What a brite tank actually does in the process

Most breweries come to us after fermentation capacity is solved and packaging becomes the bottleneck. A brite tank is where beer finishes: carbonation is set, yeast and haze drop out, and finished beer sits at serving temperature until the filler or keg line calls for it. There is no yeast-cropping cone to manage here, so the tank is judged on how evenly it carbonates and how clear it pours.

Vertical or horizontal — usually a room decision

Vertical tanks to 3000L fit most brewhouse footprints and give a taller headspace above the beer, which matters when you carbonate past 2.6 volumes. Horizontal lager tanks trade floor space for height and offer more surface area per volume, so they chill faster and hold temperature more evenly through long lagering. A cellar with a 2.4 m ceiling and a long wall almost always ends up with horizontals. We build both from the same shell tooling, so jacket, port and manway layout stays consistent across a mixed tank farm.

Shell, welds and finish

The inner shell is 304 stainless at 3 mm from 500L to 2000L and 4 mm at 3000L. We switch to 316L when the beer is chloride-heavy or the CIP water is aggressive. Product-contact welds are full-penetration TIG, ground flush, then pickled and passivated. Interior polish runs 0.4–0.8 µm; exteriors are brushed unless you want a mirror finish on a tank that sits in the taproom. Dimple jackets cover the cone and lower cylinder, insulated with 80–100 mm polyurethane under 304 cladding.

Pressure, fittings and cleaning

Working pressure is 2 bar with a 3 bar hydro test. The adjustable PRV is a safety device, not a carbonation control — set it at the tank rating and leave it. Standard trim: 1.5\” TC racking arm, CIP spray ball, sample valve, carb stone port, 2\” butterfly outlet. Glycol connections are 1\” NPT or TC. A CIP cycle at 1.5–2 bar through the spray ball reaches the top dome; if you skip the passivation after weld repair, you will see rust bloom within weeks.

Questions we get before every order

Can I carbonate in this tank? Yes, with a carb stone and a head-pressure routine. Allow roughly 1.2× your batch volume in total tank volume so you have headspace to work with.

What chiller do I need? Size for 24-hour crash from 18°C to 2°C plus holding load. Two 3000L tanks on one undersized chiller is the most common mistake we see.

Do I still need brites if I run unitanks? Unitanks handle fermentation and conditioning. Brites buy you packaging flexibility and clearer beer. Small taprooms often skip them; packaging breweries rarely do.

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.