How many open ferment?

Everything from Indigo Imp in Cleveland is open fermented.

 

I could've sworn that Anchor calls their Steam fermenters 'coolships', or something very similar. IIRC, they use shallow, long fermenters to dissipate the heat of fermentation, due to using lager yeast at a higher than normal temperature. If they're not coolships, any idea what they're called?

 

Yeah, that's sort of the point, a "coolship" is just a big, shallow, open vessel, it's not strictly a fermentation or wort cooling vessel.

So, not every open fermentation method employs a coolship and not every coolship is used for wild yeast or "steam beer" fermenting.

Hey, look - Anchor's new website has even got a page on it.

 

So if not to cool the wort, then why "open ferment" like this? What are the benefits, or distinctions to brewing like this?

 

There's a lot of literature (well, whatever you'd call it on a website) IIRC on the topic of open v. closed fermentation on the 'net (mostly from the homebrewing community, but with ideas/opinions from commercial brewers) but for some brewers who maintain the latter it's a matter of tradition, yeast collection and maintenance, ability to skim the kraeusen, generally a more "hands on" brewing technique and, ultimately, a different flavor profile.

Well into the 1940's and 1950's many US breweries were still open fermenting but it fell out of favor because it was more labor intensive (during fermentation and cleaning), more difficult to maintain sanitation, higher energy usage (cooling the entire room rather than just a tank), took up more room (especially since closed finishing/storage/lagering tanks were still necessary after initial fermentation) vs. outdoor vertical "conical tank farms", a closed system allowed breweries to collect CO2 (large breweries that "force carb" their beer traditionally used their own scrubbed CO2 rather than buying it), etc.

 

http://www.byo.com/stories/techniqu...ion/1216-open-fermentation-tips-from-the-pros

 

JK gave good infromation. In addition some yeasts benefit from open fermentaion. The German Wheat beer yeasts are often said to be very tempermental in this regard. New Glarus and Sierra Nevada do their German style wheat beers in open fermenters.

Sierra Nevada also brews Bigfoot in open fermenters. Click on the .wmv or .mov files at the "making of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot" to see their open fermenters in action. They have to do more than one brew to fill the fermenters. They aerate the wort when filling. Once full the yeast take off and ferment like crazy, flowing over the top.
http://www.sierranevada.com/beers/bigfoot.html

 

It's not the US, but I think pretty much all of the classic German breweries use open fermentation, just like they have for centuries.

 

Not mentioned yet is Berkshire Brewing.

 

Hales in Seattle open ferments.

Sierra Nevada does the kellerweise in open fermenters.

Port Townsend Brewing had Hop Diggidy in dairy tanks with loose lids last time I was there. Not exactly "open" but surely no head pressure and limited vertical weight.

 

It's probably where some airborne yeast or bacteria in introduced, but a lot of brewing scientists now think that most of the organisms responsible for fermenting lambics and other "wild" beers are found in the barrels themselves. As you mentioned, coolships are mostly relics of the pre-refrigeration era. Airborne inoculation is really just a happy accident for some of the breweries. But breweries like Cantillon could *probably* send boiled wort through a chiller and then directly into barrels and get the same end result.

 

Actually, New Glarus does not currently have a coolship. The last time I was at the brewery they told me that the riverside brewery will be converted to brew only sour beers and they are planning to build a coolship in the riverside brewery in the very near future!!!