What a 7BBL Unitank Actually Does on Your Floor

A 7BBL fermenter is usually the first tank a brewpub or small craft brewery buys when they stop renting capacity. Seven barrels gives you roughly 217 gallons per batch — enough to keep four to six taps flowing without overbuilding your cold room. If you are sizing your first brewhouse, this is the volume where a conical bottom and a cooling jacket stop being optional.

We build these tanks with a 60-degree cone, which is the standard angle that lets yeast and trub settle into the bottom port and drop out cleanly. Shallower cones hold hops and break material longer, and you will feel that in your beer clarity and your dumping schedule.

Materials, Welding, and Finish

The body and cone are 304 stainless steel at 3mm on the shell, with a 2B mill finish inside and out unless you spec otherwise. For breweries running high-acid sours or kettle sours with extended contact time, we suggest 316L for the cone and bottom. The price difference is real, but so is the pitting you avoid.

All product-contact welds are TIG, purged on the backside, then ground flush and passivated. We do not pickle-and-paste over unground welds — that hides crevices rather than removing them. Every tank is hydro-tested at 1.5x working pressure and the jacket is pressure-tested separately before crating.

The Cooling Jacket

Glycol jackets on the cone and lower cylinder give you control during the most active part of fermentation, when the exothermic reaction can push wort 8–10°F above your setpoint in hours. Crashing from 68°F to 38°F for a cold crash is where under-jacketed tanks fail you. We size the jacket surface area against a typical 40°F glycol supply and a realistic 2–3°F/hr pull-down.

Working pressure on the tank is 15 psi, with a 30 psi pressure relief valve and a 15 psi PRV on the jacket. Do not valve off a relief. CIP is handled through a rotating spray ball on the top manway, and we can add a dedicated CIP port if you plan to clean in place without opening the tank.

Specifications

Questions We Get Before Every Order

What glycol temperature do I need? A chiller holding 28–32°F supply gives you headroom for crashing. If your supply runs at 40°F, expect slower pull-down and size accordingly.

Can I carbonate in the tank? Yes, at 15 psi working pressure with a properly set PRV. Anything above that is a pressure vessel conversation, not a fermenter conversation.

304 or 316L? 304 handles pale ales and lagers for years. Choose 316L for sours, high chloride water, or aggressive CIP chemistry.

How many tanks should I order? Roughly one fermenter per two to three taps, plus a brite tank. Most 7BBL startups begin with two fermenters and one brite.

Getting the Right Configuration

Before you request pricing, have your batch size, target beer styles, chiller capacity, available floor space and ceiling height ready. Manway clearance alone rules out more installs than glycol ever does. Send us those numbers and we can size the volume, jacket area, and port layout to match how you actually brew.

Tell us your batch size, beer type, number of fermentation tanks and available space. We can recommend the tank volume, cooling area and configuration for your brewery.