Red Wine Fermenters for Grain Fermentation

[brandon8198]

Does anyone see an issue with using red wine fermenters with grain fermentation, specifically for vodka and whiskey. The tanks will still have a racking door, top manway, sloped bottom, 3" bottom triclover discharge with all the different ports, cooling jackets etc. They have a 1100mm diameter with a 1250 mm tank wall height. Thanks.

Brandon

[mdo14]

This is fine, I would just be extremely careful to thoroughly clean and sterilize all parts of the grain equipment before putting wine back into it. The grains will have a lot of contaminants on the outsides and could ruin a whole batch of wine if theyre present to infect it.

[mendodistilling]

The down sise is simply that you can't reuse yeast and dump it first before collecting clean beer. There are racking arms that fit into the sides that you can spin just above lees layer to get clean rack. Rackiteer makes a kick ass flashlight holder for an inline glass sight to see sediment as you are searching for the sweet spot. If you like using lees than who cares. Its just the same at that point. The other benefit of beer style tanks is they take into consideration circulation habits of the wort due to the middle rising and the outer ssidewalls falling. This helps fermentation, yeast don't flocculate as easily and do more due to agitation. Red wine tanks are made to punch down the grape skins or caps that float up due to co2 rising. The skins float and need to be submerged to get color out of them and keep the wine from getting sulfur nvotes from heat and lack of its ability to rise out.

[mendodistilling]

If you have an american tartaric products near you they can suggest a cleaning regime of chemicals and you can get what I call an r2d2 tank cleaner, its a sprayer on a. Wheel cart, gamajet makes one, they are pretty nice to set in a tank and let rip for 30 minut es.

ive seen a lot of Latina tanks around.

One thing I will pass on not from personal experience ias 316ss the way to go for long term vodka storage. post fermentation.

[Rich Morgan]

We use several 2500-3000L closed top wine tanks for fermenters, cheap, high quality, no issues. Just only fill to 75% of working cap or you will get blowover. We also use a number of variable capacity (sliding lid with pressurized skirt) for small batches, as they easy to clean.

Red wine pomace is far more bulky than spent grains.