kind of issues do they have?

Best,
Ben
www.oldcrankybrewers.com

[Diamond Knot]

We used them as primry fermenters and bright beer tanks (no carbonation).

A bit harder to clean and crop yeast from, but for the price, they worked great for years in our B1 site. In fact, we now use them there just as bright beer tanks.
If you can get your hands on the little 3.5 Bbl versions, you'll heave some real gems on your hands. Attach a set of casters on the bottom and they'll go anywhere in your Brewery. I welded casters on our 7 Bbl Grundies and we've rolled them around a lot in the past (empty, 'o course).

As I mentioned, cropping yeast from these is a pain. It's not the best practice, but worked for us for many years. After transfer, we stirred the yeast up at the bottom and drained into a corny keg for repitching. I'll try to put together a "lessons learned" list if you want one.

[Beersmith]

This company in CO has a huge inventory of used dairy equipment. They post on-line prices for their equipment, but you should be able to bargain. Freight might be a big issue for you though.

http://www.dairyeng.com/usedequip.asp

Calling some dairy supply houses in your area should give you some leads.

Brian is (once again) correct. Grundys make inexpensive tanks for many uses in the brewery. Grundys are usually 7bbl and can be easily found. They usually sell in the $1,000 - $1,500 range. They are most easily used as bright/serving tanks, however, they can be modified with cooling jackets to be used as fermenters, etc. However, unless you are a skilled sanitary welder, you might spend more retrofitting than you would to buy decent used fermenters. I assume the issues that Brian referred to are: sourcing replacement parts (gaskets/closures for certain models/styles can be challenging); there are often non-sanitary threads on Grundys that make brewers nervous; lower pressure ratings; and last (and least) they are not always the most attractive tanks around.

[bndooley]

Awesome, thanks very much.

Brian, if you have the time, I would love to read your "lessons learned" list. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one. It seems like there are a lot of people on the list who struggle with grundies.

Best,
Ben
www.oldcrankybrewers.com

[tarmadilo]

I just want to say that I did a lot of business with Dairy Engineering in Colorado a few years back, and they were incredibly helpful. Good guys!

Cheers, Tim

[Hofer]

Hi knowledgeable folks,

I revive this outdated thread when eagerly looking for advice, and in hope to give the fermenting in plastic a bit different tech twist.

My nano-2.5hl brewery will be comprised of a brewhouse based on more or less conventional SS vessels ordered locally that should be at my porch in about a month, and plastic fermenters. Different style ales will be brewed by small batches, bottled manually and distributed as single bottles to local pubs and liqueur stores.

The commercial concept for such a brewery is rather simple and looks bullet-proof: investing $1000,000 you can lose $1000,000; investing $10,000 you can’t lose more than $10,000.

Of course plastic is only considered for its price.

I am looking for advice on choices for fermenting in plastic.

For a primary fermentation the choice is between Mauser (blue) 220L (55gal) drums or 270-290L (or even bigger) food grade bins. As far as I am for an open fermentation, bins sound better: their aspect ratio encourages healthy fermentation and more successful yeast skimming.
Also bins are more traditional. Look at the beauties at
http://www.bobdennis.co.uk/brew/ferment.htm !

But drums also have their advantages: the aspect ratio! They could be placed for fermentation not at air conditioned or walk in rooms but inside temperature controlled refrigerator that is more effective, more versatile and less expensive.
Otherwise both bins and drums could be cooled with cooling plates and what looks even better choice with cooling snakes:
http://morewinepro.com/view_product/5748/102942
Of course in this case there is a need for cold water pumping or for cold maturating a glycol system.

BTW, do the plastic (HDPE) has any taint?

For the secondary I used to rack to another vessel and for that stage drums look pretty natural plastic favorites. In this case racking-pumping sounds more comfortable than forklifting.

What I can’t decide on is usefulness and worthiness of investment in “Bin Storage Bags” for drums and bins. (http://www.flextank.com.au/Drum-Bin_Bags.htm)
The idea itself and the whole concept and its implementation look very impressive at this site. It is tempting to order some of these nice high-tech bags, but if plastic as HDPE is food grade, taintless and not oxygen permeable and used MINT drum costs $15, what the bags need for? Or to the contrary there are reasons for using the bags?

One more feature at the above site that looks tempting or at least interesting is their “barrel wand” direct cooler (http://www.flextank.com.au/Direct-cooling.htm).
For mere AU$980 (US$700?) you get a refrigerating unit with cooling coil that could cold stabilize (?) up to 500l!
The last but not least issue I can’t find solution is a small scale bottling when there is no pressurized bright beer tank but the above mentioned plastic drum.
All these counter pressure fillers are designed for pressure filling, or am I mistaken?
What has left for me if I referment in bottle with sugar/wort? Simple plastic/SS fillers on hoses or something more sophisticated exists?

I would highly appreciate any advice or input.

[tarmadilo]

Well, I used 55-gal food-grade plastic barrels. I brewed using Alexander's Pale Malt Extract and Wheat Malt Extract from California Concentrates as my base, with steeped specialty grains per recipe. I had a 7-bbl kettle and two 1 1/2-bbl kettles (50 gallon), all steam-fired. I would brew, knock out through a heat exchanger, and run the wort into the barrels (already sitting on pallets), pitch yeast and FermCap, and take them with either a pallet jack or a forklift to the fermentation room, air-conditioned to 60 degrees F, with lids loosely placed on top.

I'd note that for my first few batches, I put the lids on tight and put airlocks on them, as would a homebrewer, and those things blew right across the room! Seems 10x the volume of beer (and CO2) just overwhelms a homebrew bubbler airlock! And a fermenter filled almost to the top is gonna foam over without FermCap!

So, after fermentation was complete, I'd transfer via forklift to a large walk-in refrigerated room, where the beer was chilled and aged for at least a week. I didn't rack it off the yeast, and this wasn't a problem.

After the appropriate cold storage time, I'd pump the beer out of the barrels using a racking tube I had fabricated for me that I could set for depth (obviously wanting to avoid pulling yeast off the bottom of the barrel!), pumped into a plate and frame filter with a carbonating stone setup just downstream. This fed into a 50-foot hose (which gave the beer plenty of time to absorb CO2) which led to a kegging manifold with four heads, so I could fill 1-4 kegs at a time.

Totally Rube Goldberg, but it worked and with a little bit of experimentation, I was able to keg clear, properly carbonated beer!

Problems: as mentioned, scratched plastic. It never occurred to me to look for food-grade plastic bags for the fermenters, that would have been extremely useful! Also, as with pretty much ANY brewing operation, clean and sanitary conditions MUST be kept, and while I didn't have any serious infections, there were a few batches that had shorter shelf-lives than I would have preferred... :(

Cheers, Tim

[Hofer]

Tim, thank you for your helpful input.

Amazing story!

Had you to cool down or warm up the fermentation room with AC?
I have always to cool down so the question is why to air condition and not to build walk in fermentation room or to use a fridge? Was it cost effective?

The carbonating “on the fly” idea looks very attractive but how w/o expensive measuring devices could you set up on specific CO2 content? As for my understanding with carbonating stone, it's like with oxygenation, you can only set up pressure-time to achieve approximate carbonization.
When bottling there is no “one more chance” like with kegs to bleed/add pressure.

Was that kegging manifold a regular keg filler or a kind of some thing special?
I think to try in a future manual filling. But it would be a different story…

Cheers.

Leonid

[tarmadilo]

Tim, thank you for your helpful input.

Amazing story!

Had you to cool down or warm up the fermentation room with AC?
I have always to cool down so the question is why to air condition and not to build walk in fermentation room or to use a fridge? Was it cost effective?

The room was already air conditioned, and held temperature quite well, so it functionally WAS a walk-in fermentation room. Air conditioners work well at 60 degrees, while that's on the high side for a refrigeration unit.

The carbonating “on the fly” idea looks very attractive but how w/o expensive measuring devices could you set up on specific CO2 content? As for my understanding with carbonating stone, it's like with oxygenation, you can only set up pressure-time to achieve approximate carbonization.
When bottling there is no “one more chance” like with kegs to bleed/add pressure.

Was that kegging manifold a regular keg filler or a kind of some thing special?
I think to try in a future manual filling. But it would be a different story…

I think if I was bottling, I'd go with bottle conditioning, as you're right that regulating the CO2 would be difficult at best with the kind of guerilla brewing approach I was using!

The kegging manifold was just a stainless steel pipe with valves and fittings to a number of filling heads (I think it had six heads). Nothing particularly complicated. It was eleven years ago, and I can hardly remember what it looked like!

Cheers, Tim

[Hofer]

I think if I was bottling, I'd go with bottle conditioning...


That is what I'm going to do. But how the process of bottle filling could be improved relatively to a "homebrewer set": tapping to a plastic filler?
Does the Blichmann BeerGun thingy help?
Do you have in mind any other solution?

Thank you.

Cheers,

Leonid

[Rosie]

I would highly appreciate any advice or input.


Hi Hofer,

I was using the 225 l Mauser type blue bins with the clamp on style lid. I had no problem with any sort of taint or with contamination after extended use and found no contamination between different yeast strains. I built a primitive CIP device and used a normal brewery cleaning regime of hot caustic, rinse, and PAA prior to use.

One of the biggest problems is getting the beer out of the bin. After messing with a bung/stainless spear method - by messing I mean by shooting it thru the roof of my brew shed :eek: ....I drilled two holes in the lid and fitted 2 bulkhead 3/8 inch John Guest fittings. One fitting had a tube inside the tank that extended close to the bottom. I would then transfer by adding some pressure to the other bulkhead fitting...be warned, as I don't know what these are rated to, but I ran them 3-5psi during transfer without blowing them up...

One problem with this method is that the stretching of the lid under pressure causes the oring seal to no longer stay put in the lid...I just ran some 3/8 beer tube from the CO2 fitting into a bucket of PAA for my 'airlock'

For my ales I really only had a problem with keeping the ferment warm enough and believe it or not, I just had a heating blanket on a temp controller to sort that out...it worked and I didn't burn the house down...

With the couple lagers that I did with this setup, I hung a stainless cooling coil (reclaimed from an underbar chiller) from the two 3/8 John guest fittings and used the recirc function of an under bar chiller to cool it down...this of course controlled by a temp controller...it worked.

If I were you, I'd go with new bins...I looked at used and they usually smelled of whatever was in them...here in the UK these bins new were about 45 GBP (okay expense at 90 with the crap dollar rate, but surely you can find them cheaper)...I think I would also go with some sort of ball valve at the bottom of the tank and bulkhead in the lid to add CO2 for transfer.

You also need to figure out how to condition/drop the yeast. Tim had the liberty of using the fork lift to move things around...my wife wouldn't let me have a fork lift at home, so I transferred the bin to 8 cornies with the dip tubes cut one inch... These went into a big freezer (at 2 C) and then I transferred to normal cornies when bright, then force carbonated. Most of the time by what I call the 'shake and bake' method as I was always trying to keep up...

When I think of it, it was pretty mad...but hey, about as mad as what we are doing on a larger scale now... :cool:

On the bottling front, I have a Beer Gun and I can recommend you give it a try. As much as I like a bottle conditioned beer, most people aren't 'conditioned' to having chunks of yeast in their beer. The beer gun is a pragmatic solution to the 3 handed counter pressure fillers. It allows you to bottle from a carbonated (forced usually, which is pretty easy to control carbonation) cornie keg. The key is you need to have the beer as cold as you can get it without freezing it (0C or even lower) and you need to go slow. With it, you can pre-evac the bottle with CO2 and after filling you can cap on foam.

If you insist on bottle conditioning, I think the beer gun can be used (much more rapidly) to help with the process as it is a one handed tool, plus you could do a closed transfer from say a primed keg instead of the bottling bucket.

Best of luck with your nano brewery and remember to "Relax" when things don't go to plan!

Cheers,

[Hofer]

Hi Jeff,

Your system was really awesome!


I am not a technically minded person so my future system should be in harmony with an absence of tech skills.

An open fermentation is my favorite and to the contrary to a closed and pressurized system it almost eliminates necessity for bungs or spears or bulkheads or whatever. I also believe pumping should just work well to move beer all around.

These are good news that you found the drums taintless and contamination free. I will use the same cleaning mode as you have just will do it manually. Do you remember what were caustic concentration and temperature?

Heating blanket sounds my way of doing things. It could be I would prefer temperature controlled fridges to a standard walk in room. It could be less expensive and more flexible. Even cheaper than underbar chiller.

At http://www.flextank.com.au/Drum-Bin_Bags.htm they say that to get rid off the smells you shouldn’t try to wash them off completely but just leave the drums opened to naturally deodourize. $15 a drum used just once is a bargain that couldn’t be missed.

Skimming not dropping is my preferred method for dealing with yeast. For me it is the happiest part of the process.

Wort and beer will be moved around by pumping.

On the bottling front I got an answer on r.f.c. from Dan Listermann: “For bottle conditioned beers, any wine bottle filler will work just fine.” I value it as genius simple.
Just don’t understand how I didn’t think about the solution earlier!

Thank you for your time and effort spent on the writing.
It could be that I should give myself more time to learn more lessons from the story.

Cheers.

Leonid

[uptown brothers]

what does anybody think about lagering in HDPE tanks? I understand the concern re primary fermentation for sure but I can see plastic as a way to give me the lagering capacity in the cellar of the building we're looking at for a lot less than current stainless prices, even used. Which are, in my model, and with the numbers on our loan app, prohibitive.

I like lagers, and I think a large number of potential new craft brew customers in the particular location I'm looking at would be more easily wooed to a 5% ABV Dortmunder or Vienna, as a shorter jump from the American light lagers (or even Heinekin/Stella etc) they're now drinking, than to say a porter or stout. While I also think the existing craft brew drinkers can be wooed to the style too, even if they are more into double IPAs and RIS's right now--session ales and lagers being the subject of a lot of favorable press and beer website posting these days.

But while I would have the cellar space I don't think I have (or am likely to get) the money for stainless lagering tanks.

Once the beer's ready for lagering it's already at least a little infection resistant as a 5% alcohol solution, isn't it? Plus I don't see the lager tanks as requiring the sort of vigorous scrubbing that might lead to scratches. What's gonna be left behind in there, the last little bit of yeast residue? Plus they're going to be at 1 to 3 degrees C (or 34-36 F), in a walk-in, in my current plan. My (perhaps undiscriminating) palate never perceived any plastic-y tastes from lagering dorts and helles and marzens in HDPE containers as a homebrewer, where the small batch size meant more plastic-to-beer contact than will occur in say a 250 gallon HDPE tank....

By the same token, it sure seems like HDPE or even MDPE ought to work for a cold liquor tank too....

Am I nuts, or even just wrong?

[Hofer]

what does anybody think about lagering in HDPE tanks? I understand the concern re primary fermentation for sure...



I see even less problem if at all with primary fermentation in plastic than with secondary or lagering: there is no concern for O2 permeability.

From the tech point of view there is no difference between lagering and ales cold maturating at 32F/0C.

You can find several interesting ideas for using plastic fermenters on large scale at www.flextank.com.au

Leonid