Pondering conicals...

[Skittlebrau]

Hi all

Long time no post, so I appreciate any time anyone has to help me out with these questions. I have been looking at the conical fermenters that are coming onto the market - chiefly the FastFerment and the SS Brewtech Chronicals but I have read here and there about them blocking up with pellets.

I brew mainly very stuff and I usually dry hop with loose pellets. A conical fermenter with bottom dump would massively improve things for me - I work shifts and my opportunities to do long jobs like prepping a barrel or bottling bucket, siphoning out of my FV and bottling are limited. This means that I often end up having to leave beers in contact with dry hops longer than I'd like to, affecting flavour.

As I see it, with a conical I potentially gain the following advantages, if they work the way it seems like they should:

The ability to dump expensive yeast out of the bottom before dry hopping and save for the next brew.
The ability to dump the dry hops out of the bottom, meaning I can leave the batch clean and safe until I can get it together to transfer to pressure barrel or bottling bucket

The flexibility this would offer would be very valuable but if the pellets are going to clog the bottom dump valve then obviously I'm no better off. From what I've read, FastFerment is probably out but I'm happy to be corrected.

Has anyone dry hopped with pellets in one of the SS Brewtech chronicals? Does it clog badly or can you chill down and dump the dry hops out once they've done their work? Is it anything a poke with a sanitised coat hanger wouldn't free up?

[Kev888]

I have a Brewbuilder conical, which is very similar to the brewtech body. The bore of the standard BrewBuilder's dump valve is much smaller than the actual port (presumably to allow future upgrades in valve) but even so I've had no problems with pellets, so can't really say what circumstances may have led to that happening for other people. Definitely worth getting to the bottom of if thats your main aim though.

Conicals take a bit more work to clean and set up than simple buckets etc. but if you would otherwise want to rack then yes they can save a lot of time and effort. You can dump yeast which means even if you leave the beer in the FV for ages there will be little chance of autolysis causing off flavours.

This yeast dumping can be done in stages (in fact it is best to do so, rather than letting the slurry sit for long enough to set solid). So, you can discard initial gunk carried over from the kettle and cells that die and settle early, later collect healthy yeast, and then later discard cells which settle abnormally late and/or which are mixed with hop debris. Though yeast can also be harvested by top cropping (with some strains) or decanting some fermenting wort into a bottle to finish and settle out (e.g. to remain uncontaminated by hops added to the FV), so not everyone would value/need a conical for this reason.

I dump pellet hops too, before racking off the beer, but from what you say perhaps that doesn't work for everyone for some reason. I suppose you have discounted a simple hop bag for removing hops easily, before grassy flavours occur?

[Skittlebrau]

I have discounted a bag as I understand that it impairs the diffusion of hop flavours and aromas into the beer, meaning you need a lot more hops for the same effect. Is that not the case?

[orlando]

I've got a couple of lardy conicals too. They are larger than the Brewtech but suspect they are very similar in operation. Kev's remarks are similar to my experiences. The regular dumping is the key as is temperature. The latter is the only time i have seen the yeast get heavily compacted and reluctant to come out. At ferment temps you should never have a problem as the weight of 20 + litres of beer usually forces anything out. Once you crash chill the balance changes but even in this situation I have opened the valve and little by little the yeast, looking like Plasticine, eventually drops in a rush, so be quick to close the valve.

Kev mentions top cropping. You can get some really "clean" yeast samples by taking samples from the racking valve over three consecutive days, giving you a really good chance of sampling early and late flocculators. Letting this ferment on at standard brew temps should give you enough for a starter for your next brew and avoiding a lot of dead cells, trub and bacteria.

[Kev888]

I have discounted a bag as I understand that it impairs the diffusion of hop flavours and aromas into the beer, meaning you need a lot more hops for the same effect. Is that not the case?

You may need 'some' more hops if using a bag, though if it is a large bag then IMO it doesnt have a huge effect (cramming them into little bags and mesh balls is a different matter). Opinions do vary a bit, but you could make your own mind up for the price of a net bag. Buying a conical to save a few hops seems quite costly, especially if you cant be certain of it working for you.

There may also be other answers, depending on your process - like using hops less prone to grassiness, dry hopping in the keg (or a bulk maturation container) instead, or delaying dry hopping the FV until shortly before kegging/bottling. Im assuming that you have experienced the grassy problem too, if not then dont take it as read that you 'will' get this without testing.

Though that all said...... it may very well be that you want a conical anyway, for dumping the settled yeast.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Has anyone dry hopped with pellets in one of the SS Brewtech chronicals? Does it clog badly or can you chill down and dump the dry hops out once they've done their work? Is it anything a poke with a sanitised coat hanger wouldn't free up?

I have a 2yo SS Chronically half barrel version.

I dry hop all the time with it.

There have been some coat hanger moments. There have also been some very smooth hop and yeast dumps. Often you won't dump all the hops in one go, it might take a couple of dump operations.

The hydrostatic pressure of home brew conicals is a lot less than some YouTube vids would have you believe.

This might improve if you had the butterfly dump valve rather than the 1.5" elbow.

If you want to capture yeast, you will need extended legs really.

Forget the bubbler, you will need a blow off tube.

There is a transfer under pressure option, which I have to investigate - because you can then bottle in stages.

There is some faff with my conical but it is awesome and it has allowed me to improve my process to the point that my pale ales are getting really solid.

My O2 pickup is minimised, my temp control is really precise and I can get my hop rates way up, and my clarity spot on.

[Secla]

Does your maxi switch on and off with the inkbird or do you have it just controlling the pump ?

[Skittlebrau]

I have discounted a bag as I understand that it impairs the diffusion of hop flavours and aromas into the beer, meaning you need a lot more hops for the same effect. Is that not the case?

You may need 'some' more hops if using a bag, though if it is a large bag then IMO it doesnt have a huge effect (cramming them into little bags and mesh balls is a different matter). Opinions do vary a bit, but you could make your own mind up for the price of a net bag. Buying a conical to save a few hops seems quite costly, especially if you cant be certain of it working for you.

There may also be other answers, depending on your process - like using hops less prone to grassiness, dry hopping in the keg (or a bulk maturation container) instead, or delaying dry hopping the FV until shortly before kegging/bottling. Im assuming that you have experienced the grassy problem too, if not then dont take it as read that you 'will' get this without testing.

Though that all said...... it may very well be that you want a conical anyway, for dumping the settled yeast.

You're right, I should try a bag. The convenient yeast dumping thing is very attractive but I am happy harvesting slurry and pitching that. I'll get myself a bag and brew something that lets me judge whether the results are satisfactory. I suspect they probably will be.

[Kev888]

Yeah, conicals are arguably convenient for a number of their functionalities (so I'm not intentionally putting you off) but could be overkill for removing dry hops. It depends whether you do actually get a detectable problem and whether the alternatives suit you or not, really.

The main value of yeast dumping (for your situation) may be less to harvest yeast and more to prevent flavours from their autolysis. Again though, unless your yeast are in poor health or kept far too long and/or too warm in the FV its entirely likely that you won't have a problem with this. For many people there can sometimes be quite a gulf between theory or best practice and their own real-world results.

[chris2012]

TheSumOfAllBeers - that setup looks really cool, just a few questions:

* Did you mod the maxi at all, so that you're only turning on / off the compressor with the InkBird? (rather than the
whole maxi including the pump)

* Are you using a heating element with the InkBird too, in the path of the Maxi?

Cheers!

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Does your maxi switch on and off with the inkbird or do you have it just controlling the pump ?

It switches on and off with the inkbird.

Less faff and it works very well now that the conical is much better insulated.

In practice the chiller kicks in at pitch time, intermittently during active fermentation, and more frequently when I am chilling down to drop sediment/ fine with gelatin.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

* Did you mod the maxi at all, so that you're only turning on / off the compressor with the InkBird? (rather than the
whole maxi including the pump)

* Are you using a heating element with the InkBird too, in the path of the Maxi?

Cheers!

No mods to the maxi. Inkbird switches whole unit on and off as needed. I don't micromanage the arrangement. In practice this works perfectly fine.

If I wanted to use it as an inline chiller for beer as well as a FV temp controller I would need to rethink this. But I don't keg currently.

Heating element is a youngs heat belt. Completely independent.

If I was to do over, I would use soil heating cable. The heat belt doesn't have the wattage to take the system far from the ambient e.g. Coaxing the best out of saisons etc. I have beefed up the insulation so that may be different now, and my next beer will be a Saison so I can test this out some more

[orlando]

* Did you mod the maxi at all, so that you're only turning on / off the compressor with the InkBird? (rather than the
whole maxi including the pump)

* Are you using a heating element with the InkBird too, in the path of the Maxi?

Cheers!

No mods to the maxi. Inkbird switches whole unit on and off as needed. I don't micromanage the arrangement. In practice this works perfectly fine.

If I wanted to use it as an inline chiller for beer as well as a FV temp controller I would need to rethink this. But I don't keg currently.

Heating element is a youngs heat belt. Completely independent.

If I was to do over, I would use soil heating cable. The heat belt doesn't have the wattage to take the system far from the ambient e.g. Coaxing the best out of saisons etc. I have beefed up the insulation so that may be different now, and my next beer will be a Saison so I can test this out some more

You could modify the Maxi by bypassing the thermostat and replace it with the inkbird. If you then place a radiator heater in line of the output of the Maxi you can get the inkbird to switch between the two using a temperature probe to monitor the beer temp and switching between heating and cooling. You can retire the heatbelt.

[chris2012]

TheSumOfAllBeers -- Thanks a lot for your reply, I might try and clone your setup then.

Can that soil heater cable work around a plastic bucket fermenter do you think, or could that be a bad idea?

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

You could modify the Maxi by bypassing the thermostat and replace it with the inkbird. If you then place a radiator heater in line of the output of the Maxi you can get the inkbird to switch between the two using a temperature probe to monitor the beer temp and switching between heating and cooling. You can retire the heatbelt.

You could undermine the cooling that is the hard / expensive part of the system. The heatbelt is cheap as chips.

The main challenge is to get FV down to crash temps/lagering temps for extended periods in the living room without having the unit run constantly. Currently it will hold 6.5C unobtrusively, which is about 15C off the ambient.