HomebrewandBeer.com forum

Gentlemen.

So there's 3 of us doing coopers kits together. we mix up 8 cans at a time in 4 plastic drums from you local brew shop.
A cousin is into grapes/wine and tells us of this deal on some 300L stainless tank, second hand, from his friend of a friend...blah blah blah.
I haven't seen it, but it already sounds better to me. Less to clean!
Question is, I haven't seen it at all. Not sure how the lid works. Is wine all sealed up as well when it's made? Does anyone here use a big stainless tank?
Thoughts please.

**EDIT** Would a bigger vessel be harder to control the temperature on?

Wine is less susceptible to infections due to lower pH, higher alcohol and sulphites. So wknemakers can be less anal about sanitation compared to brewers. That said, if the stainless fermenter can be sealed and an airlock fitted it might be ok.

Temperature control will be much harder on that scale so unless you can cool it down somehow you could run in to issues.

If it's anything like the stainless steel tanks we use for making wine, it will have a water seal lid. This is basically a rim around the top that will contain water and the lid sits in that, effectively creating an air tight seal. Hope that makes sense. This is similar I guess to an airlock on the beer fermenter. If it is an older style tank you may not have that.

The temperature control issue to which DrSmurto refers is, if I am correct, two-fold.

First is the issue of controlling the temperature of such a large volume of liquid. Heating or cooling four smaller fermenters is easier and quicker than doing the same for one large one of the same total volume. Having said that, by the sounds of things you won't be doing 300-litre batches so may not be a huge issue if they are ~90 litres (4 x 23 litres, if that's what you're doing currently).

Second, adding to the first issue, is that heat is generated during fermentation and is more easily dissipated from a smaller volume. You might run into problems keeping the brew at a suitable temperature, depending on the volume you're making, due to it warming up as a result of fermentaiton.

Hope this helps (and I am right, DrSmurto!).

Cheers,

Oliver

Exactly Oliver.