I brewed today!

Craigerrr said:
Not only do I have an Allrounder, but I have that exact same bucket, came with my first (and only) beer kit, Northern Brewer Block Party Ale!
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Considering switching to the Allrounder. I have the FastFerment 7.9. The first thing I don't like about it is that it isn't pressure rated, at all. All I've found is "DON'T DO THAT!" in all the research I've done for finding a different lid and gasket. The vessel looks sound, and with a schedule 80 ball valve on the bottom, it shouldn't have any pressure issues unless it's the cap, which is OBVIOUSLY not going to hold much pressure. So here we are at a stand-off. The next thing I don't like about it is trying to put a filled fermenter into the stand. I made a handle so I could lift it, but it's still a two person job to get the stand threaded up over the bottom of the vessel. I can curl the handle up to shoulder height which puts the valve at about my knees, and the missus used to help me by threading the stand. That was OK before I got the fermenting fridgadeezer. But the FF 7.9 BARELY goes in that thing. I had to remove the top glass shelf (which was a lot harder than it sounds) so that there was room for the air lock. Air lock, vessel, and stand all measure out to about 46 inches tall, meaning I can't use the handle to lift it into place in the fridge. So, I bought a pump to transfer from kettle to FF 7.9, which is great because I don't have to lift anything heavy now. But if I want to take the fermenter out for checking a leak or anything, I'm not sure I could get it out of the fridge without causing some major problems in the brew. I've seen some improvement in how much muck I keep out of the bottled product, but still wind up wasting about a pint on the front end and back end of the transfer to bottling bucket, or some silt goes with it. I've tried all sorts of techniques to clear the ball valve before transfer, but none have worked other than just flushing with the valuable beer I just finished making. It's probably a little easier with less handling to collect yeast for re-pitch with it, but I don't repitch nearly as much as I thought I would. It's just too long between brews that use the same yeasts unless I'm building stock for my summer drinking. I can't see the Allrounder being any harder to clean than the FF 7.9, in fact, I see it being a lot easier to clean. No fittings in the vessel can't help but make it easier to clean.

The FF was a fun experiment, but I'm finding my fermentation skills to be topped out until I do something different. I like the conical, but don't think I'm getting quite as much bang for the buck out of it as I thought I would. What's the approximate height of the Allrounder with lid and connectors/airlocks, etc. I would like one that will do at least a 5 gallon batch, and IIRC, the 10 gallon version isn't as tall as the FF7.9. IF that's the case, I could do a large batch to catch up my summer stock a lot easier, especially if I switch to kegging as well.

I'm just at that point that I feel like I need some changes to get me back into the hobby better and eliminate some of the mundane chores (namely the bottle washing). Got lotsa stuff I wanna do with my gear to improve the experience.
 
Hello everyone!
Brew day today
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RoadRoach said:
Considering switching to the Allrounder. I have the FastFerment 7.9. The first thing I don't like about it is that it isn't pressure rated, at all. All I've found is "DON'T DO THAT!" in all the research I've done for finding a different lid and gasket. The vessel looks sound, and with a schedule 80 ball valve on the bottom, it shouldn't have any pressure issues unless it's the cap, which is OBVIOUSLY not going to hold much pressure.
Click to expand...
The thing to remember about pressure is that it is pounds of force PER SQUARE INCH OF SURFACE AREA.
So 5 PSI may not seem like much, but that will be 5 lbs of force per square inch of surface area, there are a lot of square inches of surface area inside that Fermonster.
Let's just say there are 200 square inches of surface area for arguments sake (probably more actually).
If it should blow at 5 PSI approximately 1000 pounds of force would be released.
That could cause some serious damage and or serious injury.
Physics rant ended, please be careful out there kids!
 
@RoadRoach
Have you thought of using a blow off tube instead of the air lock to reduce height?
I do that with my Speidel as otherwise it hardly fits in the fridge or cooler box.
I actually close off the spigot part with a cap and use the spigot on top as part of the blow off
 
Craigerrr said:
The thing to remember about pressure is that it is pounds of force PER SQUARE INCH OF SURFACE AREA.
So 5 PSI may not seem like much, but that will be 5 lbs of force per square inch of surface area, there are a lot of square inches of surface area inside that Fermonster.
Let's just say there are 200 square inches of surface area for arguments sake (probably more actually).
If it should blow at 5 PSI approximately 1000 pounds of force would be released.
That could cause some serious damage and or serious injury.
Physics rant ended, please be careful out there kids!
Click to expand...
Hence why just widening the diameter of keglands Allrounders requires alot of engineering?
 
So does that mean 2 lt coke bottles are thicker than the 500ml? Normal drink size bottles?
 
west1m said:
So does that mean 2 lt coke bottles are thicker than the 500ml? Normal drink size bottles?
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Don't know
All I know is I took a 500 ml coke bottle with me while scuba diving years ago.
We filled it up with air at 40 metre depth and let is go to the surface.
It was rock hard, but didn't crack or anything
 
west1m said:
So does that mean 2 lt coke bottles are thicker than the 500ml? Normal drink size bottles?
Click to expand...
thicker, possibly, but nonetheless designed to hold the pressure, shape and material makeup are definitely factors
remember the big glass 2L bottles they use to have, I seem to recall some really scary safety issues with those if they got knocked over
 
Craigerrr said:
thicker, possibly, but nonetheless designed to hold the pressure, shape and material makeup are definitely factors
remember the big glass 2L bottles they use to have, I seem to recall some really scary safety issues with those if they got knocked over
Click to expand...
Watching that brulosophy show the other day on using these as co2 storage and dispensing device they can easily hold up to 4 bar!

I'd trust plastic under high pressure over ridgid steel or glass.

Them bottles hold alot of PSI when stored warm on the supermarket shelf. :p
 
Craigerrr said:
The thing to remember about pressure is that it is pounds of force PER SQUARE INCH OF SURFACE AREA.
So 5 PSI may not seem like much, but that will be 5 lbs of force per square inch of surface area, there are a lot of square inches of surface area inside that Fermonster.
Let's just say there are 200 square inches of surface area for arguments sake (probably more actually).
If it should blow at 5 PSI approximately 1000 pounds of force would be released.
That could cause some serious damage and or serious injury.
Physics rant ended, please be careful out there kids!
Click to expand...
Fully aware of it. I've used little air bladders about 1 foot square to raise transformers that weigh north of 20,000 pounds with just a little bit of air. Kinda spooky to see the stator for a 1500 MW generator sitting on pillows.

IIRC, that Allrounder is rated up to 15 PSI, correct? Now you're talking 3000 lbs of force released if it ruptures. That normally breaks things. BIG things. I have full intentions of staying well within the limits and having all my belts and suspenders on when I start messing around with pressurized vessels. I won't even start until a PRV is in place.
 
Zambi said:
@RoadRoach
Have you thought of using a blow off tube instead of the air lock to reduce height?
I do that with my Speidel as otherwise it hardly fits in the fridge or cooler box.
I actually close off the spigot part with a cap and use the spigot on top as part of the blow off
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've considered something like you say with a blow-off. I could do the same with an elbow in the lid and calculate the amount of liquid in the jar to prevent a suck-back. A blow-off might actually tell me a little more about what the yeast is doing if I see sanitizer climbing the hose or CO2 still pushing into the jar, even if there's no bubbling. I've also found out that I'm not the first to have a seal problem with the lid. The gasket is a vinyl tube, and somehow doesn't always seal. I check the following day to make sure the airlock is bubbling, but sometimes have to twist the lid a little to improve the seal. Another reason for getting a better fermenter. Not so much that it will make better beer, more to eliminate some of the things I've learned to not like about the FF7.9.

Maybe I'm just whining too much.
 
Craigerrr said:
thicker, possibly, but nonetheless designed to hold the pressure, shape and material makeup are definitely factors
remember the big glass 2L bottles they use to have, I seem to recall some really scary safety issues with those if they got knocked over
Click to expand...
Glass bottles? Now you're REALLY showing your age.
 
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