I cut the dip tube to leave almost 2 quarts of liquid, just for ease of yeast harvesting. You’d have to decide on your own what you need to do. It has a deeply concave, almost hemispheric, bottom profile, so yeast and trub should settle in a much smaller volume. The dip tube is straight, but the slight angle of the mounting of the post on top puts the end straight on the center at the bottom. Others can probably help you more with this.
They are made in Pennsylvania of much heavier gauge steel than the 5 gallon kegs; empty weight is about 20 lbs.
If you’re interested, Chi Company is probably the best source. They work directly with the manufacturer and IME offer excellent customer service.
I use 7 gallon Fermonsters and love them. Never use a blow off any more and they’re easy to clean with the wide opening. First one I got isn’t ported, but the second one is. I’m spoiled now and going to install a spigot on the original.
For 5 gallon batches I still use plastic buckets. I recently stopped racking to a carboy for secondary. I just leave the batch in primary for a little longer and rack directly to a corny.
For larger batches, which for me are primarily meads, I have a 1/2 barrel SS Chronical. Like some others have mentioned, I’m also a fan of stainless. I will switch my 5 gallon process over to stainless at some point. Just not sure when.
Wow, that is far more precision than I’ve applied to either of those subjects. (But 17.2 is “about 20,” right?) Thank you, sir. You got me thinking so I just measured my spear (fermenter is conveniently empty awaiting this weekend’s brew.) It’s 21 1/8 inches. 7/16 more would work fine for me too, I’m sure. We seem to have dialed in the range pretty well!
(Some quick figuring shows narcout is leaving behind about a quart less beer than I am.)
Practical Denny, measuring from the other end! (Then again I didn’t measure at all when I trimmed mine, just poured a big Mason jar of water in the keg and trimmed where I marked the water line with an o ring.) I see 1 inch translates to 21 3/4 inches, wow, a lot closer to the bottom than narcout and me. Very good to know. (Though I still want my big volume of bottoms for harvest.)
After 25 years of fermenting in 5 gallon glass carboys, I recently converted to a stainless steel cylindroconical fermenter. I made the switch after an accident with a broken carboy (my 1st ever) almost cost me my thumb! No more glass carboys for me!
I hear you. Been brewing about as long. I almost lost a thumb once to a friggin’ iced tea jar (sudden temperature change taking it out of the fridge to the hot back yard)… but kept using glass carboys for a couple decades after that lesson for lack of a better idea. Then a couple of years ago I went to doing a closed process with pressure transfers using a carboy cap-based rig. A fellow regular at LHBS about that time was doing the same, and luckily he turned away just as his carboy, with clogged dip tube, exploded. He had a lot of stitches in his back, but it could have hit his face and neck. That started my urgent quest for something else. Glass is evil, no question.
I’m very lucky to be married to a generous woman! After fermenting in the CF15 from Spike for a year, She surprises me with an early christmas gift of the CF30!! Just put together Monday and will be making 20 gallons of a Baltic Porter on the 15th! Me thinks she likes beer!
I think I know who that guy is. He was at a SAAZ meeting talking about his injury from an exploding carboy.
I only use carboys for 5 gallon batches or if my conical is full of another beer. However, a word to the wise. If you have to do a pressurized transfer from a glass carboy, USE NO MORE THAN 2.5 PSI!!! I also use the orange carboy caps that vent CO2 when the pressure exceeds a little over 3 PSI. I sometimes have to turn the gas up to about 3 PSI for a second or two to get the beer flowing into the keg, but it immediately goes back down to between 2 and 2.5 PSI which is sufficient to accomplish the transfer. Glass is dangerous and carboys are not pressure vessels. It you want to be totally safe with pressure transfers using a glass carboy, wrap it with a blanket and use a ratchet strap to GENTLY hold the blanket in place being careful not to over tighten it. That should provide some additional protection.
I use a 14 Gallon Chronical. I have been using it also for 5 gallon batches - about 6.5 into the fermentor. I am thinking about downsizing to a 7 gallon. I really like the cone bottom to dump trub and rack into the keg. I also have a 7.9 gallon Speidel. I usually do pressure transfers into the keg.
I use a 3 gallon fastferment for my test batches and it works well.
The stainless is easy to clean since the lid comes completely off.
i’ve tried quite a few fermenters. like most, i began with a bucket, difficult to open, but cheap. mine is now a sanitizing bucket. the large size allows sanitizing most everything in one go.
i have two pet big mouth bubblers, and two glass ones. these i find to be problematic. the old style lid (screw on with gasket) never sealed well for me, and the new style (with silicone ring with 3 flanges) gets pushed out of the fermenter with my active fermentations. the solution here is to put an olympic bar 5 lb. weight on the lid. (the olympic bar has a hole large enough for the airlock). i now use these only for primary for sours.
the glass big mouths are hand blown, and prone to bubbles and flaws. i cut my hand seriously in three places cleaning one (i swear i never even bumped it on the sink… it just shattered in my hands). i got rid of the other one. i won’t use one of these ever again.
i have two 7.5 g. fermonsters. i mostly like these a lot. i have two issues. first, the lid can be damned hard to get off. you may want their lid wrench. secondly, if you ever take out the o ring, it can be nearly impossible to get it back in due to stretching. you may want to keep a spare handy.
for secondary, i use pet 5 g. carboys for clean beers, and i use glass 5 g. narrow mouth (machine blown) carboys for long term storage of sours. i wash all carboys with the mark ii keg washer and pbw, to prevent scratching the pet, and to keep me from harm’s way with the glass. i also handle all glass fermenters with kevlar gloves. may be paranoia, but after my accident, i don’t care. i don’t want a repeat of bloody sunday.
stainless steel interests me, but i thought that it was too expensive. after reading this thread, i may try the brew bucket. it seems quite reasonably priced. however, i can’t see replacing all 12 of my fermenters with stainless.
I started with buckets and glass carboys. I don’t like plastic, am afraid of glass, and wanted better temperature control. So, something stainless was the answer. I thought about going the 10-gallon corny route like others, but didn’t have a fridge/freezer it would fit in for temperature control.
The 2" sanitary fitting on the lid is perfect to to attach one of these Sanke Fermentor Kits from Brewing Hardware https://www.brewershardware.com/American-Sanke-Keg-Fermentor-Kit-with-Thermowell.html Of course, this kit can also be used on a 1/2-barrel Sanke Keg or even a sixtel with the spear removed - but those would be tough to clean.
The combo has a thermowell for temperature control and is short enough to fit into a 5 CuFt chest freezer without adding a collar. The fittings allow for pressurized transfer by sending CO2 through the blowoff port to push beer out of the integrated racking cane. The whole lid comes off for easy cleaning, and the whole thing can go on a burner if I want to sanitize with steam (I just sanitize with a spray bottle of StarSan). I was able to set up two of these combos a few years ago for less than the price of one 7.5-gallon conical.