Specman's Sanke Fermenter

Any hardware used for mashing, fermenting or aging.

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Specman
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Joined: Mon Jun 06, 2022 12:33 pm

Specman's Sanke Fermenter

Post by Specman »

A friend of mine had on old sanke that is covered in black rubber that he gifted me. Since I wasn't too sure how it was constructed, I was pretty certain it would not do as a boiler. So, I decided to lean towards making a fermenter out of it. Come to find out it is all stainless on the inside with the thick rubber coating on the outside. It is an old Miller GD keg, by the way and still had some stale beer in it when I got it.

I removed the valve and cut a 4" hole in the top with plans on fermenting on the grain. The 4" plumbing plug was the solution to sealing it off nice and tight along with a #11 stopper for the airlock to go into the valve opening. It all works great as I have completed about six mashes in it so far without a single hitch. The one thing I would do over next time is to cut the 4" hole directly between the handles because pouring the finished mash would be easier. I also cut a notch in the rim in front of the hole so it would not dribble as much when transferring the wort.

Since we keep the house kind of cool in the winter and my wife is so accepting of my "projects", I get to use her pantry room instead of outside in the colder garage. Today, I built a little insulating hut out of some 1" polystyrene insulation board to surround the keg and put a little space heater in front on low to keep it in better fermenting temperature range.

So far so good!
Fermenter Heater.jpg
Fermenter Top.jpg
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