Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi all,

Looking at using these as fermenters, once I have removed the olive scent.....

My question is, have any of you developed clever ways to manage these when they have 200 litres of wash in them?

I was thinking a trolley keg height off the ground would be a good idea, and then putting a ball valve tap in the bottom of the drum.

How have you guys managed it?

Get a long hose with an inline flow meter and pump directly into the boiler :) Currentyl I siphon 20L out at a time and do this 3 times to fill mine.... but i'm looking at the flow meter and long hose option.

Pumps what I use. Havn't quite got as fancy as luke with the meter. I just use a bit of dowel in the boiler to check the height.

I don't have the 220L option just yet but when I do they will not be moving once full ;)
I'll use the tap and hose option with the pump as a fall-back.

I use a drill pump to transfer wash from my big drums.

Cost me $24 and pumps pretty fast, fills 50L boiler in a few minutes, beats the hell outta siphoning wash :handgestures-thumbupleft: probably done 400l by now and is not slowing, but I am not planning on it lasting a long time..

As Mech said, once full you shouldn't have to move it.

As for heat, you cant go wrong with an aquarium heater for the big drums, they work a treat! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Urrazeb wrote:I use a drill pump to transfer wash from my big drums.

Cost me $24 and pumps pretty fast, fills 50L boiler in a few minutes, beats the hell outta siphoning wash

Yep, me too :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Once you pump you won't go back.

or you could do it like this
These are 80 litre ones

I made up some dollys with cut up kitchen bench tops and castors 600mm x 600mm.

I use one to move my still around the garage, which has a hole located in the middle to accommodate a drain on the bottom of the boiler. Allows me to leave the still assembled and CIP.

The other one I use for a 220l drum. Moving it around gives me flexibility with my space and I'm able to wheel it near the drain at the front of the garage so I can hose down any spills etc.

The castors I bought were rated to 50 or 60kg each, are swivel and 2 have brakes. The brakes come in handy occasionally.

The dollies also come in handy when I need to move things around the garage or in the house. Eg fermenters, furniture etc.

Hit up your local kitchen joinery for scrap bench tops or soildcore doors would also work.

Cheers

I just measure from the top of the boiler. 160mm from the top is my fill level.

ekul wrote:Get a long hose with an inline flow meter and pump directly into the boiler :) Currentyl I siphon 20L out at a time and do this 3 times to fill mine.... but i'm looking at the flow meter and long hose option.

I've got a flow meter up here if you want to play with it. Next time you come up / I head down that way remind me about it. I was going to use it for strike water, but I found it was too inaccurate.

http://www.futurlec.com.au/Flow_Sensor.jsp
It's the one for 1/2" pipe.
Part Code: FLOWMETER

ball valve tap if the drum does not have one then no unplanned accidents and does not need cleaning and the pump if it can do hot transfer good to sterilize.

Thanks guys.
I have a 200L molasses wash down, 12 kg sugar, 40l molasses. Bubbling along nicely with lowans.

I didn't think of using the aquarium pump I have for the condenser, I will give that a shot.

I think the trolleys sound like to go.

Chips Molasses wrote:Thanks guys.
I have a 200L molasses wash down, 12 kg sugar, 40l molasses. Bubbling along nicely with lowans.

I didn't think of using the aquarium pump I have for the condenser, I will give that a shot.

I think the trolleys sound like to go.

To get the same total sugar from the orig recipe but with the heavier molasses backbone, for a 200L wash 40L molasses would need 14kg sugar. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

OzKev wrote:

Chips Molasses wrote:Thanks guys.
I have a 200L molasses wash down, 12 kg sugar, 40l molasses. Bubbling along nicely with lowans.

I didn't think of using the aquarium pump I have for the condenser, I will give that a shot.

I think the trolleys sound like to go.

To get the same total sugar from the orig recipe but with the heavier molasses backbone, for a 200L wash 40L molasses would need 14kg sugar. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

My bad, I guesstimated.... Still on the bubble with the heating band on at night.

Chips Molasses wrote:

OzKev wrote:

Chips Molasses wrote:Thanks guys.
I have a 200L molasses wash down, 12 kg sugar, 40l molasses. Bubbling along nicely with lowans.

I didn't think of using the aquarium pump I have for the condenser, I will give that a shot.

I think the trolleys sound like to go.

To get the same total sugar from the orig recipe but with the heavier molasses backbone, for a 200L wash 40L molasses would need 14kg sugar. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

My bad, I guesstimated.... Still on the bubble with the heating band on at night.

Actually, didn't think of this till after I posted, you were also correct. The original recipe says for a 25-30L batch, hence a variation.

It will still taste better than what I can buy!!!!

I am tasting through the stripping run, started of 85% sweet with mellow backdrop of smokey molasses, at 50% the sweetness is almost gone and it's a little bitter and smokey. I will pull it all down to 20% and let the spirit run work it out. 220 litre drum is GREAT, some amount of work, for a bunch more hearts.

Got to agree on the big fermenter. When I was setting up for the hobby I got myself a 60L fermenter. Thinking a 50L wash minus less is a good fill for a 50L boiler. After a couple of brews I got myself a 220L fermenter. Rums are soo much quicker now. Talking to a mate I now have plans on how to fill the 220L with a corn mash within a day. Once I have my initial ageing stock I wont need to brew often at this scale. :dance:

Ozkev,
How did the 220L corn mash go?
I have access to heaps of 190L fermenters (olive drums) so im keen to do some bigger ferments as well

davecuds wrote:Ozkev,
How did the 220L corn mash go?
I have access to heaps of 190L fermenters (olive drums) so im keen to do some bigger ferments as well

Went all to plan. It was a mix n match type day to get some ideas. The main thing I'm trying to do is not manually handle it a lot. So from start to finish I took about 13 hours, but I didn't do a lot in that time, it was just leave it alone. I mashed half in the fermenter and the other half in my mash tun.

Starting early morning in the fermenter I dumped 20kg crushed corn and poured on 70L of boiling water, I had my HLT on my 3V system set to 98c. Put the lid on the fermenter and left it for a couple of hours.
Refilled my HLT and got it back to the boil.
Threw 10kg corn into my Mash Tun, and poured on the boiling water.

A couple of hours later I checked the fermenter's mash and it happened to be on 66c. I added 1kg malted grain and some enzyme to start the starch->sugar conversion, gave it a good stir and put the lid on it and walked away.

Once the Mash tun got down to grain temp I added 8kg malted grain some enzyme, and stirred it in.

At that stage my sons computer gear rocked up so I spent the afternoon building his pc, and didn't check the mashes at all.

Late evening I went and gave them both a good stir and got it ready for fermenting. The corn/grain in the fermenter was left in there, and the mash tun was drained via the false bottom and sparged (yes I know normally you don't sparge corn mashes) until my fermenter was full.

I worked out in the fermenter I hit 72% efficiency overall, and the mash tun I hit 80%.


In my experiments I've also tried to use the cracked corn in my mash tun without crushing it further. It made draining and sparging really easy, but I only got 60% efficiency.


I prefer not to ferment on the grain. What I would like to do long term is get another 200/220L drum, aka mash drum. I'll put a false bottom in it. Then my plan is to crush the corn with 1 quick pass of the Corona mill. I'll dump 40kg corn in the mash drum and top it up with 140L boiling water. The water will be added as 70L, then about an hour later another 70L as that's what my HLT can do easily (82L total capacity). Giving it a good stir at both times when adding water. Then leave it to cool to 66c by itself. With the thermal mass I assume it will take 3 to 4 hours. Once I hit 66c, I'll add my grain and enzyme, stir and leave it to cool until the evening. Then my plan is to drain it using the false bottom to separate out the grain. Then I will sparge the mash drum with cold water and draining into the fermenter until my fermenter is full. If I allow 75% eff I should get 1.055 OG, or 80% 1.057. Now I know purists would say no to any sugar, but if I add 4kg white sugar it is a very low % of total sugars and would bump it to an OG 1.064.