Anybody have any experience with any of the MINIBREW equipment? Always thought their Mash-Lauter Tun looked pretty cool… plus Ive been interested, yet a little skeptical, of their conicals.
Thanks,
- Mike
can’t speak directly to that equipment but I have to say for the 50 bucks I have in my coller mash/lauter tun I can’t imagine spending 250 on that one.
I have not used the various equipment but have listened to those that have used their fermenters. Pleased with the results evidently. Myself, I’d spring for a Blichmann all steel conical for about $200 more.
I hear ya there! I use a 10 gallon cooler right now but Id really like to find something a little bigger in the 15-20 gallon range. Does anybody know if there are coolers out there in that size but still in the cylindrical shape?
don’t know about cylindrical coolers but I have a 72 qt coleman extreme that I am perfectly happy with. able to do a 10 batch of fairly strong beer. I batch sparge though so I don’t have the worries about the sparge arm being the right shape.
Do you have to stay cylindrical? What about a 70 qt. rectangular?
I’ve seen pretty big coolers the sidelines when I watch football on teevee. ;D
No it doesn’t HAVE to be cylindrical. I just like the idea of that shape as far as it taking up a much smaller footprint of space.
I assume you mean in storage? turn it on it’s end!
I have one of their conicals. I hated it. Used it twice. Waste of money. For one thing you have to buy a separate seal to seal the lid down, otherwise you are just resting the lid loosely. Also, the valves are not sanitary and you can’t take them apart. That works fine on a boil kettle but you want to be able to clean you valves after every brew (or at least every 2 or 3).
As far as their MT I’d just stick witha cooler, personally.
I have 6.5 gal model.
I bought it 3 years ago and fill it every two weeks till I switch to 350 gal plastic fermenters in the brewery.
I liked it and I did not see any reason why would I “upgrade” to SS.
Never had an issue with ball valves ether.
All that said there is nothing wrong with SS fermenters and one day I will go for 15 BBL SS fermenters.
This is how much I liked mine: I gave it away last week. I don’t think they are worth the money compared to stainless.
I’ve never used their equipment before, but I use similar fermenters in my brewery, except mine are rotomolded hdpe inductor tanks from www.tankdepot.com. It appears as if they are using 1/2 ball valves which if you’ve ever used a conical know is too small especially if you’ve let the yeast set for more than a week. It just packs up way too much to move. I use 1" valves on mine and still run into that problem occasionally. I dont really fancy the stands they use either. I like my metal tri-stands. Aside from the battle between hdpe and stainless, I think hdpe is worth it considering the price difference. I mean I can get two hdpe’s for the cost of one blichmann stainless and my hdpe gives me 2.4 more gallons to work with than blichmanns 14.4 anyway thats my $.02