Eliminating plastic from the hot side...next steps

[daf]

I've retired my no-chill cube after a year of good service. Hopefully the plastics haven't killed me yet! I haven't got any polythene in contact with hot wort any more.

Now I want to be safer on the cold side too.


Next step is plastic-free fermentation vessels like you see in all the Yank videos. How comes glass and metal FVs have not really caught on here?

[Fil]

glass - cos in lumping about a slight knock could be VERY messy,
SS is popular but expensive in comparison to a brewbucket. tho quite a few have use stockpots, and the SStech conical bottomed FV's are on quite a few wishlists
but when it comes to hobby sized real conical fermentors your looking at a few years worth of brewcash in a single purchase.. How many brews could you finance with £400-£600 or more..

[darkonnis]

you can get glass or PET carboys or Polypropylene buckets.
If you wan't to move to steel, stock pots are a relatively cheap and effective way of doing it.
I've got 2 conicals and being completely honest, unless you yeast harvest the benefits are the clean down, which for me was worth the money in itself as I brew in the garage and hauling 60L FV's to the nearest drain to clean out was a nightmare.

The reason I don't think its caught on here is because the states have a much larger homebrew following and as such its a lot cheaper for quite a few items, somethings they have also aren't available over here unless you import. Like aus too, they also have much better weather and have a good BBQ culture.

[basswulf]

I use a BIAB approach with a large-ish (13L) stockpot as both mash tub, copper and fermentor. I have been transferring the wort to a plastic jerry can to cool overnight but this does prompt me to wonder if I could just use some foil to complete the seal on the stockpot and do it all in one vessel. Following some information from the Brulosophy site I have been experimenting with NOT siphoning my cooled wort off the initial sediment and it seems to make no difference so I could probably do away with the transfers in and out of the the jerry can and keep it in the (easy to clean) stockpot all the way through.

Wulf

[daf]

Sounds like a plan. IT's what the Belgians would do.

[Fil]

I use a BIAB approach with a large-ish (13L) stockpot as both mash tub, copper and fermentor. I have been transferring the wort to a plastic jerry can to cool overnight but this does prompt me to wonder if I could just use some foil to complete the seal on the stockpot and do it all in one vessel. Following some information from the Brulosophy site I have been experimenting with NOT siphoning my cooled wort off the initial sediment and it seems to make no difference so I could probably do away with the transfers in and out of the the jerry can and keep it in the (easy to clean) stockpot all the way through.

Wulf

for sealing the lid/rim of a SS pot you could look at poor-mans parafilm (pfte tape) but imho a seal wouldnt be a necessary step.