Conical Fermenters and dumping the trub

[mcbrew]

Hi there,

I bought nice stainless steel conical from Ebay a few months back and I am now fermenting my first brew. Does anyone have any advice as to how long I should wait before dumping some of the trub?

Cheers

[adm]

Post pics! We want to see it.......

I've never used a conical, but I would imagine that you'd want to drop the first lot of trub and break fairly quickly. Maybe 24-48 hours after fermentation starts assuming it's a top fermenting yeast, and the temperature isn't too cold. This way, there would still be plenty of yeast in suspension to keep the fermentation going well even after you dump out the bottom layer.

Then maybe another dump after fermentation seems to be close to being done...?

Not sure, but that's what I'd think. I'm sure someone here who uses one will chime in...

[WishboneBrewery]

What is the deal with a Conical?
Does dropping the yeast an break material effectively turn the FV into a conditioning tank?

[mcbrew]

Hi there,

I'll try and add a photo but I've not done it before. I think that given time I will be able to understand all the pros and cons that a conical has. Hopefully lots of pros and no cons. I am hoping it will streamline my brewing process and I like gear that is fit for purpose. I am hoping that I will be able to ferment and condition in one vessel. How well this turns out only time will tell

I once made a Daab false bottom for my boiler. It worked fine but I ended up buying a Minbrew mash Tun which is fantastic. It really is a neat bit of kit and makes the whole brewing process for me a lot more enjoyable and consistent.

The ideas posted so far has given me a good few ideas, so thank you.

[steve_flack]

I've had a conical for a while. In my opinion it's probably not worth dropping the trub as it doesn't settle solidly and you end up chucking a lot of beer away trying to do it. As most HB conicals have a fairly large flat area at the bottom around the dump valve, dumping through that valve is never really that effective.

[beer today]

love to see the pics, and understand how you maintain a constant temp and see your results, good luck , keep postin

[Scooby]

If you want to drop trub you have to decide how long you want the wort to stand before pitching the yeast. The longer time the more trub you get rid of, obviously you want to get the yeast in and going asap. When I do it I wait no longer than 90mins and drop between 500-1000ml. I agree with SF, I'm not sure it's really worth it.

If you mean dropping yeast then if I want to save some, towards the end of primary I drop a small amount, and then a day latter take some for storing. When fg is reached I drop the remaining yeast, cool and keep as in secondary until keging.

[steve_flack]

love to see the pics, and understand how you maintain a constant temp and see your results, good luck , keep postin

I guess you were replying to the OP and not me but I posted a series of topics when I first got my conical on temperature control. Here they are

Cooling
Heating
Controller Unit
Insulation

[Scooby]

love to see the pics, and understand how you maintain a constant temp and see your results, good luck , keep postin

I guess you were replying to the OP and not me but I posted a series of topics when I first got my conical on temperature control. Here they are

Cooling
Heating
Controller Unit
Insulation

They were/are great inspiration and source of ideas for myself and many on here

[mcbrew]

If someone can tell me how to attach a photo then I will. However I am not where near the very professional set-up that I believe Sccoby has. He has obviously put a lot of time and effort in.

[mcbrew]

So I am now getting a feel of what to do with this device. My beer has been fermenting for about 72 hours and for some reason I felt obliged to give the bottom tap a little tweak and I'm not 100% sure whether that was a good idea Anyway its done now and I only let our about 100ml, so fingers crossed. I think my first beer using the conical will be a learning experience and I will be able to fine tune things in due course.

[stu-le-brew]

If someone can tell me how to attach a photo then I will. However I am not where near the very professional set-up that I believe Sccoby has. He has obviously put a lot of time and effort in.

You need to setup somewhere to host you pictures like http://photobucket.com/ then post a link to the picture here, its easy to copy a link from the photobucket site. This may seem complex but its dead easy the second time you just have to give it a try - the photobucket site even has a "share this image" area where you can copy the exact code then drop it into a post here


above is what the share image look like, you only have to click on the bottom img code and it copies to clipboard automatically, then paste into a post and job done

good luck

[mcbrew]

He is an image of my conical.

http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/zz15 ... G_2403.jpg

I was quite interested to see how other people used them and I particularly liked readign what steve_flack did with his.

Currently I don't have any temperature control on it but that is something to think about in the future.

[Scooby]

If someone can tell me how to attach a photo then I will. However I am not where near the very professional set-up that I believe Sccoby has. He has obviously put a lot of time and effort in.

When I discovered Jim's my brewery was a Bruheat boiler, grain bag and a couple of plastic buckets, the inspiration for everything I have done since is down to people like Steve and many others, well you've got to blame someone

There's plenty of info about on using a conical and how not to use

Use Google to find more but as everyone has different procedures you have to pick your way through.

BTW if you click on 'IMG Code' as in stu-le-brew's post then copy to your post the image will appear directly

[mcbrew]

I think I understand how to paste in images!