Unitanks all chugging away...

[J A]

I finally got all the pumps and hoses and controllers doing what they're supposed to do. Crashing an Irish Red and Amber Lager in the small ones and fermenting a Bohemian Pils in the big one. All seems to be working pretty nicely.

 

[Dave Y]

Very nice !

 

[Brewer #454695]

I’m still using fermenters with basic temp control, but moving to unitanks has definitely been on my radar. How’s the workflow been for you? Any unexpected pros or cons now that you're running them all at once? Would love to hear what’s been working (or not) from your setup!
poor bunny

 

[J A]

I’m still using fermenters with basic temp control, but moving to unitanks has definitely been on my radar. How’s the workflow been for you? Any unexpected pros or cons now that you're running them all at once? Would love to hear what’s been working (or not) from your setup!

The set up has been very good. Using Unitanks is great in terms of beer quality and ease of handling during fermentation and packaging. The only time I have to physically move liquid is lifting and pouring buckets of filtered water into the brew vessels or sometimes lifting a keg or bucket of sanitizer onto a surface for gravity transfer. All wort transfer is done by pump and beer transfer is pressure transferred into kegs. It's unwieldy in terms of cleaning and prep but it's just a matter of scheduling for break-down and cleaning and re-assembly and having a way to store fittings when the tanks aren't in use. The temp control is great is very effective when temps here in Texas aren't extreme.

As far as workflow, I end up getting pretty busy in the spring and it's hard to schedule brew days. Also, we don't go through as much beer as we used to (fewer parties) and though my tap and storage capacity is large in homebrew terms, there's a limit to how much I can realistically brew. Right now I have my 5 tap lines runnning and I have room for another few kegs in storage. When I need to finish off a keg to make room, I can use my canner but it's on the fritz right now and I have to get it running again.

I finally put together a good way to organize and store fittings.

 

[Dave Y]

The only problem I have with that solution @J A is : It would eliminate the last minute panic search for that one... missing... part... that I can’t ... FIND!
That’s a valuable 30 minutes of my brew day

 

[Donoroto]

…and definitely the Best 30 minutes of the day for me!