I love my new conical!

[Tweek]

Seriously I think this new conical is the best brewing gadget I have ever owned. I just went out and took a sample out of the batch I brewed on Sunday. Squirted a little vodka in the racking arm spigot, opened it up let a little flow into a beaker, shut it off, sprayed it again with vodka. Easy peasy. I am seriously digging this thing.

BTW, the batch tastes ok so far. No signs of infection yet, so I may just luck out on this one. Thing is bubbling away. 25 points so far (forgot to make my starter so I underpitched by a bit .:o )

So here is a question for those of you who may be doing things similarly. I have my fermenter in a fridge, which is temp controlled. So far I have noticed about a 8 degree or so delta between the fridge temp and the fermenting beer temp. What kind of numbers are you all seeing? Trying to figure out what I should be setting my fridge at in order to get my ferment temps right.

[zoom6zoom]

25 points so far
Are they Imperial Points? ;)

Aren't new toys great!?

[kevin]

Is it steel or plastic? Where did you get it from?

[Tweek]

yes new Toys Rock!



Its a stainless steel 12 gallon conical from More Beer. I bought it used.

[danno]

<--- is jealous.

[Tweek]

Originally posted by danno
<--- is jealous.

you NEED one of these Danno.

[HogieWan]

<-- is also jealous

[YamahaXS]

what are these things like to clean? can you manage them inside or do you need to lug them outside to use the garden hose?

[kevin]

I was at B3 website yesterday looking at that same conical, good score.

[Tweek]

they are suprisingly small. Actually when I got it I had a hard time beliving it was the 12 gallon and not the 7. It wasnt until after I filled it with water that I believed its capacity :D.

Empty the thing is super light. The one I have sits in its stand and is not welded in, so the cone can be removed and well as all the fittings so cleaning is easy. I havent tried moving it full more than a few inches which was easy and empty is no big deal.

[Jeff]

Tweek, how do you temperature control your fridge? Is there anyway that you could somehow stick a probe to the fermenter and use that to control the fridge?

[Wolf359]

My question about the conical is how does the secondary fermentation take place. Do you have empty the SS batch into a carboy, and then back into the SS. Or do you just dump the trub from the bottom of the SS and continue the fermentation there. I've really been considering the purchase of one of these bad boys.
Also, what about the head space? If you're brewing a five or ten gallon batch, that seems to leave a lot of head space in the fermenter.

[HogieWan]

The beauty of the conical is that you can dump the trub from the bottom without racking to a separate vessal. the weight of the liquid pushes the yeast cake out and yo close it up for "secondary" - when time to bottle or keg, you pour from the racking port (the higher port) as it grabs the liquid just above the trub at the bottom.

[chazwicke]

<--- is jealous and does not even homebrew anymore. These are enough to make me want to get back into actual brewing.

[brewmonkey]

Originally posted by HogieWan
The beauty of the conical is that you can dump the trub from the bottom without racking to a separate vessal. the weight of the liquid pushes the yeast cake out and yo close it up for "secondary" - when time to bottle or keg, you pour from the racking port (the higher port) as it grabs the liquid just above the trub at the bottom.

The primary reason for a conical!

I loved the uni-tank we had in the brewery compared to the dish bottoms. The ease of operation is so much better, the quality of beer is superior (provided you are using the uni-tank properly) and in the end having one tank for all your fermentation needs is just so much easier and involves less risk then having to rack out to another.

[fretlessman71]

Do you simply have to close up the bottom once you realize that the yeast cake is gone and you're just dumping beer? Is it a visual thing? I'm trying to get my brain around it...

[brewmonkey]

Does your tank have a side racking port or is it a bottom only dump? With the side port you can get a 45&deg; arm and turn it into the yeast bed. This allows you to pull the yeast out into something else, say a sani growler, and store it for later use. Then you can just drain the bottom until you have the desired results.

[HogieWan]

Originally posted by fretlessman71
Do you simply have to close up the bottom once you realize that the yeast cake is gone and you're just dumping beer? Is it a visual thing? I'm trying to get my brain around it...

not that I have one, but my understaning is you attach a clear hose to the bottom port and you'll see it start to thin out

[Tweek]

Originally posted by brewmonkey
Does your tank have a side racking port or is it a bottom only dump? With the side port you can get a 45&deg; arm and turn it into the yeast bed. This allows you to pull the yeast out into something else, say a sani growler, and store it for later use. Then you can just drain the bottom until you have the desired results.

yeah mine has the racking arm.

As far as dumping trub, I just opened the bottom for a sec and all the gunk came out, then closed it back down when it stopped being thick. It happens pretty fast, not much beer is poured out during the process.

[HogieWan]

Originally posted by Tweek
It happens pretty fast, not much beer is poured out during the process.

I'm sure it's less than what's left at the bottom of a primary

[Tweek]

Originally posted by HogieWan
I'm sure it's less than what's left at the bottom of a primary

definately. I would imagine the more you do it the better you get too. As I have only done it once now I dont have a giant frame of reference for it :D

[cluckk]

Also, what about the head space? If you're brewing a five or ten gallon batch, that seems to leave a lot of head space in the fermenter.

This sounds like the way to go, but I would also like to know about the headspace. Everything I read recommends a larger headspace for the rpimary than the secondary. The primary needing room for the Krausen. In the secondary the fear is oxygen contact so a minimum of headspace is recommended. How do you handle this in the conical if you are taking a primary fermentation with large headspace and removing the trub causing even more headspace?

[haaseg]

How do the air pressure dynamics work in the conical? I assume there's a pressure release valve or a blow-off tube or something.

When you dump the sediment out, can air get back into the conical, or are you temporarily creating a low pressure situation? In the case of the latter, you wouldn't have to worry about anything but CO2 in the headspace and it wouldn't be a problem.

At any rate, I'm sure that it's not a problem or someone would have re-engineered the conical so that it wasn't :D

[Tweek]

headspace is not an issue in a conical because the beer goes through its entire fermentation cycle in the same vessel. The reason you need less head space in you secondary is because by then your beer is done fermenting at a fast pace and it might not be able to create a new blanket of co2 fast enough to protect your beer from being oxidized.

As far as when you dump trub, there is a moment of suction that happens. The lid has a hole in it and an airlock goes on it just like a carboy. I use the three piece airlocks so it seems that the air gets bubbled through the vodka I have in there before entering and it is a very small amount of air, way less than say racking or any amount that could enter if you took a sample out of a carboy. However it is this reason why I was asking about those little sterile filter type airlocks in another thread. I may give those a try just to be 100%.

[cluckk]

I didn't even think about the lack of oxygen in the conical's headspace prior to trub removal.

[botay]

love my new conical, got a plastic 6.5 in march. today was the first day it has sat without beer in it, I'm working overtime right now. after a year of homebrewing, Im almost ready to recommend a conical to a new brewer. I have a plastic, and have not used anything but a washrag for cleaning. if your more aggresive I'd recommend a stanless. I worried about dumping too much out of the bottem at first, so started doing two dumps, one at five days about two cups, and one at seven days at about a cup.
________
marijuana indica (http://strainindex.com)

[cluckk]

I have been thinking for some time about getting a conical. I have been looking at the ones HERE (http://www.minibrew.com/).

Where did you get yours?

[Tweek]

I got mine used from a guy that got it at morebeer. stainless, its almost as good used as new :)

[botay]

I got mine from alternitive beverage, only because I was ordering hops rizomes at the same time. they were the least expensive place that had both.
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[Jimini Grist]

Let me add one more question to this thread...What about all the yeast floating on top? I primarily do ales and that is a top fermenting yeast. You can dump the trub at the bottom but that does nothing for what is floating.

How do you conical guys deal with that?

[Tweek]

when it (yeast) is done it drops out of suspension (to the bottom). At that point you just rack off the beer or dump the yeast out the bottom.

[curtis.collins]

I recently bought a conical fermenter and have my first batch brewing. Since simplifying the process is one of the big advantages of using a conical, I have been considering bottling direclty from the fermenter. My plan is to siphon the priming sugar mixture directly into the fermenter, stir (very gently), let settle for about an hour, and then bottle directly from the racking port.

Has anyone done it this way? Pro/cons/suggestions?

Thanks,

Curtis

[Mad Scientist]

Make sure you dump extra yeast first. You do not have to wait an hour, you can bottle after stirring

[Doug95624]

Got my conical in December, and have run 3 batches through it. This thing rocks...

Got the 14.5g from Williams (the Blichmann unit) - (http://www.williamsbrewing.com/14_5_GALLON_CONICAL_FERMENTER_P883C135.cfm), and the quality of this thing is solid. Everything is stainless (including all fittings and valves). Still getting the technique of yeast removal down. I find that I can't wait for the primary to complete (finish bubbling) before I start removing built up yeast at the bottom. My first batch created a pretty solid plug that was difficult to dislodge, and even then the beer just created a hole in the 3" to 5" cake that had accumulated at the bottom, and I didn't realize that there was a good amount of leftover yeast until I removed all the beer and was set for cleaning.

The instructions for the unit calls for removing small amounts of yeast daily. The theory being that even though you have an active fermentation happening, whatever is stuck at the bottom valve is dormant anyway. The problem that I see is that you're sucking in outside air when you remove any liquid, so there's probably a balance of only removing small amounts to minimize the amount of outside air that gets sucked in.

I'm interesting in hearing how other people deal with this. Also interested in hearing how to successfully extract yeast (and store) for future batches (another good reason for going with a conical - re-use your yeast)...