A CENTURY OF FERMENTER DESIGN

Abstract

Modern designs of continuous and batch fermenters owe their origins to the first decade of the 20th Century. The cylindro-conical vessel, if designed to carry out fermentation and maturation above 3°C, appears the best choice of batch fermenter for most purposes. For quality reasons its height should be minimised consistent with retaining a sufficiently steep cone for yeast removal and adequate turbulence for effective temperature control. Radical changes in design are not anticipated in the near future. Development effort is likely to focus increasingly on automatic control of fermentation. This development in turn will redirect attention to continuous fermentation which was more or less abandoned ten years ago following failure of commercial systems which had acknowledged defects. These can be overcome in modified systems, at least one of which has been tested successfully on an experimental scale.