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Fermentation Tank size


eganter

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I'm looking for information on the largest non heated or cooled tank that can be used for fermenting a molasses wash. I'm in the process of sourcing equipment for a new distillery and am curious about others experiences. I was planning on using 55 gallon drums based on information from the book The Distillers Guide to Rum. The book states that any tank over 55 gallons will generate too much heat and will kill the yeast early. However, I've visited plenty of Whiskey distilleries that were fermenting in 300 gallon non heated or cooled tanks without issues. My hope is to use 300 hundred gallon tanks as our still can accommodate 350 gallons of wash. Can anyone offer any advice or experience with fermenting in larger tanks?

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>> The book states that any tank over 55 gallons will generate too much heat

We've not found that to be the case. We initially fermented in totes and always needed to heat them to keep the temp in the high 80s (F) and have the ferment finish in a reasonable period of time.

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Our totes are 1000 liters so about 300 gallons. We're in Indianapolis and had an unseasonably cool summer with only a few days in the 90s. We're using Lallemand DMax RM which specs high 80s / low 90s. It's our first year in business so I dont have many datapoints at normal temps. We're in the midst of expansion and will be switching to 1200 gallon SS open fermenters jacketed one side to control temps. For heat we used 800 watt drum heaters and bypassed the internal tstat and used a Auber PID for temp control. Worked just find for us.

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We use 330 gallon ibc totes (1100+ liters) and have no problem. We start out about the mid 90's and end good also.

We use lallemand RM, SR. You have to have it hot for it to work really good be cause the yeast strain comes from the Caribbean, so it loves the heat. If it is in the high 70's it will work but will take forever, if it is in the mid to low 70's it will stop, or come darn near stopping.

We are setting up individual tank heating control systems with agitation.

The IBC totes are are only $180 new so it is cheap to add on capacity.

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Thank you for all of the responses. Myself and business partner/brother will be launching a distillery in an admittedly small space (2500 sq ft) in southern New Jersey. We expect a bit of a learning curve as we get started. We purchased a 350 gallon still and are trying to figure out a cheap fermenter option. Those of you have been in this situation. Would you go for 3 325 gallon tanks or 18 55 gallon tanks assuming we will eventually switch to jacked fermenters.

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I ferment in 500 gallon stainless tanks without a jacket now. I started with 230 gallon Apollo Flextank fermenters, but they are a major pain to clean (I have bunches of them if anyone in Hawaii wants one). The heat in the larger tank is no greater and the last run was brilliant. Ferment was complete and the tank is much easier to clean since it has a CIP. My still is generally charged to 500 gallons, so I use 500 gallon fermenters. Keep it simple when you can.

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People spend way too much time thinking about upper temperature control for rum ferments. As we all should know, rum has been produced in a tropical climate in the Caribbean for a very long time without any temperature control. If you have a problem you're using the wrong yeast.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Long delay here, but I have never had a ferment go bad because of high temps in Hawaii. We have a proprietary local yeast that came from this tropical environment. Something like an EC-1118 makes really nice rum and it has great heat tolerance, too. We just like the flavor our wild yeast gives us, but there are plenty of options out there.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Dehner, I've never heard of anything fermenting out that fast. That's quite a claim. How do you pull it off?

I run up 6000 gallons of rum a week sometimes, not all the time. I make rum in bulk for other distilleries, a lot of rum! We just spent quite a bit of time and a little in researching ethanol plants in South America. We use to do 18-20 abv in two weeks, but even at a lower abv 12-15 it was taking 8-11 days to run out. Well we where falling behind on production runs and needed to speed things up. In Brazil (big ethanol plants) there is no way they would stand for a 7 day fermentation. So we did some research and some investing. We found we can do 9.7-10abv in less than 24 hours and 15-15.6 abv in 72 hours or less. Since it is not worth tying up more tanks for the extra 5 % abv we just let it run for the 24 hours. Also, I must say contrary to what you might think we are saving tons of money in yeast and other items over what we where doing before. I must say tho we have to correct the PH every 2-3 hours because of the rapid fermentation.

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no I don't think that.

If we can get 10% in 24 hours then we need three rotation cycles (1-fermenting , 1- being pinched, 1-cleaned and ready for the next day). So we will start 4-330 totes per day or 1200gallons per day. 5x1200=6000 in 5 days.

A 500 or 1000 gallon tank could cost $7000-$12,000 for one tank. Where one 330 gallon IBC cost me $180 not delivered, or $720 per cycle.

When I have tons of crazy money and need to spend money at the end of the year for taxes, I will buy some big stainless tanks.

I am looking at 4000-6000 tanks now.

Take care.

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