Choosing A Conical Fermenter Part 1: Size Matters

  

         You've been scrimping and saving all year, or it's your birthday, or maybe you were a good boy (or girl) and Santa hooked you up. Whatever the situation, you've managed to raise some funds for new brewery equipment. You've been eyeing those shiny, beautiful hunks of stainless for ages. You've lurked in the forums and heard the pros and cons of shelling out that much scratch and have decided to ignore the naysayers. You've made up your mind. 

It's time for a conical.

         The question is, which conical is going to be the right one for you and your brewery? I'll work you through the thinking I've gone through during this process and show you how I have come to the decision I have made for On The Loose. 

You Have Issues:

         The first two issues, as I see it, are: What size? and What will I be using to control temperature? From there, issues such as features, fittings, cost, dimensions and country of origin may cause you to swing allegiances many times throughout the process. 

Today we will be looking at the question of sizing your fermenter.

Size Matters:

         For On The Loose, I decided early on to shoot for the 27-ish gallon fermenter size. Why? Well, currently, my system is built around repurposed 15.5 kegs. My batches generally yield 12-13 gallons going into fermenters due to boil-off and trub loss. This ends up with about 10 gallons/2 corny kegs post fermentation. My thinking was that I would double-batch into the conical to fill it and future-proof the brewery for upgrading to 20 gallon batches down the road. Through the course of researching equipment, however, the reality is that I have a hard time fitting in the time to brew as it is and taking an entire day to double-batch would probably make me brew less rather than more. If and when I upgrade the brewhouse it will probably to go to a 1-2 barrel system if I ever go pro/semi-pro. So I'm sizing the conical to fit my current system and going with a 14.5 gallon conical. 

Note: If you are currently brewing on a 5 gallon system, I highly recommend ignoring my above advice and going with the 14.5 gallon conical over the 7 gallon. The reason being that, if you follow the usual upgrade path, you will most likely upgrade to something like repurposed kegs/10 gallon batches as your brewery grows. I would also suggest skipping a conical altogether at this stage and wait until your brewery is a bit larger before making this upgrade. Save your cash for other upgrades such as fermentation temperature control or larger brewing vessels. If you really want to go stainless as a 5 gallon brewer, I recommend checking out the SSBrewtech Brew Bucket. Very nice!