Primary fermenter help!

[The green Dragon]

I just purchased a wine kit and a 23 litre carboy,
I realized after the fact that i need a primary fermenter, there seems to be alot of sizes 7.9, 6,6.5, gal and on and on. What is the minimum primary fermenter size needed for a wine kit meant for 30 bottles with or without included skin packs (i plan on trying both styles)?

 

[mainshipfred]

I would highly recommend at least the 7.9.

 

[David Violante]

30 bottles at about 750ml each requires just about 23 liters of wine, which is just over 6 gallons. You’re going to want a primary fermenter to be larger than that to accommodate the effects of fermentation. Going bigger is far better so you have plenty of room. I started with an 8 gallon primary, now have two, and will go larger to start some other blends as well.

 

[David Violante]

Sorry @mainshipfred we were posting at the same time!

 

[Rice_Guy]

I would highly recommend at least the 7.9.

you have another choice, two 4 gallon pails will also give 7.9 or a 6 juice bucket and probably one ice cream pail ,,,,,, it isn’t a really critical decision, I have never needed a lot more than an extra ice cream bucket when doing a six gallon juice bucket and if I did I would just pull another ice cream bucket

 

[Chuck E]

I use 10 gallon, white, Rubbermade "Brute" garbage cans. They are made from NFS food grade plastic.

 

[bstnh1]

I use the Fermonster 7 gal. Has a wide mouth (4") so it's easy to clean and the screw on lid has a hole to accomodate a stopper and airlock when needed. Just don't put boiling water in it or it'll destroy it. I know!!!!

 

[Rice_Guy]

A 120 mm PET bottle is an excellent addition since it is flexible/ you can rack into it for storage. I don’t like the gasket that comes with it and have improvised silicone and bungi cord.

I use the Fermonster 7 gal. Has a wide mouth (4") so it's easy to clean and the screw on lid has a hole to accomodate a stopper and airlock when needed. Just don't put boiling water in it or it'll destroy it. I know!!!!

 

[The green Dragon]

I just purchased a wine kit and a 23 litre carboy,
I realized after the fact that i need a primary fermenter, there seems to be alot of sizes 7.9, 6,6.5, gal and on and on. What is the minimum primary fermenter size needed for a wine kit meant for 30 bottles with or without included skin packs (i plan on trying both styles)?

Wow thanks for all the feed back ill let u know what I end up using!

 

[David Violante]

you have another choice, two 4 gallon pails will also give 7.9 or a 6 juice bucket and probably one ice cream pail ,,,,,, it isn’t a really critical decision, I have never needed a lot more than an extra ice cream bucket when doing a six gallon juice bucket and if I did I would just pull another ice cream bucket

@Rice_Guy I'm envious of the amount of ice cream you have on hand...!

 

[bstnh1]

A 120 mm PET bottle is an excellent addition since it is flexible/ you can rack into it for storage. I don’t like the gasket that comes with it and have improvised silicone and bungi cord.
View attachment 69057

Where did you get that silicone cap????? I like that idea!

 

[Rice_Guy]

Amazon; this was an order of five 4” silicon bowl covers, (bag says N4.5GJG6PC) silicone breathes therefore it has mostly had a saucer as a solid cover on top.
What I did last year was take a silicone funnel (from the local TrueValue) and stretch it over the thread and then put an air lock in it so I could watch bubbles

Where did you get that silicone cap????? I like that idea!

 

[Rice_Guy]

I really don’t have many buckets now a days, ,,, when I took the ice cream lab in college I could take as many two gallon cartons as I could carry, ,,,, after seeing I couldn’t eat what I was collecting I started to melt it back and use it as coffee creamer wow coffee!

@Rice_Guy I'm envious of the amount of ice cream you have on hand...!

 

[sour_grapes]

when I took the ice cream lab in college I could take as many two gallon cartons as I could carry

I am beginning to think that I know where you went to college!

 

[bstnh1]

Amazon; this was an order of five 4” silicon bowl covers, (bag says N4.5GJG6PC) silicone breathes therefore it has mostly had a saucer as a solid cover on top.
What I did last year was take a silicone funnel (from the local TrueValue) and stretch it over the thread and then put an air lock in it so I could watch bubbles

Thank you. I'll take a look at both of those options. Dealing with the O-ring on that Fermonster is a pain. I've coated it with food grade silicone and that helps a lot!

 

[Rice_Guy]

Thank you. I'll take a look at both of those options. Dealing with the O-ring on that Fermonster is a pain. I've coated it with food grade silicone and that helps a lot!

A third option which hasn’t been tried on a fermonster yet was to cut a round gasket out of a silicon baking sheet from Amazon and then fabricate a 120 mm round metal/ plastic cover to minimize oxygen transmission. ,,,, similar in concept to this degassing chamber and a 2.5 gallon glass wide mouth “pickle jar”/ siphon target for use after a 3 gallon. The silicon sheet has one side with lots of cling/ extremely flat.

 

[The green Dragon]

you have another choice, two 4 gallon pails will also give 7.9 or a 6 juice bucket and probably one ice cream pail ,,,,,, it isn’t a really critical decision, I have never needed a lot more than an extra ice cream bucket when doing a six gallon juice bucket and if I did I would just pull another ice cream bucket

I have many food grade fives and thought of using two five gallon pails but i thought this would affect the balance of the yeast and other factors in the fermentation process. Hence all the weird pail sizes. Let me know if anyone has experience splitting the rescipe!

 

[Rice_Guy]

I have many food grade fives and thought of using two five gallon pails but i thought this would affect the balance of the yeast and other factors in the fermentation process. Hence all the weird pail sizes. Let me know if anyone has experience splitting the rescipe!

Yeast will grow till a limit is reached (other factors) the limit could be sugar or nitrogen or oxygen or temperature or SO2 or pH or CO2 build up.
of the limits mentioned oxygen tends to have a greater surface to volume ratio the smaller the carboy, ,,, my feeling is once under air lock the larger carboy survives better

 

[The green Dragon]

I found. 6.5 primary fermenter in town weirdly difficult to order wine kits to canada not sure why, will keep my eye out for a good cad site
Thanks again everyone for all the imput

 

[pillswoj]

Where in Canada are you? In Ontario brew your own places are everywhere both RJS and Vineco(winexpert) are Canadian companies, find one close by and they can order whatever you like. For a Canadian site for equipment and stuff try Canadian Homebrew Supplies