4000 gallon galvanized water tank

[Pole]

Hello everyone, I have the opportunity to pick up a free 4000 gallon galvanized water tank. We need a large tank for our Alcohol production. We will be handling large quainties of mash/beer so a 4000 gallon tank would be perfect but we are not sure if a galvanized tank can be of any use. Thanks inadvacne for any help provided.

Cheers,

Austin~

[Ron Fisher]

it is a good water storage tank...some folks have been using mild steel to store alcohol so it should work for that...maybe someone who has used one will post something...

[Aaron Kline]

I think galvanized would be good for what you need. What is your feedstock?

[Aaron Glatzer]

I understand galvanized steel may release toxic metals, so I suggest caution depending on your planned use.

Blume specifically warns against using galvanized, but he is advising using leftover mash for other uses. I had planned on using galvanized steel for fermenting tanks and still. However I plan to use my byproducts for compost and methane fermentation, and I don't want any toxics in it, so I am sticking with steel, stainless, or other. If you're considering your "waste" mash as a waste and not a resource it should be fine.

However, a FREE 4000 gallon tank is not something I would refuse! It's bound to be useful for something; storing alcohol fuel should be no problem. Perhaps there are coatings you could put inside that woudl make it safe (if you find something let me know by they way) for other uses. Worst case maybe you could barter for something else with it.

[Ronson Biedrzycki]

We are building our first 1300 gallon still and the tank that we are using is made of mild steel. It is an old diesel tank that we sandblasted and then coated with a heat paint suggested by Porter Paint. I would have to read the label to know what it is called, but it was $80/gal. We are using a 6" galvanized pipe for our column and refractory brick to build a furnace beneath the tank horizontally. We will post our results here when we get them. We decided to use these materials because we had most of them in stock, and we are just using what we have. We will be adding a shaft through the center with paddles to agitate the mash like one of the diagrams in Alcohol Can Be A Gas shows. If anyone thinks that this is not needed, please post it here or else we will continue with this plan.