Will these work for brewing/fermentation tanks?

How thick is the glass? How do you plan on holding them upright? Can you change the valves to straight ball valves? And can you get a bottle brush in if you should need to? Just a few things to think of off the top of my head. Looks like they have potential to the right person with inginuity and motivation though.

 

DocT said

Awesome find, those should work nicely. Replacing the valves might be a good idea, but not knowing what exactly they are, I wouldn't say it was a necessity. As to cleaning, use PBW and you won't ever need to brush the insides. Looks like it already comes with wall mounts that you could use or adapt to something more transportable.

Those should work out quite well with a bit of forethought.

 

I doubt they're intended to hold pressure. I understand you'll have an airlock/blowoff of sorts but that might not be enough. I guess if the glass is really thick (it's hard to tell from a photo) you'll be fine.

 

I am not sure why they would need to hold a lot of pressure? As long as you have an air lock on I don't think they will build that much pressure inside of them. However, if the air lock were to get clogged I could see a giant bomb in the making.

 

Looks like a pretty awesome find to me. Do you think the valve on the bottom big enough to harvest yeast?

 

Those are pretty neat! I would try one without hesitation. That built in glass stem at the top seems built for a blowoff hose. I suppose you ought to take precautions against clogs and pressure build ups... just keep a careful eye on the first couple of fermentations until you dial it in.

 

That was the first thing I thought of. I still hate glass, but these things look like they would work.

 

For what its worth, early micro/nano brewers, for the most part, used jury-rigged dairy equipment for most of the brewing process because smaller scale equipment for beer didn't really exist because the craft scene blew up. I think you'll be fine. I'd just whip up a fairly sizeable blow-off so you release the bulk of your CO2.

 

This is true. And there are still some brewers out there using repurposed dairy equipment. I haven't heard of anyone using glass milk receiving tanks though. Not necessarily that it wouldn't work, just that I don't think it is or was ever common.

 

The practice of using re-purposed dairy equipment has not gone away by any means. I toured a brand new brewery last December and they were using a mash tun and hlt that were both former dairy tanks.