I saw one on Craig’s List and it got me wondering. What are all the pros and are there any cons about using a conical? One con is it will not fit in my chest freezer so I cannot make lagers with it. But I know little about all of the pros. So what better place to hear about why I should buy it, right!
Can the forum gurus please make a case for me so I can make a case to my wife? What are the advantages of the conical?
Dave
As I understand it (and I don’t have one, nor plans to get one) the big advantage is the ability to dump trub at the begining of the fermentation and yeast at the end. Add to that the ability to presurize (if the one your looking at has that ability) to ferment at slightly higher temps. Also it means one fermenter instead of a bunch of buckets.
My conical stands 5 foot tall, thus I do not have a fridge or cooler large enough for it to fit in. I therefore built a 2’ X 2’ X 6’ insulated surround for it. I have evolved into having a 40’ 1/2" OD copper coil centered in the conical. I pump chilled water from a chest freezer through the coil to maintain lager temps.
Dump of trub and yeast harvest are a plus. If you don’t have the ability to maintain & control temps, a minus,
I have 5 of these http://www.tank-depot.com/productdetails.aspx?part=A-IN0015-19[/url outfitted with racking arms and valves in the bottom. They work great and fit perfectly in a medium size cabinet (upright) freezer. Great for cold crashing and lagering.
I’ve had a conical for a couple years now and love it. I use an upright refrigerator for fermenting so it fits perfectly. I like the ability to pull yeast from the bottom and I really like the convenience of just opening the lid to dry hop. I hate trying to get a bag of wet hops out of a carboy! So, all of my bigger dry hopped ipa’s go into the conical. I typically still use the carboys for everything else.
I am able to ferment at reduced temperatures using one of these http://brewhemoth.com/immersion-chiller
in my Brewhemoth. In fact, I can ferment 30 gallons of beer using two Brewhemoths each with a chiller, cooling my chilling fluid with a 5 cubic foot freezer!
Why?
Cool! Tell me more. How do you control the temperature? Activate a pump? Water and/or glycol?
Great info. Thanks for the replies. I think I’m going to put it on my brewing bucket list right now. Just upped my process to 10G batches and have 2 carboys and 3 plastic fermenters.
Dave
Copper is good prefermentation, but you don’t want it in fermenting beer. I would recommend you make a SS coil and keep the copper one out of your conical.
Agree.
Beer is low pH and it will “eat” your cooper coil.
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Cool! Tell me more. How do you control the temperature? Activate a pump? Water and/or glycol?
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The pump in the freezer is governed by a temp controller, the cheap aquarium ones you can buy off of eBay work great. Currently I have water in my freezer, at 35 degrees. I have run glycol at 28 degrees, but did not see much advantage. For pumps, I’m using 1/3 horse sump pumps. The system works great.
I use a 15gal conical in my cellar during the colder months. I like having the ability to drop trub and yeast. It’s very easy to keg from a conical and they are also very easy to clean and maintain. I’m planning to buy a used freezer and controller large enough to house the fermenter. This will allow me to control fermentation temps, make lagers and cold condition any beer before kegging. I highly recommend conical fermenters for the intermediate or advanced homebrewer.
I really like my conical. It is in the garage, which gets down to 40F most winters (last winter - not so much). To control temps, I have a regulator and add heat with a thermowrap.
You can rouse the yeast by using 2 PSI CO2 on the dump port. You can get dry hops off the bottom the same way. The top has a corny lid, so that is nice for dry hop additions.
Agree.
Beer is low pH and it will “eat” your cooper coil.
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Precisely what happens with an immersion chiller. Hi temps with low pH results in the IC coming out shiny. Low temps with low pH, such as in the conical, do not damage the beers.
As everone else has mentioned, you definitely do not want to be using copper post fermentation.
As far as conicals go, I had 4 forty-two gallon conicals and had four upright freezers that even at that size they would fit in. You definitely don’t want to get a conical and then not have a temp controlled environment to keep it in. I think I spend $400 per piece for my uprights. That said, for homebrew, buckets and better bottles work for me.
Where did you get your racking arm and valves? Were they weldless so you just had to tighten them with a gasket? Did you just drill holes? Any info/pics would be great. I’ve always wanted a conical but the $700+ price tag has kept me at bay. This seems like a cheaper option.
If yeast harvesting or dropping trub isn’t part of your plan and you are looking at volumes less than 15 gallons, consider getting up to a 15 gallon cornelius keg for a couple of hundred bucks. Cut an inch off the dip tube and put a collar on a chest freezer to control fermentation temperature. At this volume, the shape is not important if you’re not dumping trub or yeast out the bottom, it’s stainless, has a keg lid to access like lots of the conicals, is easy to do closed transfer with CO2 on the gas line, and is easy to clean with a PBW soak.
Only downside is the weight. Had to put casters on the chest freezer and roll it to the brewstand with keg in place to fill after brewing. But have used it for several years with great success.