I recently acquired a stainless steel conical fermenter as a long-desired upgrade to my brewing setup - I’ve been using 5gal plastic carboys until now, but I wanted to move away from them as I’m a bit leery of plastics leaching out while stuff sits in there for months at a time.
Does anyone here have experience with stainless fermenters? I’m especially interested in any cleaning tips and changes to flavor I should expect. Thanks in advance :)
Had a small stainless steel fermenter. No issues with flavor and cleaning is at least as easy as plastic. Bonus points, you can use hot water without wondering what that does to it. Cleaning tip: don’t use anything that’ll scrub that pretty shiny steel surface. Many cleaning sponges say they scratch-free. I found that to be a lie. If it has a rough side, keep it away from the steel.
If it’s brand new, I strongly recommend passivating first with citric acid. Soaking in citric acid removes free iron at the surface, then the chromium will react with oxygen in the air to form a protective shiny barrier. I didn’t passivate my kettle first and got a small buildup of iron in the trub and some slight staining. It’s not a big deal and the beer is totally fine, but I still would do it if I bought another one. I just let it soak in acid, then wipe it clean with a paper towel (while wearing gloves) and let it air dry. Citric acid also removes beer stone from kettles and is pretty cheap.
I’d never heard of passivation before - thanks, will definitely do that before my first attempt.
Big brewers use stainless tanks almost exclusively, so there shouldn’t be any issue taste wise for fermentation. If you’re brewing something with very subtle flavors (like a mead or something similar) I’d be leery about bulk aging 5Gal in steel, but I don’t think it would impact it too much.
Cleaning wise-echoing the other comment, anything really acidic or really basic can etch it, but assuming you’re diluting to the right strength and all that, you should be fine. If there are any valves or false bottoms, etc. you will have to remove those occasionally to properly clean them.
I mentioned it because I heard about people ruining theyr gear by peroxyacetic acid.
I only use iodophor and sometimes hot steam, so I think I should be ok. Good to know some chemicals will etch it though
I do brew mead sometimes - I’ll probably be switching between mead, beer, and wine over time. Do you think those flavors will start carrying over between batches? I’ve had pretty good luck so far with plastic, and I’m hoping stainless is fine as well since it’s a harder material.
What do you normally do for secondary with mead? I could get a glass carboy, but I hear those are prone to shatter when moved…
There is less chance of flavour transfer from the stainless steel itself than from plastic, as long as you remove all residue between batches properly. Gaskets may hold some but that’s a different story.
I used starsan to sanitize a 30L stainless steel fermenter (a basic one, not conical, basically a huge pot with a lid and a tap - bought from Braumeister I believe) and the only issue I ran into was the plastic bits falling off the lid, though that may have been mechanical failure. I did however scratch it with a rough non-scratch sponge (as somebody else said in this thread).
I did have a glass 20L carboy shatter by itself only sitting in a midldy cold room.
Stupid question from a mead apprentice - why not just bottle as soon as it clears and then let it do its thing in the bottle?
There shouldn’t be a difference.
For cleaning some chemicals can etch stainless steel - HCl, NaOH, some more aggressive disinfectant.
Cool - I avoid acids for cleaning, mostly just use iodophor and steam
It’s a bummer that fermenter doesn’t have tri-clamp ports so you could utilize quick disconnects. It looks like you can upgrade the lid to one which will make cleaning easier if you buy a rotary spray ball.
If you can gwt your hands on a CIP (clean in place) attachment, hook it up to your cleaning solution through a pump and it makes cleaning almost effortless.
As others have said, there should be no flavours imparted by the stainless.
Make sure to passivate before use with citric acid.
For cleaning, sodium percarbonate, PBW or even a caustic cleaner will work. At my brewery I use PBW, which works perfectly.