NOW IN TUMUT N.S.W. & KINGSTON A.C.T.

New Fermenter

March 25, 2015

New Fermenter

We got a new fermenter, so maybe we're the most excited about this, but for you at home what it means to you is simple. We can make more beer! See, now you're excited as well.

It's always been our intention to grow and that's what we've been doing, day by day, one little piece at a time. Our latest expense is this fermenter.

We had a lot of options and ways of setting up a new fermenter, as a lot of you know our current units are 210L single layered on wheels. We regulate the temperature in two rooms. One is the conditioning room where they ferment, then they get shifted to the cool room to cold crash and clear.

We have wanted bigger fermenter's forever. Because the ability to blend our batches into one unit will help with consistency of product. The downside of course is our inability to just wheel them around.

That left us with a few options.

1. Buy big expensive stainless jacketed fermenters that have their own Glycol cooling system

2. Stay small and keep wheeling them around.

3. Keep duplicate units in the cool room and conditioning room and pump from one to the other when the time is right.

4. somehow use our conditioning room for both purposes which would save hafting to shift the beer at any stage.

We went with option four for now, hoping to grow into option 3 at a later date. This means we need to be careful with when we brew and what stage each beer is at as it can affect the outcome, but its the only real option we have.

We have been stewing on this situation for a long time now and a few weeks ago we were introduced to the plastic fermenters made in WA. These units are much cheaper than anything we have found in stainless. And meet all the food safety/hygiene requirements.

They're not pretty and the fittings need far more maintenance/cleaning. But they allow us the ability to grow much faster.

Simon and I made the decision to purchase one as a test case and if successful we will buy three more. Two to act as bright tanks in the cool room and two for fermenters.

Say hello to Fatty (thats what we affectionately call him)