Description
5000 L Jacketed Mead Fermenter — Build Notes from the Shop Floor
Honey must behaves differently from wort. It carries almost no free amino nitrogen, ferments over two to four weeks, and holds a lot of residual sugar at the point most meaderies want to stop it. In a 5000 L tank, the cooling jacket — not the yeast pitch — usually decides whether a batch finishes dry or sweet on schedule.
We size the dimpled jacket on the cone and the lower third of the cylinder: about 6.5 m² of cooling surface on a standard 5000 L body. That pulls an active fermentation down 3–4 °C per day at 12 °C glycol supply. Oversizing wastes chiller capacity on a slow mead ferment; undersizing leaves you with a stuck batch in week three.
Materials and fabrication
304 stainless is the default for shell, cone, and jacket. Mead is far less acidic than beer, so 316L only earns its cost when fruit additions or high-acid musts are in the rotation. Standard build: 3 mm shell, 3 mm cone, 2.5 mm dish. Interior is 2B mill finish with welds ground flush and passivated. We can polish to 0.6 µm RA, though few meaderies gain anything from it. Exterior runs 80 mm polyurethane under 304 cladding, and the cone sits at 60° with a 3 inch tri-clamp outlet.
Fittings that matter in a meadery
- Rotating CIP spray ball, 1.5 inch, sized for 2–3 bar supply
- Racking arm above the cone outlet for clean transfers off lees
- Sample valve and thermometer port at mid-body height
- Top manway, 400 mm, with a 60 mm yeast port
- Pressure/vacuum relief set at 0.2 bar, plus a 0.3 bar jacket relief
Specifications
| Total volume | 5000 L |
| Working volume | 4000 L |
| Cooling area | 6.5 m² dimpled jacket |
| Insulation | 80 mm PU, 304 cladding |
| Design pressure | 0.2 bar internal / 0.3 bar jacket |
| Finish | 2B interior, passivated welds |
Questions we get before every order
Can it double as a beer fermenter? Yes, if the jacket area is increased to 8 m² and the cone stays at 60°. Tell us at the quotation stage; retrofitting a jacket later is not practical.
How is CIP handled? Spray ball plus a bottom outlet on the cone. A 5000 L tank needs roughly 400 L of caustic per cycle to wet the full headspace.
Do you build to local pressure codes? Yes — send us the applicable standard and we will supply the tank with matching documentation and relief settings.
Tell us your batch size, honey type, target sweetness, number of tanks, and available floor space. We will recommend the volume, jacket area, and configuration that fits your meadery.
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