Best Commercial Brewer Available?

[FoothillFarming]

Hey guys, I want a 300 gallon to a 1000 gallon brewer. I could build my own, but I have so much going on I was thinking of just buying one. Called the guys at Vital Earth and they are selling a 300 and a 1000 gal, 3500$ and 4500$. Sounds steep. Anybody got a lead on a quality commercial brewer? I might go with Vital, as they have always provided quality materials to me in the past.

Any Vital guys reading this post, chime in on why your brewer is the best?

Microbeman?

Biodiversity?

Sorry if in wrong section, didn't know where else to post question.

 

[FoothillFarming]

Bump

 

[VonBudí]

300 gallon

ibc tanks with a load of airlifts? worth a shot atleast before splashing 3500$

 

[Mendogrowing]

What a rip. Like he said, buy an ibc tote and a regenerative blower, I have one that uses a little less than 100watts and churns the tote, total cost about 250$

 

[Mendogrowing]

Im not going to lie, I seriously scored on my regenerative blower on eBay. Basically you want a small regen blower, mine is maybe 1/10 of a hp at most. Save all that money for a nice trip to Hawaii

 

[FoothillFarming]

Loving the advice.

So I check the tank depot, and the tank that Vital uses is about a grand, and 200 for shipping.

I have 5 or 6 extra IBC totes laying around, however I wasn't sure they were the best design for a brewer. I am also not familiar with a regenerative blower, I will have to research that.

@mendogrowing, how do you supply the air to the tank? With just one hose and a large air stone? Or do you split the regenerative blower into several outlets? Air lift?

 

[MedResearcher]

In the Organic Soil section, there is a sticky thread about making brewers. Great place to get and bounce ideas around, has the right brewer tea crowd hanging out.

Also Microbeman has a website, shows his very simple airlift brewer design. Unless hes changed his policy, he welcomes people to copy the design as long as its for personal use.

You only need 1 airlift, the multiple airlifts and spinning water imo are just bells and whistles to raise the price. Remember your going to want to keep this thing as clean as possible between brews. Would you wanna take apart 4 curved airlifts and clean them, or just 1 straight shot with a couple elbows on it? I added an extra junction to the design to make cleaning even easier.

I made a 30 gallon airlift last year, using MM's design. Prolly spent about 300-400 to build it including the pump, but I drove to pick up the tank. Works great. Gonna build a larger one this year, just waiting for this appointment I have that is near the tank retailer.

Even if you eat the freight on the tank, 1200 (seems high?), then maybe 100 on pvc, and 200 on a really nice pump. Prolly finish out below 1500. Can spend some of the saved cash on high grade worm castings

Gl,

Mr^^

 

[FoothillFarming]

Med - I have been building brewers for years. MM and I have worked together on several, and I even kind of helped him design his first brewer. (mostly all his work, but I had some input) All of those involved an air lift design. The only reason I haven't made my own, is I am not sure what air pump to buy for a system that large. I can tell you one thing, 200 bucks isn't even close to what the pump is going to cost.....More like 600$. Also, a thousand dollars for a cone shape bottom tank with stand is as cheap as it gets. After researching things, it seems if you wanted to build your own tank just like the one Vital is selling for 3500, then the raw materials will cost at least 2 grand. Not including tax or shipping.

Now what mendo said, using a 250 gallon tote, seems like a very nice way to put a dent in that cost. Now it's just finding the right pump.....


Thanks for all the advice guys, keep it coming.

 

[VonBudí]

a thousand dollars for a cone shape bottom tank

slightly off topic, these are alot more expensive in the eu, so i always wondered would it be possible to flip an ibc like this

surround it in scaffolding to hold it in place and then drill a hole in the corner touching the ground,attach pipes/ pumps etc = ghetto cyclone brewer?

 

[Mendogrowing]

It's funny we had a bunch of cone shaped brewers at work and in about a year they got replaced with ibc totes, easier to move around and clean, lay it on its side and hit it with a power washer. The pumps the commercial Brewers came with were of the large diaphragm style with air stones. I ran several Ibc's off one 1/4hp regen blower, probably 3 or 4 would have been possible. I made a simple 2 shaped manifold out of pvc, very lo-tech. I based my design off of butte's on here.

 

[quit]

Vital garden supply out of Nevada City

 

[Mikell]

Waterfall from a trough will set you back far less than an airlift for larger tanks. Can't recall who was repping that style but they look much simpler/quicker to build as well.

 

[Iachdo]

You ideally want .08 cfm per gallon. I am having the same trouble finding a blower that is strong enough for my tank you should be able to get away with a 1 hp blower check out sweet water pumps

 

[Iachdo]

If your looking for something small these Brewers out of Oregon look dope http://www.growingsolutions.com

 

[VonBudí]

4600g vortex porn
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHGRsDkhxQ4/

 

[FoothillFarming]

Very nice VonBudi.

 

[MJPassion]

Nvm

 

[FoothillFarming]

 

[calisun]

I have a 500 gal cone bottom tank I got a few years ago and got a used jacuzzi air pump for $30 off craigslist they cost less than $100 new. Mine is about 850 watts and maybe 1 hp or 1 1/2 hp. The jacuzzi blower works great. I built cinder block box around the pump to keep the noise down. This is the 3rd year of using it with no problems.