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I have conical fermenters 1250L and 1800L. My mash kettle size is approx. 500L to 600L and my thought were to double brew or triple brew into such fermenters.
Though this is quite commonly done within the beer brewing environment, but whom is doing is doing it within the distilling environment.
It is my intention to ferment on the grain.
Thoughts, pros, cons etc.....
Comments
If you do it over 3 consecutive days, you can probably size your yeast pitch for 600l vs 1800l.
i'd be trying to fill as fast as achievable so the yeast are in their growth phase in 1 continuum instead of the ferment moving from aerobic to anaerobic then becoming aerobic again if there's too log a lag between when the next batch is added
The brewer next door to us does this, he’s 25 years in the business with multiple GABF golds. Apparently a common technique, and can save considerable money when using expensive liquid pitches. He double brews on back to back days.
Although I’m sure there is some additional technique here - pitch sizing, oxygen addition timing, etc.
Isn't this similar to step feeding then?
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
How big is your Still? If you have a still that is 1000 litres or more then use that as a water heater. Dump your grain in your fermenter at 75 deg and then stir it up. And then your doing hte on grain fermentation. Alternatively use your still as a water heater heat that up to 75 deg. mash in your grain and dump it into fermenter and then straight away pump your water from your still into the mash tun at 75 degrees and then you will have two runs in a day. I am not going to have a mash tun early on when I get into operation but I will have a 1000l bain marie boiler. For on grain fermentation I do the lazy mash method ( dump the water on grain at 75 degrees, stir then insulate for 90 mins then cool). The only time that will be a pain in the ass is when i really want to get going and I want to strip and mash in the same day.
In your case if you have a 600l mash tun and 1000l use both to heat up the water and dump that into your fermenter and then dump in your grain into your fermenter. Then cool after 90 mins oxygenate, modify PH or add backset add yeast nutrients.
It's like stepping up from yeast stored on slants. Like @crozdog said, just try to time it so the ferment doesn't cycle between phases too badly.
Fermenting on grains isn't much different than fermenting on fruit must, except mashing separately, then transferring the cooled mash over to the fermenter.
I'm more like I am now than I was before.
The latest 1,800L fermenters
Cooling?
As an aside,,,from a cost point of view, one larger (twice the size) fermenter is cheaper (on a per liter basis) to build than two smaller fermenters equal to the larger volume.
IMO, learning to utilize the larger volume is in your best interest. Especially if you plan on any long term growth.
StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America
We love running our tun and fermenters at 2x still capacity.
If we were stripping, we would be happy at 4x.
Rum I’d be happy to be able to mix a tote’s worth of wash in one shot.
To put a simple cooling water jacket around would quickly sort this out BUT I was more of the opinion that trying to keep temperatures up to around 27 - 30 deg C was more the norm / reality so I had planned for a heating trace element jacket.