I got this in a trade from a beer maker. My winemaking usually involves 5 gallon buckets and carboys. Is this equipment at all useful for my winemaking?
can I use this conical tank for wine?
- Thread starter Snafflebit
- Start date
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Heck yes, that's very useful. It has sanitary fittings which are great. You could ferment in it, age in it, bottle out of it, basically what ever you want.
If you want to sell it, shoot me a price and location by PM.
If you want to sell it, shoot me a price and location by PM.
koolmoto
Member
I just finished fermenting my plum wine in a conical bottom 50L tank. It was great! It also has a floating inner lid so I can age in it and avoid oxidation. Haven't tried that yet, but will some day.
My biggest question is how does draining from the bottom work if I have a cap of skins that will fall down and clog the plumbing. What is the benefit to the conical shape? I have seen conical fermenters that are designed to catch the lees and I think reuse them to start new ferments.
koolmoto
Member
So, I was worried about that too until I tried it with my plum wine. There were some seeds and a lot of skins forming a thick cap so I thought it would get clogged, but when I tried it, it flowed liquid freely for my taste+acid+gravity tests with no issues. I think they design the holes wide enough that most of the chunks can flow through especially with all the pressure it has from the heavy liquid. There are two spigots, one at the bottom for draining everything, and one a little bit higher for racking purposes. It's a conical shape to catch the lees at the bottom so you can rack from above them using the higher spigot. I guess you'd have to get the thing up on a table or something to really rack that properly into carboys. In my case, I had it fermenting on the ground and when it was full, it was too heavy to lift up to a table, so I just got a pitcher and went pitcher by pitcher into my press which filtered/funneled into a carboy. I would imagine if I had the tank on a table, I could rack it with no issues. Also, when racking, the liquid shouldn't have as many chunks as when you are fermenting, so I think the spigots should work for that with no problems.
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