I checked “Other”. I use one Ale Pail, one MrBeer Little Brown Keg, one BrewDemon plastic conical, two 12qt SS pots, one 12qt enamel pot, one 8qt SS pot, and recently a pint Grolsch bottle for a test batch.
How many fermenters are in your basement?
2-6 gal glass carboys and 2-5 gal glass carboys.
I use Better Bottles for fermentation. When I need to bulk condition, I use Cornie kegs.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
5 gal keg(s) w/ fermcap and blowoff attached to in post (w/o removing poppit). More work to do 10 gal batches (2 things to clean!) but love to be able to transfer w/ jumper hose rather than siphon. Keep thinking about 10 or 15 gal kegs, but price hasn’t been right. . .
2- 6.5 gal, 1- 6 gal and 1- 5 gal glass carboys and 1 bucket. Obviously I prefer glass…mostly because I can see through it. I just pour the yeast cake into a mason jar, easy enough. To clean I run a brush over the grimy krauesen ring, then fill it with water and PBW overnight and rinse a few times in the morning. They are kind of heavy but I don’t tend to carry them around when they’re full.
I gotta say, if I ever find myself living in a place where I’ll never have to transport fermentors up and down stairs, I’m going to take a serious look at those things.
Most of the time I use my four 15 gallon Curtec wide mouth plastic kegs as shown in the photo below. I also have four 5 gal glass and four 6.5 gallon glass carboys. They scare me as I get older.
.JPG)
The wide mouth carboy sure would help with cleaning issues. The glass breaking scares me too. Maybe a zip up kevlar “jacket” with handles could contain the shards. I move carboys soberly.
I’m using buckets right now as that what came in my Christmas present :shock:
I gotta say, if I ever find myself living in a place where I’ll never have to transport fermentors up and down stairs, I’m going to take a serious look at those things.[/quote]
It’s not much worse than the bucket was. A bit heavier, for sure. You really need the lifting harness though. Without the harness there really is no way to hold the thing that isn’t awkward. You almost have to have one hand under it, and one hand IN the mouth. With the harness it’s actually easier to lift with both hands, so the more comfortable grip kinda compensates for the weight difference.
[size=150]All of this!^^^^^[1]
Although, I still use buckets I’ve had for 10 years, so the need to replace them is minimal.
/size ↩︎
Ever had a ruined batch due to a scratch in the plastic? That’s the one bit of worrywarting about plastic buckets that does still prickle the back of my brain.
(Admittedly not that much, though, considering I still stack my buckets for storage.)
Ever had a ruined batch due to a scratch in the plastic? That’s the one bit of worrywarting about plastic buckets that does still prickle the back of my brain.
(Admittedly not that much, though, considering I still stack my buckets for storage.)[/quote]
Nope, never. In fact, the only infected batch I’ve ever had (out of 450) was back when I was using carboys. I think the “scratches harbor bacteria” thing was due to speculation rather than documentation.
buckets and better bottles…if people give you the glass hoopla bs that is all it is is bs
Ever had a ruined batch due to a scratch in the plastic? That’s the one bit of worrywarting about plastic buckets that does still prickle the back of my brain.
(Admittedly not that much, though, considering I still stack my buckets for storage.)[/quote]
Nope, never. In fact, the only infected batch I’ve ever had (out of 450) was back when I was using carboys. I think the “scratches harbor bacteria” thing was due to speculation rather than documentation.[/quote]
Same here. The only infected batches I’ve had have all been traceable to fresh fruit additions. Been using the same two buckets for the last 5 years now. Every now and then when I don’t have one of them available, I’ll use one of the older, scratched up buckets that I’ll use to store base malt in. After cleaning and sanitizing, no problems do date.
[quote=“Denny”][quote=“bunderbunder”]Ever had a ruined batch due to a scratch in the plastic? That’s the one bit of worrywarting about plastic buckets that does still prickle the back of my brain.
(Admittedly not that much, though, considering I still stack my buckets for storage.)[/quote]
Nope, never. In fact, the only infected batch I’ve ever had (out of 450) was back when I was using carboys. I think the “scratches harbor bacteria” thing was due to speculation rather than documentation.[/quote]
I’m sure it’s technically true, but I’ve always suspected that the resulting hazard to beer was greatly exaggerated.
Just seems odd that one tiny little scratch should be an extreme hazard that will destroy your beer, while something that’s effectively one big mass of tiny little scratches like a wooden cask is an awesome thing that will make your beer delicious.
[quote=“bunderbunder”]I’m sure it’s technically true, but I’ve always suspected that the resulting hazard to beer was greatly exaggerated.
Just seems odd that one tiny little scratch should be an extreme hazard that will destroy your beer, while something that’s effectively one big mass of tiny little scratches like a wooden cask is an awesome thing that will make your beer delicious.[/quote]
I not sure that it is. I’ve never seen any proof…just lots of repetition of “the conventional wisdom”.
I don’t know if it’s proof, per se, but the reason I’m willing to believe it is that Star San hasn’t been certified as being able to sanitize such surfaces. I assume the folks in the labs might have some reason for that.
I qualify it with “technically” because practically speaking I don’t believe any of that really means anything. Star San’s only certified to kill 99% of germs. I’m pretty sure it’d take one hell of a scratch to protect enough bugs that the Star San only kills 98% of germs. And I’m also pretty sure that if it were necessary to kill as many bugs as possible then we’d be using disinfectants instead of sanitizers.
[quote=“bunderbunder”]I don’t know if it’s proof, per se, but the reason I’m willing to believe it is that Star San hasn’t been certified as being able to sanitize such surfaces. I assume the folks in the labs might have some reason for that.
I qualify it with “technically” because practically speaking I don’t believe any of that really means anything. Star San’s only certified to kill 99% of germs. I’m pretty sure it’d take one hell of a scratch to protect enough bugs that the Star San only kills 98% of germs. And I’m also pretty sure that if it were necessary to kill as many bugs as possible then we’d be using disinfectants instead of sanitizers.[/quote]
Bugs will hide in scratches easily and are tough to sanitize on plastic stuff.
[quote=“grainbelt”][quote=“bunderbunder”]I don’t know if it’s proof, per se, but the reason I’m willing to believe it is that Star San hasn’t been certified as being able to sanitize such surfaces. I assume the folks in the labs might have some reason for that.
I qualify it with “technically” because practically speaking I don’t believe any of that really means anything. Star San’s only certified to kill 99% of germs. I’m pretty sure it’d take one hell of a scratch to protect enough bugs that the Star San only kills 98% of germs. And I’m also pretty sure that if it were necessary to kill as many bugs as possible then we’d be using disinfectants instead of sanitizers.[/quote]
Bugs will hide in scratches easily and are tough to sanitize on plastic stuff.[/quote]
Many bugs are too big to fit into those little scratches. You seen any ladybugs or crickets crawling around in your buckets?
